So, this is more of easy going thread to talk about what I was thinking. I write this half-jokingly, but also I want to show people something I believe they never thought about. We have ingrained into our minds that ranged combat is the only way and we can't imagine how melee combat could be effective, especially with even more advanced and destructive weapons than we have today.
Here is how 100 meters looks like:
A man can cover this distance lets say around 16 seconds. Humans can cover it under 10 seconds at their best. Cheetah can cover it at 6 seconds. As you can see, it is quite a lot of distance which can be covered remarkably quickly. Now imagine typical combat, wrecks everywhere, rubble, battle sounds. You are distracted and Chaos warband sends their own cultists to charge you. They get a drop on you. Your squad has 16 seconds to identify that they are being charged from a side, organize themselves, take up firing positions, aim and release fire. Seems pretty reasonable? Alright, now lets make it realistic. Lets say that Chaos warband is properly equipped. These slaves are running with explosive collars to motivate them not to stop or else boom and they get injected with frienzone. Now they can cover this distance in 9 seconds. They also ignore mortal wounds and it will take more than blown up arm to stop them. Are you so confident in your squad's firepower to keep these lunatics at bay? Now lets make it an actual combat scenario. We have demon which runs unnaturally fast or Eldar who can match human top sprint speed with all its battlegear. You have scary alien running at you and screaming so loudly that your nervous system starts to shut down. You try to close your ears, your body starts to shake. Good luck in killing her in those nine seconds. Now lets consider that a space marine is charging you at full speed. A proper Khorne beserker. It can cover this distance in 6 seconds, even with full auto you will see your shots fall off harmlessly off him. I would recommend to spend those precious seconds soiling yourself for it will do you more good than trying to fire at him. Now considering that even a basic hormagaunt really doesn't want to fall dead after a basic 5.56 bullet penetrating him, you probably can imagine why only foolish races rely on range combat.
All of this is when we exclude much worse things which can come for you. Then there is suppressive firepower, obstruction devices like Eldar holo fields or even firing a simple smoke grenade to defenders position will largely nullify any opportunity for them to fire upon you. I'm actually surprised how Tau does not collapse on their own due to their idiotic combat strategies. Imperium I understand, their lasguns have full auto, there are a lot of dudes, volley fire, a lot of heavy weapons. All of this makes charges into really difficult affair. Yet Tau relies on damn precision weapons as their main battle rifle! Their pulse rifle which they hand out to every Tau grunt is extremely poor weapon. It has relatively low ammo count, low fire rate which is limited to single shot only. It also has a massive recoil for such gun. Sure, it has a great bite and a properly aimed shot will hit like a truck charging beast with its kinetic energy to stop him in his tracks and plasma damage to do actual damage on his flesh. Yet, the moment something doesn't go their way we can see entire battlelines quickly overwhelmed under mass assaults or ambushes.
Melee combat would be a mainstay way to fight even during modern combat. The issue are with all those backwards ideas of "self preservation", "morality" and "personal motivation". In more enlightened warhammer future, those silly things are solved by an explosive collar and excessive application of combat drugs. Give me those combat drugs in today's environment and I'm going to transform even most feeblest of hosts into deadly modern army who prefers melee combat over this range nonsense.
"Yet Tau relies on damn precision weapons as their main battle rifle! Their pulse rifle which they hand out to every Tau grunt is extremely poor weapon. It has relatively low ammo count, low fire rate which is limited to single shot only. It also has a massive recoil for such gun. Sure, it has a great bite and a properly aimed shot will hit like a truck charging beast with its kinetic energy to stop him in his tracks and plasma damage to do actual damage on his flesh. Yet, the moment something doesn't go their way we can see entire battlelines quickly overwhelmed under mass assaults or ambushes."
what? its an ion pulse rifle, a tau rifle shoots energy. a laser rifle is shooting light, neither likely has any recoil. as to "slow fire" you are confounding game mechanics for lore. they shoot quite fast hard and are very accurate. btu it would nto be tabletop appropriate to say ok 30 shots per tau or guardsman.. then again it is represenative. that 30 man boy squad is likely much more numerous.
as to the idea that 100 yards is a difficult shot... it isn't with minimal training. I could take a novice and my dialed in rifle and get them to put them on a man sized target in an afternoon at 500 yards
I guess I missed the part where Tau dont field high RoF automatic weapons with the explicit design purpose of murderizing hordes of charging beasties (humanoid or otherwise). Or that Fire Warriors dont deploy with anti-infantry high explosive saturation ordinance.
Excommunicatus wrote: And the fact that your conclusion is in fact the complete opposite of the facts on the ground gives you no pause for thought at all?
Tau Pulse rifles have no recoil, actually. And they can go full auto. In the latest Psychic awakening story about a Human Gue'vesa they specify literally this. Barring that, yes, the rest is a correct justification about why in 40k meele is that prevalent, specially when a super human can explode a tank with a hammer strike.
But yeah. Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc... where meele is very prevalent. Sieges, were meele is also prevalent at least once the defenses are breached, and giant battles and trench warfare were shooting is much more prevalent.
Take a friend, a paintball gun and some goggles. Give your friend the paintball gun. Stand 30m away from your friend. Put the goggles on. Get your friend to aim and ready. Start running.
A man can cover this distance lets say around 16 seconds. Humans can cover it under 10 seconds at their best. Cheetah can cover it at 6 seconds. As you can see, it is quite a lot of distance which can be covered remarkably quickly. Now imagine typical combat, wrecks everywhere, rubble, battle sounds. You are distracted and Chaos warband sends their own cultists to charge you. They get a drop on you. Your squad has 16 seconds to identify that they are being charged from a side, organize themselves, take up firing positions, aim and release fire.
So you start by giving the maximum speed for humans on straight, level ground, and then assume that a battlefield with uneven ground, wreckage, ruined buildings etc. will somehow hamper the people shooting guns rather than the people trying to sprint across it.
A man can cover this distance lets say around 16 seconds. Humans can cover it under 10 seconds at their best. Cheetah can cover it at 6 seconds. As you can see, it is quite a lot of distance which can be covered remarkably quickly. Now imagine typical combat, wrecks everywhere, rubble, battle sounds. You are distracted and Chaos warband sends their own cultists to charge you. They get a drop on you. Your squad has 16 seconds to identify that they are being charged from a side, organize themselves, take up firing positions, aim and release fire.
So you start by giving the maximum speed for humans on straight, level ground, and then assume that a battlefield with uneven ground, wreckage, ruined buildings etc. will somehow hamper the people shooting guns rather than the people trying to sprint across it.
You have a fun initial point, but WWI would disagree even with all the chaos of that war, a charge across no man's land, even with artillery, gas, and all the other distractions, entire infantry platoons could be wiped out in moments by a single machine gun. Very rarely is someone charging across perfect ground with no obstruction either. Mud, barbed wire, craters, bodies, wrecks, water, and all sorts of other hazards can make what should take 20 seconds take several minutes, and that's without being shot at. Like it or not, even in 40k shooting should be the more useful and reliable option for most troops. Not to mention a soldier with a gun doesn't need superhuman armor or reflexes or specialist training, he just needs to know how to pull a trigger and maintain his gun, hence why guardsmen are mostly armed with lasguns and not lasspears. But you'll note guardsmen are still given a bayonet, showing they know that at some point, fighting will devolve to hand to hand.
That's not to say melee shouldn't exist or be worthwhile, but that it should be a rarer thing, and an army composed solely of melee should realize it's going to fight an uphill battle. Just like a purely shooting or pure vehicle or pure infantry army, you should realize you have a major weakness and understand how to mitigate it. I think where melee most makes sense is stuff like boarding actions, trench raiding, or expendable/crazed soldiers that aren't worth giving a ranged weapon to. It absolutely makes sense in 40k that it would exist, heck to some point melee combat makes sense in any setting. It's just 40k has more of it due to the nature of the setting. Even nowadays you'll hear of people fighting in Iraq in hand to hand when their guns jam or they're caught off guard entering a building, rare though it may be.
Shooting is still the king of the battlefield, and rightly should be in my opinion. Granted I feel an army that focuses solely on shooting with 0 melee is doomed to fail, but melee for the average army in my opinion should be reserved for specialist units designed to punch a hole in a line or pick off key enemy units. Units that can be devestating if used correctly, but heavily reliant on support and covering fire to make it in, and vulnerable to enemy shooting if used stupidly. Maybe your average soldier can hold its own in melee (orks, marines, etc) but the average unit in your force should have a gun of some sort, if only so it has something to do while it closes with the enemy.
Basically I view a pure melee army in 40k as stupid as a pure shooting army in 40k, you need a healthy balance. Id argue you need a higher ratio of shooty to stabby, but each army is different.
I dunno, comp Tau gunlines, Eldar flyer spam and certain alpha strike Ork builds have done well over the last year to two.
Shooting in current 40k far out weighs melee (sadly).
Dont disagree that a mix is healthy but one can run a poor/average shooting list and still beat a decent melee list just because of the current game mechanics.
I think looking at real world examples will never prove that melee is viable, as in our current technological reality it simply isn't.
To consult the 'Iron Triangle' of Survivability -> Mobility -> Lethality; Lethality is much easier to increase than to survivability, so war has become about who can spot and destroy their enemy first.
With the range and damage of modern weapons, you can't survive long enough to get into melee.
However; 40K is fiction and doesn't need to operate under the same real world laws. The central conceit of 40k is 'what if battles in space were more like medieval/ fantasy battles'.
Like a lot of good Sci-Fi, you have an idea, however weird, and try to logically extrapolate from that.
So what would it take for armour to be relevant on the battlefield? A light and highly resistant 'wunder' material i.e. Ceramite or aliens of incredible constitution i.e. Orks, a technologically regressive society who aren't capable of developing better ranged weapons? Powerful melee weapons which can do brutal damage up close? This is when the 40k setting gets interesting and why we should resist the slow drift towards becoming WW2 in Space.
Just for a frame of reference.
A 5.56 Round travels at about 1000 mps.
It will cover the range of 100 meter in a little over a 10th of a second and in 3 seconds 30 rounds can travel that far...from 1 man with the most basic weapon on the battlefield.
Each shot is lethal too.
40k Buffs melee to a huge degree already. Essentially a 24" rapid fire gun gets 1 turn to shoot and 1 turn to overwatch (so basically gets to shoot 1 shot at max range and then overwatch with 2 shots hitting on 6's. In the time it takes for a 6" move with a 3.5" advance and then a 6" move the next turn and charge.
The reality is - the 24" rapid fire weapons should get about 30 + shots at the charging unit. (Assuming 24" is something like 100 meters).
This reminds me of Pratchett's parody of Zeno's paradox, with philosophers arguing that its completely impossible to hit turtles with arrows because they'll just move out of the way.
Except this isn't as funny. Its just a single philosopher ranting while reality just blinks in complete befuddlement.
I know its a jokey thread - but the logic never really works.
We have urban combat in real life. We don't fight with swords though because sure, you may only have a few seconds or whatever to shoot....
But you have guns that have over 600 RPM. You can unload a whole clip of 30 or whatever shots in 3 seconds.
You can then say "aha! they are immune to bullets" - but this just raises the question of "why wouldn't they be immune to swords?" If a 5.56mm bullet doesn't cut it, arm everyone with automatic elephant guns.
Ultimately 40k is an abstraction and a game. It should be a relatively short range scramble, because that's more fun that setting our armies up 3 feet away from each other and then just rolling dice until everything is dead.
And guardsmen get flashlights because thats what they get.
See its this kind of thinking that was used during WW1 with men running over the tops of trenches at machineguns. It didn't work.
It works if you're a tyranid and you've got tens of thousands of others behind you. Yes they CAN choke machineguns. But realistically you're not going to cover that 100mm sprint. Anyone with a gun is going to have shot you and your fellows full of holes before you've covered that distance.
The fact that armed forces increasingly reduced close combat elements as guns improved should be all the evidence you need that, without endless numbers or insane levels of armour or other tricks; you basically find that ranged weapons work best.
Plus they keep working at 100m just as well as they work at 1m. In fact put a blade on the end and they work at 0m as well and you can then keep on shooting after that.
See its this kind of thinking that was used during WW1 with men running over the tops of trenches at machineguns. It didn't work.
It's not even that. A lot of people assume those mass charges happened before the generals were all old fools. The sad truth is, at the level of technology of 1910s, once the war of maneuver (which Germans did try in 1914) settles down, there is no way to circumvent the trenches. There's no paratroopers or armor to break through, there's only amassing enough infantry that simple statistics ensure some of them make it to the other side.
I only mention this because OP's premise is so out there I don't feel like commenting on it.
See its this kind of thinking that was used during WW1 with men running over the tops of trenches at machineguns. It didn't work.
It's not even that. A lot of people assume those mass charges happened before the generals were all old fools. The sad truth is, at the level of technology of 1910s, once the war of maneuver (which Germans did try in 1914) settles down, there is no way to circumvent the trenches. There's no paratroopers or armor to break through, there's only amassing enough infantry that simple statistics ensure some of them make it to the other side.
I only mention this because OP's premise is so out there I don't feel like commenting on it.
Yeah trenches didn't really shift until the invention of tanks and even then it took a few years to get tanks good enough to really make a huge difference without breaking down. In fact I seem to recall seeing a documentary that tanks worked so well in some of the latter pushes that they'd overrun the advancing infantry too much; leaving themselves isolated well into enemy lines.
Lets also not forget gas which was used during WWI to horrible effect by both sides as a means to try and beat opposing trenches.
Excommunicatus wrote: Yeah. The main battle-armament of the Adeptus Astartes has a maximum effective range that is shorter than a tennis court (78').
An Earthshaker's much-vaunted range translates, in reality, to less than a quarter of a kilometre.
I think they're mentioned in Vraks as shelling targets at least like 30km out. I think we can assume range compression so that it fits on the tabletop. Basically every tabletop miniatures game has fairly intense range compression.
OP, if it is easier, consider every model on a tabletop to be a representation for a smaller unit, with the ranges far larger than you see on a typical table. Each infantry model denotes a squad, not a single guy, for instance.
Actually as for infantry ranges in for example olt action, it also tries to mimic the fight that getting effective shots won't happen that much above a certain distance, if I remember correctly. But as everything in tabletop, it serves representation, it is not a detailed, accurate depiction of the imaginary fights carried out by our toys.
Anyway running toward somebody who's holding a rifle, even bolt action rifle, from 100 meters, is absolutly silly in my opinion...
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Actually as for infantry ranges in for example olt action, it also tries to mimic the fight that getting effective shots won't happen that much above a certain distance, if I remember correctly. But as everything in tabletop, it serves representation, it is not a detailed, accurate depiction of the imaginary fights carried out by our toys.
Yeah that's also very true. Terrain in 40K is very 'broad strokes', and a clear plain or street is often not telling the whole story. Imo this is why dice are so helpful, they can represent the variables that the low-res table representation isn't accounting for. Rolling a lot of misses can just mean a plume of smoke from a nearby explosion is blocking the view, or the enemy squad found a small berm or terrain feature they could duck behind for a few seconds.
Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc...
Where did you pull this out of? What are you talking about? 40K literally consists of millions of worlds. You're just as likely to fight on an open plain with no cover for hundreds of miles in every direction as you are a bombed out city or space hulk.
Melee combat is as prolific in 40K as fire fights for no reason other then rule of cool. And that's fine. But let's not pretend that it makes sense either in real life or even within the setting itself.
Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc...
Where did you pull this out of? What are you talking about? 40K literally consists of millions of worlds. You're just as likely to fight on an open plain with no cover for hundreds of miles in every direction as you are a bombed out city or space hulk.
Melee combat is as prolific in 40K as fire fights for no reason other then rule of cool. And that's fine. But let's not pretend that it makes sense either in real life or even within the setting itself.
Sure. Armies fight in open plains with nothing in a 100 miles. But those are the battlefields where the guard army just shells their opponent into complete oblivion. Not the one where assault troops actually do anything and not the one that a 'normal' game of 40k is trying to represent.
Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc...
Where did you pull this out of? What are you talking about? 40K literally consists of millions of worlds. You're just as likely to fight on an open plain with no cover for hundreds of miles in every direction as you are a bombed out city or space hulk.
Melee combat is as prolific in 40K as fire fights for no reason other then rule of cool. And that's fine. But let's not pretend that it makes sense either in real life or even within the setting itself.
And considering various Deep Strike mechanics how often do you suppose two people set up in lines in open terrain and run at each other?
The general use of teleporters/Drop Pods seems a better argument for melee than dense cover on all the battlefields. It doesn't matter how open the battlefield is if you're always starting the scale-equivalent of 9" away.
Something else to consider would be that (if you're invoking realism), the effective range of guns is likely to be a hell of a lot further than 100m.
I mean, this is an advanced setting where the combatants have access to all manner of bionic implants, genetic enhancements etc. It's not hard to imagine bionic eyes or helmets containing advanced targeting systems - allowing soldiers to effectively engage enemies at ranges far beyond normal human sight (as well as negating smoke, darkness etc.).
Obviously this isn't represented on the table for the same reason that every movie depicts advanced fighter jets or spacecraft dog-fighting like WW2 aircraft - because it's a lot more visually interesting than a jet blowing up a target with a guided missile from several miles away. But if you're pulling the realism argument then it's something you really have to consider.
See its this kind of thinking that was used during WW1 with men running over the tops of trenches at machineguns. It didn't work.
It's not even that. A lot of people assume those mass charges happened before the generals were all old fools. The sad truth is, at the level of technology of 1910s, once the war of maneuver (which Germans did try in 1914) settles down, there is no way to circumvent the trenches. There's no paratroopers or armor to break through, there's only amassing enough infantry that simple statistics ensure some of them make it to the other side.
Another aspect is that this form of warfare was very new, so generals were basically having to learn a whole new set of tactics.
It used to be that wars simply couldn't last very long because, even in the event of a stalemate, one side would simply run out of supplies (due either to lack of resources or lack of money) and would be forced to withdraw. However, mechanised warfare between countries changed all that by allowing troops to be constantly resupplied and which were also far more economically resilient. So suddenly the stalemates were lasting almost indefinitely.
Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc...
Where did you pull this out of? What are you talking about? 40K literally consists of millions of worlds. You're just as likely to fight on an open plain with no cover for hundreds of miles in every direction as you are a bombed out city or space hulk.
Melee combat is as prolific in 40K as fire fights for no reason other then rule of cool. And that's fine. But let's not pretend that it makes sense either in real life or even within the setting itself.
Why did you cut out the rest of that phrase where I literally said that?
Excommunicatus wrote: Yeah. The main battle-armament of the Adeptus Astartes has a maximum effective range that is shorter than a tennis court (78').
An Earthshaker's much-vaunted range translates, in reality, to less than a quarter of a kilometre.
I think they're mentioned in Vraks as shelling targets at least like 30km out. I think we can assume range compression so that it fits on the tabletop. Basically every tabletop miniatures game has fairly intense range compression.
Yeah.
I've never seriously worried about "realistic" ranges in my minis gaming.
1) Because, well, it's a game. If everything simply had range to everything else it'd make things pretty boring. And I can't generally play this stuff on a large enough area to represent "realism". I'm constrained to 4'x? table tops for the most part. So if a rifle is supposed to be longer range than a pistol, but shorter range than a cannon.... Then you have to make that fit in a space 4' across.
2) When people go on about the "real" ranges being too long & the lethallity to great to allow forces to reach a 3-4 turn mv distance away from the other groups table edge?
I (mentally) shrug & assume that the action taking place represents those forces that did make that far. Probably a very small %. If the table streched out 20' feet behind me? It'd be strewn with thousands & thousands & thousands of pts worth of both our dead.
All ima say there's a reason people shoot at each other, rather than stab each other with swords in war and have been since gunpowder became reliable.. However in very close qurters like bunkers, ship innards etc. Id take a pistol and a ballistic knife over a rifle...
While I cannot claim to have ever been a soldier in a combat zone, I do have more than a few years of experience in owning, training with, and competing with both firearms and bladed weapons. I do HEMA Longword, Italo-Hungarian Sabre, Dussack, multiple different forms of wrestling/grappling and some more modern combatives, and will be in Prague later this year for a military sabre competition. I also own most major modern service rifles (or close commercial derivatives thereof) and have been shooting my entire adult life, including some action/dynamic competition like 3gun.
From that experience, I will say this. It is possible to close very quickly with a melee weapon and inflict a lethal wound. Without doubt, that is absolutely true. However, there is a reason projectile weapons dominate combat. Unless you are already within essentially "advance-lunge" distance with an opponent when armed with a blade, if they have a firearm at the ready (i.e. loaded and not in a holster) and are aware they are being attacked, you will die. Simple as. Likewise, within that distance, the firearm armed opponent can still use their weapon, and while you can block, parry, or void a blade, the same cannot be said of a bullet.
If we are going with realism, that is the simple reality of things. 40k however is Space Fantasy, a Tolkien-esque world with a Scifi texture pack, and it's best to just accept that for what it is.
More to the point, there is more to ranged weapons than just bullets. Explosive shells and crew served heavy weapons for instance.
Excommunicatus wrote: Yeah. The main battle-armament of the Adeptus Astartes has a maximum effective range that is shorter than a tennis court (78').
An Earthshaker's much-vaunted range translates, in reality, to less than a quarter of a kilometre.
I think they're mentioned in Vraks as shelling targets at least like 30km out. I think we can assume range compression so that it fits on the tabletop. Basically every tabletop miniatures game has fairly intense range compression.
Yeah.
I've never seriously worried about "realistic" ranges in my minis gaming. 1) Because, well, it's a game. If everything simply had range to everything else it'd make things pretty boring. And I can't generally play this stuff on a large enough area to represent "realism". I'm constrained to 4'x? table tops for the most part. So if a rifle is supposed to be longer range than a pistol, but shorter range than a cannon.... Then you have to make that fit in a space 4' across.
2) When people go on about the "real" ranges being too long & the lethallity to great to allow forces to reach a 3-4 turn mv distance away from the other groups table edge?
I (mentally) shrug & assume that the action taking place represents those forces that did make that far. Probably a very small %. If the table streched out 20' feet behind me? It'd be strewn with thousands & thousands & thousands of pts worth of both our dead.
Argive wrote: All ima say there's a reason people shoot at each other, rather than stab each other with swords in war and have been since gunpowder became reliable..
However in very close qurters like bunkers, ship innards etc. Id take a pistol and a ballistic knife over a rifle...
Last I checked, military forces have started using carbines for close quarters combat. What I was taught in the military was "if they're in too close to use your gun, create enough space to use your gun."
Soldiers armed with carbines or sub-machineguns are also likely carrying a sidearm and/or knife....so you go to them when needed (which would be exceptionally rare).
Argive wrote: All ima say there's a reason people shoot at each other, rather than stab each other with swords in war and have been since gunpowder became reliable..
However in very close qurters like bunkers, ship innards etc. Id take a pistol and a ballistic knife over a rifle...
A handgun is strictly the weapon you use to fight your way to your rifle and a knife is suicide with more steps. Things were different circa, oh, 1916, when a rifle was a meter-long manually-operated bulky monstrosity and trench raiders needed lighter and more mobile weaponry for confined spaces, but modern intermediate-caliber carbines are small, lightweight, far more lethal than a handgun, easier to manipulate, easier to manage recoil, easier to reload, and with a much higher capacity.
Anyone who would choose a weapon other than a carbine (or, in a pinch / for the sake of their vision and hearing, a submachine gun) for CQB/MOUT does not know what they are doing. Naval boarding teams and SWAT officers alike favor carbines. You have to get into tunnel rat territory for a handgun to become the optimal choice.
Elbows wrote: Soldiers armed with carbines or sub-machineguns are also likely carrying a sidearm and/or knife....so you go to them when needed (which would be exceptionally rare).
I cannot think of any modern military forces which issue sidearms to regulars. Bayonets, sure, and it goes somewhere in the pack where you can get to it when you need to pry open a can or extract a stuck casing, not for combat.
But handguns are overwhelmingly for officers and specialists who don't carry long arms, and for SF who are armed to the teeth. Your basic infantryman has zero need for a handgun, and there is nothing that it does better than his rifle.
Regarding ranges: 40k's rules cannot be evaluated while assuming a 1:1 ground scale. That way lies madness- beyond the ludicrously short ranges it implies for ranged combat, it gives you infantry who panic when more than an arm's length from their compatriots, turns measured in seconds, and supersonic aircraft that move around 20mph.
Excommunicatus wrote: Yeah. The main battle-armament of the Adeptus Astartes has a maximum effective range that is shorter than a tennis court (78').
An Earthshaker's much-vaunted range translates, in reality, to less than a quarter of a kilometre.
I think they're mentioned in Vraks as shelling targets at least like 30km out. I think we can assume range compression so that it fits on the tabletop. Basically every tabletop miniatures game has fairly intense range compression.
Yeah.
I've never seriously worried about "realistic" ranges in my minis gaming. 1) Because, well, it's a game. If everything simply had range to everything else it'd make things pretty boring. And I can't generally play this stuff on a large enough area to represent "realism". I'm constrained to 4'x? table tops for the most part. So if a rifle is supposed to be longer range than a pistol, but shorter range than a cannon.... Then you have to make that fit in a space 4' across.
2) When people go on about the "real" ranges being too long & the lethallity to great to allow forces to reach a 3-4 turn mv distance away from the other groups table edge?
I (mentally) shrug & assume that the action taking place represents those forces that did make that far. Probably a very small %. If the table streched out 20' feet behind me? It'd be strewn with thousands & thousands & thousands of pts worth of both our dead.
You mean b.c of this?
No, that's just a cute picture. I mean because of exactly what I wrote.
Argive wrote: All ima say there's a reason people shoot at each other, rather than stab each other with swords in war and have been since gunpowder became reliable..
However in very close qurters like bunkers, ship innards etc. Id take a pistol and a ballistic knife over a rifle...
A handgun is strictly the weapon you use to fight your way to your rifle and a knife is suicide with more steps. Things were different circa, oh, 1916, when a rifle was a meter-long manually-operated bulky monstrosity and trench raiders needed lighter and more mobile weaponry for confined spaces, but modern intermediate-caliber carbines are small, lightweight, far more lethal than a handgun, easier to manipulate, easier to manage recoil, easier to reload, and with a much higher capacity.
Anyone who would choose a weapon other than a carbine (or, in a pinch / for the sake of their vision and hearing, a submachine gun) for CQB/MOUT does not know what they are doing. Naval boarding teams and SWAT officers alike favor carbines. You have to get into tunnel rat territory for a handgun to become the optimal choice.
Elbows wrote: Soldiers armed with carbines or sub-machineguns are also likely carrying a sidearm and/or knife....so you go to them when needed (which would be exceptionally rare).
I cannot think of any modern military forces which issue sidearms to regulars. Bayonets, sure, and it goes somewhere in the pack where you can get to it when you need to pry open a can or extract a stuck casing, not for combat.
But handguns are overwhelmingly for officers and specialists who don't carry long arms, and for SF who are armed to the teeth. Your basic infantryman has zero need for a handgun, and there is nothing that it does better than his rifle.
Regarding ranges: 40k's rules cannot be evaluated while assuming a 1:1 ground scale. That way lies madness- beyond the ludicrously short ranges it implies for ranged combat, it gives you infantry who panic when more than an arm's length from their compatriots, turns measured in seconds, and supersonic aircraft that move around 20mph.
Yeah I was imagining like crawl/duct spaces in bunkers and ships etc.
Certainly some sort of rifle or SMG is what Id take to war rather than a pistol and knife
JohnnyHell wrote: I’d thought no WWI Generals were alive today, but apparently the OP is one!
Tbf, cqc assauls can work, infiltraiton tactics can work, but, BUT, slave fodder is not capable of These and amassing enough of them to Make up for their shortcoming makes them a prime target for any artillery in range.
Not to mention that logistics, especially for such mass armies and their Drive forward, play a gigantic role and the exemple here does not make sense due to the exemple here beeing chaos, which bluntly has logistical issues to the very core.
Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc...
Where did you pull this out of? What are you talking about? 40K literally consists of millions of worlds. You're just as likely to fight on an open plain with no cover for hundreds of miles in every direction as you are a bombed out city or space hulk.
Melee combat is as prolific in 40K as fire fights for no reason other then rule of cool. And that's fine. But let's not pretend that it makes sense either in real life or even within the setting itself.
And considering various Deep Strike mechanics how often do you suppose two people set up in lines in open terrain and run at each other?
The general use of teleporters/Drop Pods seems a better argument for melee than dense cover on all the battlefields. It doesn't matter how open the battlefield is if you're always starting the scale-equivalent of 9" away.
Bad idea to use 40k rules to assume that's how things are fought in 40k in universum. 40k makes abstract game with oddities. Ranges, reliability of stuff(like always appearing exact same distance with teleport...) etc are not how things would actually work(and don't as shown in fluff)
Most 40k battles are of three types: Urban or close quarters fighting: Jungles, space hulks, etc...
Where did you pull this out of? What are you talking about? 40K literally consists of millions of worlds. You're just as likely to fight on an open plain with no cover for hundreds of miles in every direction as you are a bombed out city or space hulk.
Melee combat is as prolific in 40K as fire fights for no reason other then rule of cool. And that's fine. But let's not pretend that it makes sense either in real life or even within the setting itself.
I've always been annoyed a little by people insisting melee makes no sense within the setting. Between things like Orks and Tyranids, Dark Eldar need for suffering, Craftworlder culture, the fact that Marines are meant to be terror troops and the weird technologies melee does make a degree of sense within the setting.
I think the key to realise is that in the 40K world the arms race has resulted in not just an insane development of weapons, but also armours and shields.
The result is that close combat becomes a viable tactic for many of the 40K forces because their armour is good enough to allow them to survive into close combat.
Meanwhile forces like orks, guard and tyranids make it into close combat through two aspects:
1) Numbers - they just throw meat at the wall
2) The fact that their opponents are tough enough to survive into close combat means that close combat is part of the battle style that has evolved between the factions.
In the end its a fantasy setting and the game is highly abstract to reality. Trying to work it out would break your brain especially as things like unit representation are not uniform. Eg a single marine model on the table could be anything from an actual single marine to a squad. Meanwhile a guardsman or Tyranid gaunt is likely going to represent dozens to hundreds (to perhaps thousands for the tyranid). Yet at the same time the Hive Tyrant behind the gaunts might well represent only one.
Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
They've some closecombat variations, but yes by the large part they are ranged. They have bayonets and some units, like Catachans, are more skirmishers. However their lore aspect is that they are sneaky so they cover the 100m dash by sneaking up on you rather than running bold in your face at you.
That said they've also got rough-riders who are trained to charge the enemy in a lancers style level of combat. Of course rough riders have also vanished over the years and there's a questionmark on if we'll see them reappear. GW even teased us a few months back with the idea of releasing dogs within the Imperial Guard (it was around the time that Blackstone came out and they had one of the rouge trader groups with a dog).
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.
Bayonet charges are still a thing. In 2011, IIRC, a British platoon fixed bayonets and charged the enemy when caught in an ambush in Afghanistan.
While charging in mass to stick 'em with the pointy end is no longer the premier battle tactic, it's still valid and useful when the situation calls for it, and very effective at dislodging the enemy from a position.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.
Bayonet charges are still a thing. In 2011, IIRC, a British platoon fixed bayonets and charged the enemy when caught in an ambush in Afghanistan.
While charging in mass to stick 'em with the pointy end is no longer the premier battle tactic, it's still valid and useful when the situation calls for it, and very effective at dislodging the enemy from a position.
Huh, I did not know that. Interesting little fact there.
I especially didn't know modern rifles could still take bayonet attachments. I thought that got phased out.
G00fySmiley wrote: "Yet Tau relies on damn precision weapons as their main battle rifle! Their pulse rifle which they hand out to every Tau grunt is extremely poor weapon. It has relatively low ammo count, low fire rate which is limited to single shot only. It also has a massive recoil for such gun. Sure, it has a great bite and a properly aimed shot will hit like a truck charging beast with its kinetic energy to stop him in his tracks and plasma damage to do actual damage on his flesh. Yet, the moment something doesn't go their way we can see entire battlelines quickly overwhelmed under mass assaults or ambushes."
what? its an ion pulse rifle, a tau rifle shoots energy. a laser rifle is shooting light, neither likely has any recoil. as to "slow fire" you are confounding game mechanics for lore. they shoot quite fast hard and are very accurate. btu it would nto be tabletop appropriate to say ok 30 shots per tau or guardsman.. then again it is represenative. that 30 man boy squad is likely much more numerous.
as to the idea that 100 yards is a difficult shot... it isn't with minimal training. I could take a novice and my dialed in rifle and get them to put them on a man sized target in an afternoon at 500 yards
A lot of people are unaware how Tau pulse rifle operates so I will make just one reply here.
Compared to other infantry weapons, the Pulse Rifle trades rate of fire for damage. Pulse Rifles also have significant recoil, which requires that the user be stationary to fire most effectively.
Pulse rifles are more akin to battle rifles in our world. A single shot weapon can fire as quickly as you can properly aim and press a trigger, but this doesn't change a fact that you have something akin to pathetic 1 shot/s vs 200 shots/s of lasgun. Machine guns for comparison can reach 600 shots per second. Though, it depends on a weapon for how long it can maintain such rate of fire. Miniguns are designed to fire really fast while machine guns while being capable of that, will probably jam or overheat if you do not control your fire rate.
I do not know what you mean by it being a difficult shot. What I was saying is that organizing your infantry squad in a heat of battle is difficult. Everyone is doing something else and are concerned with something different. For example, Death Guard while doing little more than marching through open ground will always begin their marches with extremely heavy artillery bombardment prior to that. This will easily disturb unit cohesion and it will be a lot more difficult to efficiently coordinate your squad in a heat of battle. Especially when you have 10 seconds before you all are dead.
Tyel wrote: I know its a jokey thread - but the logic never really works.
We have urban combat in real life. We don't fight with swords though because sure, you may only have a few seconds or whatever to shoot.... But you have guns that have over 600 RPM. You can unload a whole clip of 30 or whatever shots in 3 seconds.
You can then say "aha! they are immune to bullets" - but this just raises the question of "why wouldn't they be immune to swords?" If a 5.56mm bullet doesn't cut it, arm everyone with automatic elephant guns.
Ultimately 40k is an abstraction and a game. It should be a relatively short range scramble, because that's more fun that setting our armies up 3 feet away from each other and then just rolling dice until everything is dead.
And guardsmen get flashlights because thats what they get.
Yes, but you miss one important thing. People are not running like madman to your lines being completely oblivious to casualties, injuries or what is before them, but in W40k they will. In real life you hit person once he goes down. You open fire with machine gun and everybody ducks and are suppressed. These things do not exist in W40k. 5.56 mm bullet is really laughable and just cute in W40k setting. Even in our world it has well known issues with killing people and we have reports where shot people just ignore it and keep on fighting.
Now imagine same thing with frenzone! This chemical overloads human body allowing it to function over its maximum potential and on top of it, it prevents body from figuring out what damage was inflicted upon it. In other words, if a person is charging you drugged with frenzone, it will take more than a dozen such bullets to take it down. He will simply won't care how many holes there are in his stomach or arms. Drugs will keep pushing him for dozen more seconds before body will be forced to shut down and those seconds will allow him to get into melee with you. What you need to stop such maniac is kinetic energy to stop his charge and pin point accuracy to person's head or heart to shut him for good. You know, just like with orks. These are just basic combat troops in w40k, anyone else who is going to charge you will be LOT worse than these mere slaves.
G00fySmiley wrote: "Yet Tau relies on damn precision weapons as their main battle rifle! Their pulse rifle which they hand out to every Tau grunt is extremely poor weapon. It has relatively low ammo count, low fire rate which is limited to single shot only. It also has a massive recoil for such gun. Sure, it has a great bite and a properly aimed shot will hit like a truck charging beast with its kinetic energy to stop him in his tracks and plasma damage to do actual damage on his flesh. Yet, the moment something doesn't go their way we can see entire battlelines quickly overwhelmed under mass assaults or ambushes."
what? its an ion pulse rifle, a tau rifle shoots energy. a laser rifle is shooting light, neither likely has any recoil. as to "slow fire" you are confounding game mechanics for lore. they shoot quite fast hard and are very accurate. btu it would nto be tabletop appropriate to say ok 30 shots per tau or guardsman.. then again it is represenative. that 30 man boy squad is likely much more numerous.
as to the idea that 100 yards is a difficult shot... it isn't with minimal training. I could take a novice and my dialed in rifle and get them to put them on a man sized target in an afternoon at 500 yards
A lot of people are unaware how Tau pulse rifle operates so I will make just one reply here.
Compared to other infantry weapons, the Pulse Rifle trades rate of fire for damage. Pulse Rifles also have significant recoil, which requires that the user be stationary to fire most effectively.
Pulse rifles are more akin to battle rifles in our world. A single shot weapon can fire as quickly as you can properly aim and press a trigger, but this doesn't change a fact that you have something akin to pathetic 1 shot/s vs 200 shots/s of lasgun. Machine guns for comparison can reach 600 shots per second. Though, it depends on a weapon for how long it can maintain such rate of fire. Miniguns are designed to fire really fast while machine guns while being capable of that, will probably jam or overheat if you do not control your fire rate.
I do not know what you mean by it being a difficult shot. What I was saying is that organizing your infantry squad in a heat of battle is difficult. Everyone is doing something else and are concerned with something different. For example, Death Guard while doing little more than marching through open ground will always begin their marches with extremely heavy artillery bombardment prior to that. This will easily disturb unit cohesion and it will be a lot more difficult to efficiently coordinate your squad in a heat of battle. Especially when you have 10 seconds before you all are dead.
Yeah, the thing about Pulse rifles is that they aren't quite energy weapons like las weapons or necron gauss weapons.
They are basically rail guns - they use induction to fire a solid project that breaks down and turns into plasma upon leaving the barrel, due to it being heated and accelerated at high velocities. They are not true plasma guns, which uses gas or fluid as ammunition or even laser based, which uses light.
Tyel wrote: I know its a jokey thread - but the logic never really works.
We have urban combat in real life. We don't fight with swords though because sure, you may only have a few seconds or whatever to shoot....
But you have guns that have over 600 RPM. You can unload a whole clip of 30 or whatever shots in 3 seconds.
You can then say "aha! they are immune to bullets" - but this just raises the question of "why wouldn't they be immune to swords?" If a 5.56mm bullet doesn't cut it, arm everyone with automatic elephant guns.
Ultimately 40k is an abstraction and a game. It should be a relatively short range scramble, because that's more fun that setting our armies up 3 feet away from each other and then just rolling dice until everything is dead.
And guardsmen get flashlights because thats what they get.
Yes, but you miss one important thing. People are not running like madman to your lines being completely oblivious to casualties, injuries or what is before them, but in W40k they will. In real life you hit person once he goes down. You open fire with machine gun and everybody ducks and are suppressed. These things do not exist in W40k.
5.56 bullet is really laughable and just cute. Even in our world it has well known issues with killing people and reports where shot people just ignore it and keep on fighting. Now imagine same thing with frienzone! This chemical overloads human body allowing it to function over its maximum potential and on top of it, it prevents body from figuring out what damage was inflicted upon it. In other words, if a person is charging you drugged with frienzone, it will take more than a dozen such bullets to take it down. He will simply don't care how many holes there are in his stomach or arms. Drugs will keep pushing him for dozen more seconds before body will be forced to shut down and those seconds will allow him to get into melee with you. What you need to stop such maniac is kinetic energy to stop his charge and pin point accuracy to person's head or heart to shut him for good. You know, just like with orks. These are just basic combat troops in w40k, anyone else who is going to charge you will be LOT worse than these mere slaves.
And that is why lasguns, autoguns and bolters don't use 5.56.
Lasguns can sever limbs on an unarmored target, because apparently it super heats the area and causes any moisture to flash boil, causing a small explosion. Or something like that, 40k science is weird.
Autoguns are chambered in 8mm rounds, iirc, although it varies by model.
Bolters fire armor piecing explosive rounds that are more comparable to rockets than bullets.
You did not understood me. In my original point I had mentioned that Tau rifles are like battle rifles of today. They are single shot weapon (it doesn't mean that there is some real delay between shots, but do not have rate of fire). I also had said that they operate on kinetic and plasma principle. Kinetic energy provides penetration and accuracy while plasma provides damage. Tau rifles hit hard and are accurate. They also possess quite a lot of inherent armor penetration.
As for 5.56 point, it is a real life comparison. The thing is, our calibers are poor at stopping power. 5.56 will not stop charging Ork. In Warhammer all armaments are a lot bigger and heftier. What we use today, mere 2 kilogram rifles 3 kg if they are loaded are children's toys. Even bolt pistol have more stopping power than burst from M16. It is not about W40k technology being all that better, but about that infantry weapons in W40k are of entirely different level in terms of weight. In W40k they would consider AK47 as lacking on stopping power and we use one level weaker gun all together.
This is how I see Tau pulse rifles in terms of use and rate of fire. They have superb accuracy, range and hitting power. Though they are mediocre to crap at everything else as weapons. They are long, unwieldy with high recoil. They are poor close quarters weapons. They are complex weapons which makes them heavy on maintenance and very demanding on resupply. They have low rate of fire and are difficult to effectively use them when ranges are 100 meters and below. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragunov_sniper_rifle
If I'm wrong, please direct me to lore where they behave differently.
Also, I had double checked on pulse rifle lore. While they do have automatic function, due to recoil of a weapon and that plasma temperature taxes barrel and it requires to cool off, these weapons are fired in single shot mode. In fact, precisely due to cooling difficulties of this rifle, it has separate barrel to alternative shots while unused barrel cools off.
Yeah, I agree with you on pulse rifles. People have this idea that they are true plasma / energy weapons with high rates of fire, but they are a little more complicated than that and don't actually shoot as fast as you'd think. Lasguns, bolters and pulse rifles may be all rapid fire in game, but in fluff they are supposed to have different firing rates.
We can also agree that 40k weapons on a different level to our weapons, but as that's the case, then would enemies being hopped up on space PCP really be that much of a factor? I'd argue that the reason why 40k weapons are so power is because of the likes of space PCP and orks, and as such ranged combat should still be quite practical against those targets.
It is because people do not consider all the things that allows melee combat to happen in W40k. My main point about melee combat today was using combat drug called frenzone. This combat drug converts person into beserker. His body will be overloaded and pushed beyond what a human is physically capable of. Furthermore it will allow person to ignore injuries which would kill most men. Blown up arm? Barely noticeable. Hole in a chest? Not something you are going to die fast enough. You only need ten seconds to get into melee to do damage and these drugs can prevent body from realizing damage that was inflicted upon it.
There is also a thing with exploding collars. In W40k slave masters of these troops will have each soldier attached to a collar with some explosives in it. If you don't do what he says, your head will explode. That is pretty big motivator to charge those troops without stopping. Especially when they have automatic drug injectors who will remove all fear, self preservation. No machine gun will give you pause. Only most severe wounds like blowing up head or heart will stop you for good, otherwise you will need to either riddle person with bullets in order to stop him for good.
I think that the only thing that prevents melee from happening in real life is our morality and self preservation instinct. Now, if we take those two things out. Lets say I'm a chaos lord and had enslaved a lot of people. Those slaves are useless to me. So, I will give them to slave masters. They will attach those explosive collars upon their necks. I do believe that will really motivate people to do what they are told as otherwise their fellow head explodes in a shower of blood and brain matter. The only thing and technology which we do not have to make melee a real threat in our world is this drug, frenzone.
Ok, so frenzone is a little stronger than PCP. Wouldn't the practical solution then be to aim for the legs to slow them down? If you can sever an arm, you can sever a leg. I dunno, I see where you're coming from, I just don't think its that easy to get into melee.
Maybe if you popped smoke first to hide the charge, but that's practically an ambush.
Lads, this is a game where 8 foot super soldiers which can spit acid and fire rockets regularly engage british football hooligan mushrooms, 20 meters alien monsters and robots older than most planets.
I think we need to leave any pretence of realism at the door and just enjoy the spectacle.
Well, I'm half joking in this thread. I do believe that ranged combat is most viable format in today or W40k world. I just want to play with people perception that melee combat only works because it is fantasy setting.
The thing with frenzone drug in lore is that it makes person into mindless beserker. You can cut person's arm with chainsword and it won't have any effect on him. Sure, his body might be dying, but combat is often very fast and brutal. He might need a minute to bleed out and die, but he only need a second to stab you with his knife.
If you aim for their legs you have a lot of people still crawling and trying to run in order to reach your position. A person drugged with proper mix of chemicals become little more than a hormagaunt. It will run mindlessly at you and will sustain ridiculous amount of damage, because its brain will refuse to accept a fact that it is already dead. This is why melee charges are so difficult to stop. It is not enough to merely hit a person anymore. Sure he might die on his own due to damage inflicted, but it will take him a little bit of time. If you do not stop person physically from running at you, he will still be a threat even if he is going to fall dead few seconds later due to his internal injuries. Heck, even headshot or hitting a heart won't do much good for you in some cases. Do you know that after you chop chicken's head, his body will proceed to run mindlessly around for few seconds? These few seconds while human continues to run at you out of pure inertia still contributes to a charge. It unerves soldier which might make him panic. It still forces soldier to fire even more rounds at him even if he does not need it. This is why fully automatic modes on your weapons, kinetic/stopping power is so important in W40k on your weapon. Then you can really be effective and put hurt upon someone who is charging you.
Yup, I had mentioned smoke when I had created this thread. There are many ways to help you with reaching other squad. Suppressive fire. Firing smoke into their positions. Artillery barrages. Mix in some assault weapons like flamethrowers. This is why guardsmen relies in lore so heavily upon their heavy armaments. Heavy bolters, flamers are often just the only thing that stands against their survival and being nom nomed by hormagaunts.
Also, troops about which we talked about often are used just as mere distractions. For example, crazed fanatics drugged with combat drugs in Chaos armies are merely cannon fodder meant to screen and protect far more valuable troops.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.
Bayonet charges are still a thing. In 2011, IIRC, a British platoon fixed bayonets and charged the enemy when caught in an ambush in Afghanistan.
While charging in mass to stick 'em with the pointy end is no longer the premier battle tactic, it's still valid and useful when the situation calls for it, and very effective at dislodging the enemy from a position.
That was Iraq if I recall, and against what was essentially an armed mob. And not of the Ork kind Bayonets are like cannons on airplanes- no longer viable in 99% of cases (if I recall, since Vietnam war ONE combat airplane was downed by another planes' gun and two helicopters. That's it, 50 years and 3 kills) but no one is willing to get rid of them in case you find yourself in that 1% situation.
Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.
Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.
I don't know. My counter to drug crazed melee troops in the modern world would be triple strand concertina wire and more anti personnel weapons.
The problem with these drug fueled hand to hand killers is the lack of life expectancy. The drugs and activity will drastically reduce the reuseability of this type of troop. The drugs may let them ignore injury but in reality they will succumb to blood loss, loss of limb or punctured lungs. The side that uses these kinds of troop will always need a lot more than they have available .
Your answer to the first my be some kind of breaching vehicle but that would still contend with every other modern counter. Very few would make it through. The other problem is the numbers. Your drug warriors will need to be deployed in the hundreds or thousands to be meaningful in a conflict. Even then, if they have no command and control element they will be useless in the long run. We probably throwing the rules and laws of land warfare and every other governing document in the trash. Landmines will be back in season so will napalm and white prosperous and possibly poisonous gas.
One more problem is where will these drug troopers stage how do you get them any where? Those places and vehicles will get a hammer dropped on them for sure.
If anything war would get far worse than it already is.
I guess I just see an escalation to match the problem.
In 40K they have far more bodies to throw at a problem than we do in the real world.
Compared to other infantry weapons, the Pulse Rifle trades rate of fire for damage. Pulse Rifles also have significant recoil, which requires that the user be stationary to fire most effectively.
It is most unfortunate that they do not link the reference to that specific information. I do not recall reading it in the 3rd or 4th Codex.
Cronch wrote:That was Iraq if I recall, and against what was essentially an armed mob. And not of the Ork kind Bayonets are like cannons on airplanes- no longer viable in 99% of cases (if I recall, since Vietnam war ONE combat airplane was downed by another planes' gun and two helicopters. That's it, 50 years and 3 kills) but no one is willing to get rid of them in case you find yourself in that 1% situation.
The AC-130 would have a word with out, and you should read up on why the Top Gun school was created.
Still, in hallways or tunnels, rifles are a little too long to be used effectively.
We had a long discussion of bayonettes while back. Consensus in that thread seemed to be they're currently useful tools distributed still today, but primarily not a weapon today.
And, even as a weapon, they're more about ensuring your rifle can't be grappled with. So affixing it close-in can be useful, but more as a deterrent than weapon.
However, that same discussion showed that charges and bayonettes were useful and effective in warfare long after most thought they were not.
Close combat did not become completely useless upon the advent of firearms, as some would have you believe. It has some advantages. Not enough to be practical in modern warfare, but that doesn't mean it'll always be worthless.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:Ok, so frenzone is a little stronger than PCP. Wouldn't the practical solution then be to aim for the legs to slow them down? If you can sever an arm, you can sever a leg. I dunno, I see where you're coming from, I just don't think its that easy to get into melee.
Maybe if you popped smoke first to hide the charge, but that's practically an ambush.
As a regular shooter I feel that trying to hit somebody's legs while he's on the move could be a tough shot to pull off. You would actually aim at the chest were you still can hit something even while being stressed, in a hurry. Though you'd prefer not to have to do it at all, if your mental sanity is whole, and be quite reluctant anyway.
Gir Spirit Bane wrote:Lads, this is a game where 8 foot super soldiers which can spit acid and fire rockets regularly engage british football hooligan mushrooms, 20 meters alien monsters and robots older than most planets.
I think we need to leave any pretence of realism at the door and just enjoy the spectacle.
The AC-130 would have a word with out, and you should read up on why the Top Gun school was created.
Still, in hallways or tunnels, rifles are a little too long to be used effectively.
The AC-130 isn't an anti-air platform. It's a slow cow designed to pummel low-tech opposition at a low cost. As for "top gun"... one airplane downed in anger by fighter's cannons in 50 years that passed since Vietnam. Sorry, but missiles are the default weapon against modern flying targets. It doesn't mean the fighter training school is useless, just that the gun is as much a backup option as a pistol is to a rifleman.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.
Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.
Even in the American Civil War bayonets and swords only accounted for about 1% of battle wounds.
You really need to go back to the early age of gunpowder to see planned close assault with melee weapons.
Xenomancers wrote: Just for a frame of reference.
A 5.56 Round travels at about 1000 mps.
It will cover the range of 100 meter in a little over a 10th of a second and in 3 seconds 30 rounds can travel that far...from 1 man with the most basic weapon on the battlefield.
Each shot is lethal too.
.
Err? Most gunshot wounds are not lethal. They're not magic death rays.
Where are you getting your data for "most gunshot wounds are not lethal"? Cuz, I mean sure... if you shoot someone in the arm, shoulder, leg, hand, or foot, it probably won't be lethal. And if you shoot them in the abdomen, it won't be immediately lethal either. But people aren't aiming for those areas. If you take a 5.56 to the chest without body armor, you're probably gonna die, and that's the easiest target for a gunman to aim at.
CthuluIsSpy wrote: Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.
Bayonet charges are still a thing. In 2011, IIRC, a British platoon fixed bayonets and charged the enemy when caught in an ambush in Afghanistan.
While charging in mass to stick 'em with the pointy end is no longer the premier battle tactic, it's still valid and useful when the situation calls for it, and very effective at dislodging the enemy from a position.
Huh, I did not know that. Interesting little fact there.
I especially didn't know modern rifles could still take bayonet attachments. I thought that got phased out.
Ernestas wrote:CthuluIsSpyMade,
You did not understood me. In my original point I had mentioned that Tau rifles are like battle rifles of today. They are single shot weapon (it doesn't mean that there is some real delay between shots, but do not have rate of fire). I also had said that they operate on kinetic and plasma principle. Kinetic energy provides penetration and accuracy while plasma provides damage. Tau rifles hit hard and are accurate. They also possess quite a lot of inherent armor penetration.
As for 5.56 point, it is a real life comparison. The thing is, our calibers are poor at stopping power. 5.56 will not stop charging Ork. In Warhammer all armaments are a lot bigger and heftier. What we use today, mere 2 kilogram rifles 3 kg if they are loaded are children's toys. Even bolt pistol have more stopping power than burst from M16. It is not about W40k technology being all that better, but about that infantry weapons in W40k are of entirely different level in terms of weight. In W40k they would consider AK47 as lacking on stopping power and we use one level weaker gun all together.
This is how I see Tau pulse rifles in terms of use and rate of fire. They have superb accuracy, range and hitting power. Though they are mediocre to crap at everything else as weapons. They are long, unwieldy with high recoil. They are poor close quarters weapons. They are complex weapons which makes them heavy on maintenance and very demanding on resupply. They have low rate of fire and are difficult to effectively use them when ranges are 100 meters and below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragunov_sniper_rifle
If I'm wrong, please direct me to lore where they behave differently.
Also, I had double checked on pulse rifle lore. While they do have automatic function, due to recoil of a weapon and that plasma temperature taxes barrel and it requires to cool off, these weapons are fired in single shot mode. In fact, precisely due to cooling difficulties of this rifle, it has separate barrel to alternative shots while unused barrel cools off.
The AC-130 would have a word with out, and you should read up on why the Top Gun school was created.
Still, in hallways or tunnels, rifles are a little too long to be used effectively.
The AC-130 isn't an anti-air platform. It's a slow cow designed to pummel low-tech opposition at a low cost. As for "top gun"... one airplane downed in anger by fighter's cannons in 50 years that passed since Vietnam. Sorry, but missiles are the default weapon against modern flying targets. It doesn't mean the fighter training school is useless, just that the gun is as much a backup option as a pistol is to a rifleman.[/spoiler]
40K is lacking a little thing in the real world called the Geneva Convention. It is the reason every.single.cartidge designed(for open warfare) has to do a better job of wounding than killing. Cuz your dead buddy is dead, but your squad mate is alive & screaming in agony. Since it takes more people to care for an alive one than a dead one, it effectively takes more soldiers out of the fight.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.
Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.
I dunno about that.
As observed, the most recent bayonet charge was in Afghanistan in 2011. Bayonet charges were also successfully performed by western units during the Falklands War, Yugoslav conflict, and during the Iraq wars.
During the Korean War, both sides used bayonet charges, the Chinese very extensively so.
It's pretty easy to turn up a fairly significant number of bayonet charges made during modern conflicts with a cursory search. While not the primary weapon of any military, it is definitely still something than is still used.
I think the key is to realise that whilst ranged weapons beat close combat in an open situation; there's still ample reason to use close combat weaponry including a bayonet. It's just not part of standard battle practice and is a rarer and very situational method. As opposed to the historical past when bayonet charges were far more commonplace.
I'm sure you can find examples of people still using swords, spears and bows and arrows in battles today. People haven't changed. We still die if you can impale or bludgeon us with something. Those weapons still work. If you get hit in the face with a mace it doesn't matter if its the middle ages, ancient Rome or yesterday - its going to at best hurt a lot and at worst kill you.
However you're not likely to carry a mace today because your opponent isn't likely wearing full plate armour and you're unlikely to first encounter them in battle right up close. You're far more likely to trade ranged weapons fire even indirect fire and such long before.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.
Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.
I dunno about that.
As observed, the most recent bayonet charge was in Afghanistan in 2011. Bayonet charges were also successfully performed by western units during the Falklands War, Yugoslav conflict, and during the Iraq wars.
During the Korean War, both sides used bayonet charges, the Chinese very extensively so.
It's pretty easy to turn up a fairly significant number of bayonet charges made during modern conflicts with a cursory search. While not the primary weapon of any military, it is definitely still something than is still used.
In Iraq 2004 at Danny Boy there was another close quarters engagement with bayonets and no British loses, however for anyone trying to romanticise melee over ranged combat needs to go play some paintball then reconsider.
Kap'n Krump wrote: Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.
Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.
I dunno about that.
As observed, the most recent bayonet charge was in Afghanistan in 2011. Bayonet charges were also successfully performed by western units during the Falklands War, Yugoslav conflict, and during the Iraq wars.
During the Korean War, both sides used bayonet charges, the Chinese very extensively so.
It's pretty easy to turn up a fairly significant number of bayonet charges made during modern conflicts with a cursory search. While not the primary weapon of any military, it is definitely still something than is still used.
In Iraq 2004 at Danny Boy there was another close quarters engagement with bayonets and no British loses, however for anyone trying to romanticise melee over ranged combat needs to go play some paintball then reconsider.
things are significantly more complicated when someone is shooting at you. That 10ft gap between buildings/cover is plenty of time for a bullet to find you. Hell, even an open doorway is enuff. or if your enemy is utilising barrier indifferent projectiles that car/wall/whatever doesnt provide any protection at all.
Barrett M82A1, turning cover into concealment for 35 years.
flandarz wrote: Where are you getting your data for "most gunshot wounds are not lethal"? Cuz, I mean sure... if you shoot someone in the arm, shoulder, leg, hand, or foot, it probably won't be lethal. And if you shoot them in the abdomen, it won't be immediately lethal either. But people aren't aiming for those areas. If you take a 5.56 to the chest without body armor, you're probably gonna die, and that's the easiest target for a gunman to aim at.
Well "most gunshots wounds are not lethal" is actually true. That's why people are saying it. Now, do you mean a rifle round will remove someone from the combat equation? That's a different thing entirely. Even a simple 5.56 or 5.45 round will take someone out of the fight most of the time if you score a shot in the torso. They might die from it, may not, depends on where it went, what organs it did or did not hit, and what kind of immediate and long-term treatment they have access to.
If you mean gunshots in a general term, including all types of handguns and long-arms, then they're most definitely not always lethal.
If you then expand that definition further to shots hitting limbs (which happens a lot), it's even more less than likely to be lethal. It's not uncommon at all for someone to survive 2-5 gunshot wounds.
If we're including ready and immediate access to modern medical care then, sure, most singular gunshots are not lethal. But that's the same as saying "heart attacks aren't lethal as long as you get to the hospital in time". My view on lethality is whether or not something would kill you if you didn't or couldn't receive medical care in a timely manner.
For the purposes of discussing the lethality of weapons in 40k, I think we should be looking at "will it remove the target's ability to influence the battle?", not "will it kill them in one hit".
I've always pictured "slain" models as a mixture of under too badly to contribute and actually dead.
flandarz wrote: Where are you getting your data for "most gunshot wounds are not lethal"? Cuz, I mean sure... if you shoot someone in the arm, shoulder, leg, hand, or foot, it probably won't be lethal. And if you shoot them in the abdomen, it won't be immediately lethal either. But people aren't aiming for those areas. If you take a 5.56 to the chest without body armor, you're probably gonna die, and that's the easiest target for a gunman to aim at.
If you are a normal human and take a single center-mass bullet wound, you are most likely incapacitated as a casualty and unable to fight, but will likely still live.
That said, if a bullet clips a major artery or the heart, you die quickly. Also, the shoulder and leg both contain major arteries- the idea that these are non-lethal targets is Hollywood myth. Anyways, if it pierces the lung, you may suffer a collapse, but unless both lungs collapse you have ample time to seek medical attention. Anywhere else and you have a high chance of survival as long as you can be treated before infection sets in (particularly for gut wounds). You may be paralyzed by spinal injury, or have to get part of your intestine removed, but most gunshot wounds to the torso/abdomen that don't hit the heart or take out both lungs are survivable.
In the pre-WW1 era, where the most common munition was a 0.58-0.75" musket ball capable of shattering bones, the most common cause of death subsequent to gunshot wound was infection, not terminal effects of the bullet itself.
It's the incapacitating effect of pain and structural damage that renders the victim a casualty.
niall78 wrote: Even in the American Civil War bayonets and swords only accounted for about 1% of battle wounds.
You really need to go back to the early age of gunpowder to see planned close assault with melee weapons.
While bayonets accounted for a very low percentage of wounds, bayonet charges were often tactically decisive far in excess of the casualties they produced. There are numerous battles that were resolved by a bayonet charge against a wavering enemy (Little Round Top is a well-known example), as infantry are far more likely to break and run in the face of blades than they are in the face of bullets. There is a massive psychological impact to knives and swords (both on the part of the recipient and on the bearer) that guns simply don't have. So while it is not accurate to frame the bayonet as an essential component of gunpowder warfare, it is also not accurate to dismiss its significance entirely on the basis of comparable lack of casualties. It's a psychological tool more than a weapon, but that was what won battles.
Overread wrote: However you're not likely to carry a mace today because your opponent isn't likely wearing full plate armour and you're unlikely to first encounter them in battle right up close. You're far more likely to trade ranged weapons fire even indirect fire and such long before.
If you were regularly encountering enemies in full plate armor up close, a .223 carbine would still be the optimal weapon. The issue is more fundamental than typical engagement profiles; modern firearms allow you to transform a lot of chemical energy into destructive kinetic energy in a short amount of time and human musculature can't compete.
Things may start to change when you bring in augmentation (power armor), energy delivery mechanisms masquerading as melee weapons (power fists), or defenses that require substantially more energy for terminal effect (power armor again). It's still liable to be super-handwavy, but it makes for good fiction.
Ernestas wrote: It is because people do not consider all the things that allows melee combat to happen in W40k. My main point about melee combat today was using combat drug called frenzone. This combat drug converts person into beserker. His body will be overloaded and pushed beyond what a human is physically capable of. Furthermore it will allow person to ignore injuries which would kill most men. Blown up arm? Barely noticeable. Hole in a chest? Not something you are going to die fast enough. You only need ten seconds to get into melee to do damage and these drugs can prevent body from realizing damage that was inflicted upon it.
This works...if pain is the only thing we are talking about. Bullets that burst lungs and open major arteries are going to leave a combatant incapable no matter how angry and resistant to pain they are. No drug is going to keep someone going if their blood pressure collapses in the space of a couple seconds and stops reaching the brain. Nobody is going to keep charging with a kneecap blown off or a femur shattered. Losing an arm is a gigantic problem for someone wanting to engage in close combat.
There is also a thing with exploding collars. In W40k slave masters of these troops will have each soldier attached to a collar with some explosives in it. If you don't do what he says, your head will explode. That is pretty big motivator to charge those troops without stopping. Especially when they have automatic drug injectors who will remove all fear, self preservation. No machine gun will give you pause. Only most severe wounds like blowing up head or heart will stop you for good, otherwise you will need to either riddle person with bullets in order to stop him for good.
It's really easy to inflict such wounds, and historical examples of suicidal combatants (modern IS forces, WW2 Japanese, WW1 human wave attacks, etc) have proven the primacy of firepower on every occasion.
I think that the only thing that prevents melee from happening in real life is our morality and self preservation instinct. Now, if we take those two things out. Lets say I'm a chaos lord and had enslaved a lot of people. Those slaves are useless to me. So, I will give them to slave masters. They will attach those explosive collars upon their necks. I do believe that will really motivate people to do what they are told as otherwise their fellow head explodes in a shower of blood and brain matter.
what you're far more likely to get are people who willingly walk into enemy fire to end their situation, or otherwise give up and hope said collars can be removed, or who turn on their masters when an opportunity presents itself.
This works...if pain is the only thing we are talking about. Bullets that burst lungs and open major arteries are going to leave a combatant incapable no matter how angry and resistant to pain they are. No drug is going to keep someone going if their blood pressure collapses in the space of a couple seconds and stops reaching the brain. Nobody is going to keep charging with a kneecap blown off or a femur shattered. Losing an arm is a gigantic problem for someone wanting to engage in close combat.
The issue is how fast melee combat is. Even if you puncture major arteries, person will still keep running. It is great analogy with headless chicken. You can cut head off a chicken, but it will still keep running for God's sake for quite a while. This is what I mean by brain not realizing that it is dead. This is what I mean that it can be remarkably difficult to kill a charging beserker with range fire, especially one without kinetic force. Even if body is most definitely dead it will just keep on coming until from its own inertia and that is even worse. Your soldiers will panic, your troops will stay focused on a dead, harmless man and will fire more ammunition than it is necessary thus ignoring other targets. In melee combat, everything is decided within seconds. It can take under 10 seconds for charging units to cover 100 meter distance and it takes seconds to obliterate your lines if they get into melee.
It's really easy to inflict such wounds, and historical examples of suicidal combatants (modern IS forces, WW2 Japanese, WW1 human wave attacks, etc) have proven the primacy of firepower on every occasion.
Not exactly. Modern combat had proven that even stone age technology warriors pose serious threat to modern soldiers. If they are properly drugged and conditioned, it will take entire magazines to stop one such beserker and such sights will wreak havoc upon your troops. This video shows what happens when you have such soldiers properly employed in modern combat. Please take note that calibers used in this battle were a lot higher than ones we use in modern combat. In addition, these troops would count as cheap cannon fodder in W40k and most factions would have far more deadly variants than these. They at their weakest are exactly like here, driven utterly mad by Chaos and charging you without any regard for their own lives. Men, women, old people, children. Hordes of such people will descend upon your soldiers, previous citizens of your planet merely herded before you and your firing line. More often than not, they are only here to distract their enemies until more valuable and experienced troops get into positions to kill their foes. Now tell me, how that is not effective in modern combat? Our soldiers have PTSD from gak they see in real combat, brutal stuff like that would seriously tax their sanity even if they manage to ultimately win. This is why entire regiment had betrayed Imperium on Cadia and decapitated its command staff merely because it would rather betray Imperium and would die there and now rather than to face horrors of Chaos again.
Now, in W40k everyone uses level or armament at least one level higher than we use today. Autoguns, stubs in W40k are of Ak-47 level. Orks are known to utilize a lot of high caliber, high rate of fire weapons. Even then, W40k has equally ridiculous stuff in making melee a lot more feasible. This is outside of more unnatural things. We did not talked about charging Ogryn at all. What you gonna do when this brute will be charging at you and all you have is a lasgun? Soil yourself? Then there are even more ridiculous force multipliers like Chaos blessings. Nurgle is eager to bless his followers with unnatural resistance meaning that every single heretic simply doesn't die from things described in this thread. Punctured lungs, bleeding arteries? Nurgle worshipping average heretic is unlikely to die from that on his own. Now consider your average guardsmen squad. They have mere lasguns and laspistols. While they are deadly against unprotected human flesh, the problem with them is that they have zero stopping power. A full power hit can wreck entirely any area of flesh where it lands, but the issue with laser weaponary is that it seals wounds as it makes them. Meaning that any damage to flesh will require quite a bit of time to register and for brain to comprehend that it is dead. I do not envy guardsmen, while lasgun is remarkable weapon for an army, in such situations it is ineffective. The only salvation they have are in their heavy weapons. Flamers, heavy bolters. If they cease firing, they all are as good as dead.
what you're far more likely to get are people who willingly walk into enemy fire to end their situation, or otherwise give up and hope said collars can be removed, or who turn on their masters when an opportunity presents itself.
Humans can be trained as animals and all hope and spirit can be crushed if you are competent slave master. There are countless gruesome examples from real world where people will not resist and will accept their fate even if accepting mean certain death while resisting means possible survival for some.
Yeah but in the video the tribesman lost 500 to only around 14 or so Americans.
Also you fail to account for the fact that if the Americans had gone into battle only with closecombat weapons as well, then they would have likely taken far greater loses because now their opponents would have made it into close combat unharmed. Ranged weapons let them down most to the majority of them at range; leaving them weaker and wounded by the time any that did survive, made it into close combat range.
So the side with ranged weapons takes far fewer losses, far fewer wounded and kills many times its own number at range.
Yes for the 40K setting you can simply wipe that away by having massive legions of close combat troops and with armours that resist the ranged weapons of the age, pushing them back to almost the equivalent age of muskets in modern day terms. However this still shows that ranged weapons are very powerful and effective and that, in modern warfare, ranged weapons still prove to be far more effective than close combat.
I can tell that some of you are about to have a good hour and a half.
40k conspires to make the rare more common. Trench clearance, space dungeons, future warren streets, unequipped human militias, unequipped alien militias, monsters, active camouflage, warrior cultures, technological stagnation, technological advance, supply chain difficulties, vast numbers against small numbers. Shapeshifters, mind control, teleportation, tunneling machines, drop devices.
All in service of creating situations where the man with the axe is close enough to hit the man with the gun when he runs out of bullets or stops to reload or back is turned.
Overread wrote: Yeah but in the video the tribesman lost 500 to only around 14 or so Americans.
Also you fail to account for the fact that if the Americans had gone into battle only with closecombat weapons as well, then they would have likely taken far greater loses because now their opponents would have made it into close combat unharmed. Ranged weapons let them down most to the majority of them at range; leaving them weaker and wounded by the time any that did survive, made it into close combat range.
So the side with ranged weapons takes far fewer losses, far fewer wounded and kills many times its own number at range.
Yes for the 40K setting you can simply wipe that away by having massive legions of close combat troops and with armours that resist the ranged weapons of the age, pushing them back to almost the equivalent age of muskets in modern day terms. However this still shows that ranged weapons are very powerful and effective and that, in modern warfare, ranged weapons still prove to be far more effective than close combat.
The thing with melee combat is that it only takes just that little small edge before your guys start breaking, fleeing and dying in vast quantities. If those troops would get a drop, would have something worse mixed into their formation, like lets say, Chaos spawn or be under effect of far more potent combat drugs, outcome would had been far different. Lets say, you mix up few veteran chaos marauders into the mix. Suddenly, they are advancing towards your line and taking shots at your guys with impunity while your soldiers are too busy handling those lunatics screaming and charging at them. This is insane force multiplier for any more professional force. This is EXACTLY how such soldiers are used in W40k. Penal Legion are here just to provide that decisive "bayonet charge" effect or simply to soak up fire while more important troops take up positions behind them and open fire themselves. Chaos just throw them at the guns to figure out where heavy guns are and more valuable troops proceed take out those key elements. They are nothing more than a force multiplier to them, like a man would use airpower to increase effectiveness of their infantry on a ground, Chaos uses mass charges of raving mad cultists and chaos spawns as just another weapon of war for their equipped and trained soldiers to do all the actual fighting.
Though, I never had said that this tactic is not intense on casualties. I had said that people who are dying are worthless. Children, women, men, old people. You know, no one of value while those 14 or so troops are of Imperial Guard. Sent through galaxy, trained for years, equipped with tons of gear. Capable soldiers who in a right place can effectively fight most of enemies they encounter. Versatile, deadly, professional. I have millions of these civilians driven mad after I had landed on a Imperial planet while you only have hundred thousands of IG tops. On the other hand, all I had sent were just bunch of raving lunatics. I actually won in this trade, because now I won't have to feed them and they won't just starve to death and continue causing incidents in my camp and I had likely won previous position of those troops together with their undamaged gear. A highly prized equipment in resource stripped Chaos armies.
As for example in that video, American soldiers came with close quarters specialized weapons. They were fighting in a jungle, this is why they had shotguns and why pistols were so important. Most soldiers were equipped with rifles which are primary range firearm. Modern combat possesses weaker assault rifles, less stopping and killing power per bullet. They are less accurate over range, but possesses higher rate of fire. Tau on the other hand made such rifles into their main weapon of war. Their guns are harder hitting with more stopping power, but at the same time, they are unwieldy, clumsy and requires concentration and focus from fire warrior to properly aim and fire.
I'm sorry, Ernestas, but that video is pop-history. The failure of low-powered .38-caliber revolvers to stop drugged-up Moros was a large part of the Army's move to a .45-caliber handgun. And even with inadequate equipment (note that the US Army didn't officially procure shotguns until WW1- the use of revolvers and commercially-bought shotguns in the Philippines was makeshift, not specialized), the US inflicted kill ratios in excess of 35:1. Not against 'children, women, men, old people', but physically-fit fighting-age combatants.
Modern intermediate-caliber rifles are not weaker than Hague-compliant spitzer projectiles in full-sized rifle calibers. Those older rounds have higher kinetic energy, but regularly overpenetrate and waste it. .223 and 5.45 are designed to yaw on impact and cause high transfer of kinetic energy. This makes them more comparable in terminal effect to the rounded lead slugs used in prior eras- for reference, the English .577/.450 Martini rifle had no trouble against Zulus on a cocktail of intelezi, dagga, beer, and fly agaric.
I have seen the terminal effects of .223 against the human body first-hand. Nobody, no matter how much khat they've been chewing or panzerschokolade they've been downing, will survive 'entire magazines' of fire. As soon as one round clips a lung, comes within an inch of the heart or spine, or hits the upper half of the skull, you are done.
Oh, and they're not less accurate either. Not only has propellant and bullet design improved to the point where MOA groups are practical with service weapons (something that only the Finns did, prior to WW2), but modern optics provide an enormous force multiplier. The limitation on rifle accuracy has always been the shooter, not the weapon. You do run into extreme cases when Pashtun insurgents are chucking .303s at you from a kilometer away and .223 can't reach back, but that's neither effective fire nor particularly representative of modern combat.
So your average modern soldier carries a weapon with higher rate of fire, greater lethal effect, and better accuracy than the long-arms used a century ago. And yet with those century-old weapons, in unfamiliar territory and adverse conditions, the US Army managed to inflict heavily disproportionate casualties on drugged-up melee combatants.
Bear in mind that a .223 rifle is, effectively, a melee weapon. It can be used at any range, right up to physical contact with the enemy, and delivers far more kinetic energy on impact than any primitive weapon is capable of. If you really are liable to be fighting in point-blank close-quarters operations, you put a bayonet on it- not so much as a weapon as to prevent unwanted manipulation.
There is no plausible context in which melee-armed combatants can threaten modern soldiers. You have to get into pure magic (ie 'nothing stops them except a headshot' zombies) for that to be the case. It's fine that 40K runs on rule of cool, but don't go looking for realism.
Edit: Also, stopping power is a myth and pulse lasers don't burn holes, they cause miniature explosions through thermal shock. Cauterizing or not, their terminal effects are described as comparable to modern rifle rounds, at least in the novels I've read (Cain/Gaunt's Ghosts).
This works...if pain is the only thing we are talking about. Bullets that burst lungs and open major arteries are going to leave a combatant incapable no matter how angry and resistant to pain they are. No drug is going to keep someone going if their blood pressure collapses in the space of a couple seconds and stops reaching the brain. Nobody is going to keep charging with a kneecap blown off or a femur shattered. Losing an arm is a gigantic problem for someone wanting to engage in close combat.
The issue is how fast melee combat is. Even if you puncture major arteries, person will still keep running. It is great analogy with headless chicken. You can cut head off a chicken, but it will still keep running for God's sake for quite a while. This is what I mean by brain not realizing that it is dead. This is what I mean that it can be remarkably difficult to kill a charging beserker with range fire, especially one without kinetic force. Even if body is most definitely dead it will just keep on coming until from its own inertia and that is even worse. Your soldiers will panic, your troops will stay focused on a dead, harmless man and will fire more ammunition than it is necessary thus ignoring other targets. In melee combat, everything is decided within seconds. It can take under 10 seconds for charging units to cover 100 meter distance and it takes seconds to obliterate your lines if they get into melee.
A chicken head and a human head are very different things, and a human head draws a whole lot more blood and the human brain is a far more complex and necessary object than a chicken's brain stem. If the right artery is hit, a person is going down very quickly indeed and absolutely is not going to charge 100 meters and successfully engage in combat. A brain doesnt need to realize its dead for it to be combat incapable.
It's really easy to inflict such wounds, and historical examples of suicidal combatants (modern IS forces, WW2 Japanese, WW1 human wave attacks, etc) have proven the primacy of firepower on every occasion.
Not exactly. Modern combat had proven that even stone age technology warriors pose serious threat to modern soldiers. If they are properly drugged and conditioned, it will take entire magazines to stop one such beserker and such sights will wreak havoc upon your troops.
This video shows what happens when you have such soldiers properly employed in modern combat. Please take note that calibers used in this battle were a lot higher than ones we use in modern combat.
Legends involving the Moros are largely just that, legends. People miss shots thinking they hit, get scared, etc. Same way you hear complaints about .30 carbine failing to kill Chinese troops on Korea because of thick winter coats, but every test done on them shows the round trivially penetrating such clothing and people most likely simply didn't hit anything when they thought they had, or the dude they shot got carried off by his buddies and no body was left to find.
The Moros were ultimately violently crushed with relatively few casualties and no real strenuous war effort on the part of US and Phillipine forces. Most of their success came from catching their enemies unprepared and unready, in which case if someone doesn't have a ready weapon at hand you can get away with a lot more.
Also, caliber alone is a relatively irrelevant value on it's own. If I have to choose between getting shot by a .45 or a .223, imma take the bigger .45 bullet every time because its packing a fraction of the kinetic energy of the .223 projectile.
Again, there's a reason that French cran and elan, Japanese martial pride and the Bushido ethos, etc fell before the primacy of firepower when put to the test.
In addition, these troops would count as cheap cannon fodder in W40k and most factions would have far more deadly variants than these. They at their weakest are exactly like here, driven utterly mad by Chaos and charging you without any regard for their own lives. Men, women, old people, children. Hordes of such people will descend upon your soldiers, previous citizens of your planet merely herded before you and your firing line. More often than not, they are only here to distract their enemies until more valuable and experienced troops get into positions to kill their foes.
Herding large groups of unwilling or forced people like tha is actually a very complex task that takes a great deal of effort and organization and tends to rapidly break down even without getting shot at. Theres a reason nobody really tries it in real life.
Now tell me, how that is not effective in modern combat? Our soldiers have PTSD from gak they see in real combat, brutal stuff like that would seriously tax their sanity even if they manage to ultimately win.
so have people from every side of every conflict in human history.
Now, in W40k everyone uses level or armament at least one level higher than we use today.
Hrm, only in the most basic of senses. 40k is Fantasy in Space, not really proper scifi. Modern MBT's have capabilities that would shame the Tau and Eldar. Radar guided counterbattery artillery fire able to drop shells within a few meters of a target a dozen miles away basically doesnt exist in 40k. Air defense networks are almost entirely gun based, the kind of integrated multi threat air defense systems seen in places like Russia have no 40k counterparts.
We did not talked about charging Ogryn at all. What you gonna do when this brute will be charging at you and all you have is a lasgun? Soil yourself?
Do what poachers in Africa do when confronted with charging elephants/lions/giraffes/hippos/etc, dump the magazine of their 50+ year old Kalashnikov in a couple of seconds, load a new magazine, and do it again if necessary. Works fairly well.
Then there are even more ridiculous force multipliers like Chaos blessings. Nurgle is eager to bless his followers with unnatural resistance meaning that every single heretic simply doesn't die from things described in this thread. Punctured lungs, bleeding arteries?
These things absolutely kill Nurgle stuff, theyre not immortal, just resilient (sometimes, not everything is a plague marine). All sorts of fluff shows nurgle stuff being killed by small arms.
what you're far more likely to get are people who willingly walk into enemy fire to end their situation, or otherwise give up and hope said collars can be removed, or who turn on their masters when an opportunity presents itself.
Humans can be trained as animals and all hope and spirit can be crushed if you are competent slave master. There are countless gruesome examples from real world where people will not resist and will accept their fate even if accepting mean certain death while resisting means possible survival for some.
None on a battlefield in the manner you describe however, hersing them onto prepared enemy positions as meatshields.
flandarz wrote: If we're including ready and immediate access to modern medical care then, sure, most singular gunshots are not lethal. But that's the same as saying "heart attacks aren't lethal as long as you get to the hospital in time". My view on lethality is whether or not something would kill you if you didn't or couldn't receive medical care in a timely manner.
So your definition of a gunshot being lethal is: do you sit and do nothing and bleed out...even from a non-lethal gunshot? Outside of the target zones (spine, lungs, heart, major artery) gunshot wounds are survivable in many cases, even with basic combat first-aid. You can triage and provide basic care allowing an individual to make it an hour or more without more competent medical care.
A basic gunshot wound to any extremity is not immediately lethal (major exception being the femoral artery, but even that can be staunched - though difficult). Rounds to the face/head are not immediately lethal. Numerous accounts of people having gunshot wounds chip their skull, go in one cheek and out the other (with teeth following shortly thereafter), etc.
Is your version of lethal "is this CAPABLE of killing someone?"? Well sure, a bb gun could kill someone if the wound got infected and the person did nothing about it...so I'm not following your argument. You should spend some time looking up the vast reports compiled by the FBI and some independent parties who actually study the physical effects of every recorded gunfight they can get their hands on. The science will surprise you.
There is a reason that law enforcement and military personnel are often trained to a minimum two-shot drill since the 1980's. In fact there has been a move away from two-shot drills (or "double taps" as they're more commonly called) because it became an ingrained detriment to special forces soldiers. Soldiers deployed in the field were so used to training double-taps they would shoot an enemy combatant twice and then move on their search or engagement....only to find the combatant was still alive and a threat.
To turn the question back at you, is your argument that things are only lethal if they immediately kill someone? Cuz if you can receive immediate first aid/medical care, almost nothing is actually lethal. My stance is that if you cannot survive 30 minutes to an hour without at least first aid (which is pretty average for an active shooter situation), then it's a "lethal" wound.
Sure, there are cases of people surviving shots to the face or head. There's also cases of people falling hundreds of meters and surviving. Edge cases don't lower the lethality of something.
In 2013, there were approximately 73.5k gun related injuries in the U.S. (so not including any warzones). Of those 33.5k resulted in death, which results at around 46% lethality. So while, technically, you could say "most gunshots are not lethal", I'd argue a 46% chance that someone shooting you is going to kill you is a pretty high lethality.
Of course, a fair portion of those deaths and injuries were suicide related, which may have skewed the data, but it's probably not far off the mark.
flandarz wrote: In 2013, there were approximately 73.5k gun related injuries in the U.S. (so not including any warzones). Of those 33.5k resulted in death, which results at around 46% lethality.
flandarz wrote: Of course, a fair portion of those deaths and injuries were suicide related
~2/3 of all firearm deaths in the US are suicides, so yes, that skews the data. Many of those 'gun related injuries' are accidents, too, and not just people getting shot. Here's a paper on firearm lethality, concluding an average lethality of 31.7% for victims suffering gunshot wounds during the period of the study (1992-1995).
I'll admit I've kind of lost the plot here regarding this specific area of contention. There are few places in the human body where you can be shot and walk it off without long-term risk of death. There are many places in the human body where you can be shot and live long enough to seek medical attention. There are a few places in the human body that cause immediate incapacitation and/or death. In a normal battlefield situation, an injury of the second kind produces a casualty. Against hypothetical drugged-up human wave melee combatants, it might take a wound of the third kind to stop the attacker, but with a modern semi-automatic rifle that is not hard to achieve.
The basic contention revolved around the lethality if "being shot". My stance being: if someone is looking to kill you (which, I guess, would include yourself), even a single shot is pretty damn lethal. To be fair, we're off on a tangent with this side conversation and it has little to do with the main debate.
I'm sorry, Ernestas, but that video is pop-history. The failure of low-powered .38-caliber revolvers to stop drugged-up Moros was a large part of the Army's move to a .45-caliber handgun. And even with inadequate equipment (note that the US Army didn't officially procure shotguns until WW1- the use of revolvers and commercially-bought shotguns in the Philippines was makeshift, not specialized), the US inflicted kill ratios in excess of 35:1. Not against 'children, women, men, old people', but physically-fit fighting-age combatants.
That is my point exactly. Video describes 0.38 caliber as somehow underpowered and justifies army switch to 0.45 caliber for increased stopping power. This 0.38 is a basic caliber of W40k and nowadays we went down to even more underpowered calibers, because of belief that it is enough to hit an enemy in order to take it out of action. While it holds true most of the time, because our enemies are not suicidal and delusional, there are many cases where such caliber just fails to do any damage upon impact and enemy trooper continues to fight ignoring injuries. If such calibers would had been employed in that jungle, it would had performed even worse against those charging lunatics.
Modern day most used caliber: .22 Caliber which historically proved to be underpowered to stop charging human being: 0.38 Historical solution: 0.45
You could argue that automatic fire had increased lethality of a rifle and you would be right. The issue is with ammo management, because you can ill afford time to reload your magazine during charge and automatic fire would result in more ammunition being spent on a single target than it is necessary.
Modern intermediate-caliber rifles are not weaker than Hague-compliant spitzer projectiles in full-sized rifle calibers. Those older rounds have higher kinetic energy, but regularly overpenetrate and waste it. .223 and 5.45 are designed to yaw on impact and cause high transfer of kinetic energy. This makes them more comparable in terminal effect to the rounded lead slugs used in prior eras- for reference, the English .577/.450 Martini rifle had no trouble against Zulus on a cocktail of intelezi, dagga, beer, and fly agaric.
I know that high caliber ammunition over-penetrates their target, but I'm not sure if modern ammunition is "designed" to do anything. It is just that lower caliber ammunition simply lacks kinetic energy to penetrate body and gets stuck. If anything, modern ammo is designed to penetrate more, because of its low caliber and low energy struggling to get through flak jackets which results in needle like ammo which just goes through tissue failing to do anything much. If you want a weapon which really inflicts damage on body look no further than AK-47 and similar weapons. As for stopping power in general, I'm not convinced. In hand gun market, nobody goes for low calibers, because there is a major concern that an assailant will not go down in one shot. There is huge preference for 0.45 caliber precisely because people are concerned that if they are attacked, merely shooting person will not do anything in time.
I have seen the terminal effects of .223 against the human body first-hand. Nobody, no matter how much khat they've been chewing or panzerschokolade they've been downing, will survive 'entire magazines' of fire. As soon as one round clips a lung, comes within an inch of the heart or spine, or hits the upper half of the skull, you are done.
We have historical precedent where people do survive an entire magazines if it is aimed poorly at them. Furthermore, it is not an issue with surviving, it is issue with spending that much ammo and time on one person. What you going to do when another one comes?
Oh, and they're not less accurate either. Not only has propellant and bullet design improved to the point where MOA groups are practical with service weapons (something that only the Finns did, prior to WW2), but modern optics provide an enormous force multiplier. The limitation on rifle accuracy has always been the shooter, not the weapon. You do run into extreme cases when Pashtun insurgents are chucking .303s at you from a kilometer away and .223 can't reach back, but that's neither effective fire nor particularly representative of modern combat.
You are right. I had thought that modern rifles can be accurate over 200 meters while in fact they are accurate to 550 meters.
Bear in mind that a .223 rifle is, effectively, a melee weapon. It can be used at any range, right up to physical contact with the enemy, and delivers far more kinetic energy on impact than any primitive weapon is capable of. If you really are liable to be fighting in point-blank close-quarters operations, you put a bayonet on it- not so much as a weapon as to prevent unwanted manipulation.
Not exactly. Bayonets are next to useless in real melee combat and they are used more for shock value, morale and to prevent weapon grabbing (though it doesn't do that at all). An actual melee weapon is just ridiculously better in melee combat than swinging your M16 with bayonet attached.
So your average modern soldier carries a weapon with higher rate of fire, greater lethal effect, and better accuracy than the long-arms used a century ago. And yet with those century-old weapons, in unfamiliar territory and adverse conditions, the US Army managed to inflict heavily disproportionate casualties on drugged-up melee combatants.
Like Tau you have silly faith in science and progress. Please report to your nearest commissar for these heretical beliefs.
When technology matures sufficiently, any further advances makes technology more efficient rather than revolutionizing it. For example, we had powder weapons in medieval age probably if you get fancy with imports. Yet, the core functionality did not changed over time. Getting hit by modern round is just as bad as getting hit by gun in medieval period. The only thing which had changed is how effective weapon is at its role. After sufficient advancement, around when first modern firearms were invented, we see very little advancement in effectiveness of a gun. It is more about making them more efficient. They jam less frequently, they are lighter, we invented better scopes, etc. M1 Grarand will kill you just as well as most modern firearm of today. Like you had said, it is not firearm which is important, but its user. So, it doesn't matter that modern technology had increased efficiency of those rifles. That is meaningless as most of those improvements are in areas such as accuracy, manufacturing, armor penetration. Useless things in situation we discuss here today. Nor those soldiers came under-equipped. They had specialized close quarters weapons like shotguns. These weapons back then were far more efficient in their role than any modern day rifle today in same situation.
Edit: Also, stopping power is a myth and pulse lasers don't burn holes, they cause miniature explosions through thermal shock. Cauterizing or not, their terminal effects are described as comparable to modern rifle rounds, at least in the novels I've read (Cain/Gaunt's Ghosts).
It is just extremely violent vaporization. It doesn't carry kinetic energy with itself and speed at which it causes damage to flesh is a problem in itself as body fails to register damage which it had suffered. Cauterizing helps body to survive for a little bit longer as there aren't any wounds which would actively threaten organism immedietly. This is why in lore lasguns are described as flashlights as they struggle to stop more determined foes like tyranids or orks. Thus, this is why IG relies so heavily on volley fire and heavy weapons to actually stop those charges.
In addition, laser weapons are silly. To evaporate anything takes extreme amounts of energy. What will happen when you are fighting in heavy mist or jungle? That foliage will essentially take all the bite out of your shot. Similar thing happens when enemy carries any sort of armor. Even humble flak jackets will prove an effective protection against laser weaponary. Lasgun is great equipping entire armies primary because it has huge ammo efficiency and theoretically infinite ammo without any logistical issues. At an army scale this is massive deal, even more on galactic level. It also benefits soldier as he doesn't need to worry about ressuply problems. Though, that is double edged sword as properly powerful lasguns require massive batteries. You might not be carrying ammunition anymore, but you are carrying massive battery pack on your back for your hellgun. If it is poorly designed, a single hit will basically take out all your ammo before fighting even begins.
A chicken head and a human head are very different things, and a human head draws a whole lot more blood and the human brain is a far more complex and necessary object than a chicken's brain stem. If the right artery is hit, a person is going down very quickly indeed and absolutely is not going to charge 100 meters and successfully engage in combat. A brain doesnt need to realize its dead for it to be combat incapable.
You are missing an entire point. I do not know about chicken physiology, but human one is quite unique. Our muscles do not require brain or heart to function. We have quite ingenious biological means to produce energy at cell level without oxygen. It is called: oxygen debt and very same process can enable muscles to keep contracting under expected nerve impulses without adequate supply of oxygen (blown up arteries). Even if you cut head of an organism, said nerve impulses will just keep on going for excruciating several seconds. These seconds are why it is really hard to stop someone charging at you without kinetic energy. On large scale it means that soldiers will continue to focus and waste precious magazine ammo on foes which are already dead. This what "not realizing it is already dead" means. This phenomena is mentioned few times in W40k lore too.
Legends involving the Moros are largely just that, legends. People miss shots thinking they hit, get scared, etc. Same way you hear complaints about .30 carbine failing to kill Chinese troops on Korea because of thick winter coats, but every test done on them shows the round trivially penetrating such clothing and people most likely simply didn't hit anything when they thought they had, or the dude they shot got carried off by his buddies and no body was left to find.
The Moros were ultimately violently crushed with relatively few casualties and no real strenuous war effort on the part of US and Phillipine forces. Most of their success came from catching their enemies unprepared and unready, in which case if someone doesn't have a ready weapon at hand you can get away with a lot more.
Also, caliber alone is a relatively irrelevant value on it's own. If I have to choose between getting shot by a .45 or a .223, imma take the bigger .45 bullet every time because its packing a fraction of the kinetic energy of the .223 projectile.
Again, there's a reason that French cran and elan, Japanese martial pride and the Bushido ethos, etc fell before the primacy of firepower when put to the test.
These are not legends, but facts. It is proven beyond shadow of a doubt that human body can be remarkably resilient and people continue to fight even under multiple bullet wounds. Combine this with frenzone which pushes biological organism into absolute extreme of its capacity and you have soldiers who simply don't die or relent even after being blown up.
Duh, you assume that one force is irrational and wants to be defeated. This is how Tau thinks and how often mistake of modern day thinkers. You always assume that your enemy is irrational. That it wants to be defeated. That it will behave as you had imagined it in your head. This is why our military catastrophically fails each time when our enemies are determined. Even when military exercises and simulations are done properly we have these modern day scandals where our forces are getting demolished. Enemies adapt, they improvise. They do not come to be defeated. In a same manner, nobody is going to declare where they are going to charge you, give you time to prepare, set up artillery and air support. Charges are done either with overwhelming numbers or with some element of surprise and camouflage. My given scenario is quite typical. It is an environment where sneaking up is easy. It is not some unusual circumstance. In jungles or forests, being ambushed is just monday for you as we had seen in Vietnam. In a same manner, any modern day charges will not be performed on an empty field against armored columns. It will be "small scale" actions utilizing terrain and surprise to their advantage.
Bigger caliber has more stopping power, smaller calibers struggle to give up its kinetic energy efficiently. This is why all guns meant to stop opponent are of big caliber. Mass is king in this equation rather than velocity. Velocity is more important in penetrating rather than doing damage.
Herding large groups of unwilling or forced people like tha is actually a very complex task that takes a great deal of effort and organization and tends to rapidly break down even without getting shot at. Theres a reason nobody really tries it in real life.
You are wrong on this. It is very easy and there is so much historic precedence to this. Being herded in large groups to go somewhere is very easy. To force people to attack someone takes more effort, but it was done on large scale historically too through generations.
so have people from every side of every conflict in human history.
But we are not talking about humans here, do we. Anyone worth their salt will laugh at horrors of war, because they had endured horrors of the warp and managed to retain their relative sanity in a face of it. It is not Chaos worshippers who should be concerned with being broken down mentally, but their enemies. Traditional forces like IG are very susceptible to being driven mad or experiencing casualties due to mental breakdowns. If herding bunch of civilians causes our enemies to break, doesn't that mean that human wave charges are effective weapon of war?
Hrm, only in the most basic of senses. 40k is Fantasy in Space, not really proper scifi. Modern MBT's have capabilities that would shame the Tau and Eldar. Radar guided counterbattery artillery fire able to drop shells within a few meters of a target a dozen miles away basically doesnt exist in 40k. Air defense networks are almost entirely gun based, the kind of integrated multi threat air defense systems seen in places like Russia have no 40k counterparts.
That is largely a myth. W40k have all of these things. Though, I was talking about small arms and I'm not sure why you are expanding discussion in this off topic.
Do what poachers in Africa do when confronted with charging elephants/lions/giraffes/hippos/etc, dump the magazine of their 50+ year old Kalashnikov in a couple of seconds, load a new magazine, and do it again if necessary. Works fairly well.
Sigh, no no no and no. These people are called: "Big Game hunters" and they have specialized weapons to hunt these animals.
These things absolutely kill Nurgle stuff, theyre not immortal, just resilient (sometimes, not everything is a plague marine). All sorts of fluff shows nurgle stuff being killed by small arms.
You need to refresh your knowledge on lore and how Nurgle marines are portrayed there. You also need to read more about dispatching various others foes like zombies. Cultists on the other hand are just more resilient, but they also retain their human qualities like running, coordination, etc. So you now have someone who is very unlikely to be stopped just by few shots, because their flesh already is dying or half dead. How that is suddenly better and denies anything I had said?
None on a battlefield in the manner you describe however, hersing them onto prepared enemy positions as meatshields.
It was done historically already. Also humans are animals. Our survival instinct kicks in and you start doing stuff you never imagined you will be doing. Our minds and bodies prioritize survival over everything in the end despite our arrogance.
This thread is still hilarious in how cherrypicked the "Melee" scenarios are. Any ork horde described by GW in their books would be turned into fine mist by Zhukov's 1st Belarussian, let alone anything more modern. People who focus on rifle calibers and pistols and whatnot miss the obvious- the men with the rifle are there to babysit the men with the MGs and mortars and make sure no one gets to the God of War in the back.
40k loves it's gorey description, but I don't think there is a single GW writer that grasps just how murderous modern weapons are.
They do understand. Some makes even distinct references to manning heavy bolters and covering its reloads with flamers or otherwise they all are as good as dead. They also mention that amount of bodies killed actually are starting to act against rushing attackers. Yet, when you are dealing with mere animals like Orks or Tyranids, you are not dealing with mere humans anymore. Tyranids are numberless beasts who can throw hundreds of small hormogants to overwhelm IG squad and still call it a win. Orks on the other hand are unpredictable and have extremely tough bodies. You can consider lucky if mere burst from autogun is enough to kill an ork. When you remove human element, sure, you remove all these tactics and it is just mawing down charging bodies with small arms, machine guns, artillery and vehicles, but you also remove all the limitations on incoming enemies. You get then burrowing massive beasts who burst out of ground and start slaughtering your troops with hundreds of smaller beasts emerging out of a tunnel. You get 10 ton armored animals charging your vehicles and tearing them apart with claws. Your troops get instantly surrounded and cut off as modern army lacks numbers to possibly cover ALL the ground from an enemy which for all intents and purposes are numberless.
Btw: In lore Chaos DOES end up throwing millions of deranged lunatics in massed human charges. So even if we assume 1:34 kill ratio, it is 30 000 professional troops lost for 1 million of theirs. I also have to repeat that these millions of troops not only are transported, but Chaos often just convert anything they capture into such troops. Now imagine if you are fighting Chaos army. Chaos has enough strength to capture Berlin. It has population of 3,748. Lets say they manage to get 4 millions of civilians. Soon they will be driven mad and be charging at your soldiers. That is 120 000 soldiers lost on its own. In truth, Chaos does not merely rely on them to kill your troops. They will use them to clear barb wire, minefields, provide cover for actual troops behind them, expose your heavy weapons positions, artillery positions. This is when Chaos artillery will start counter barrage. This is how actual troops will prioritize destroying heavy weapons, vehicles while they are pre-occupied in clearing out charging hordes of madmen.
All of this ignores far worse fates that can befell them. If it is Nurgle, soon there will be 4 million zombies slowly shambling towards your direction. Have fun you smug prick who thinks that modern firepower is so overwhelming that he will never get into melee!
Read up on the Wexford Rising of 1798. You had poorly-armed but very numerous rebels vs British Napoleonic Age infantry.
The rebels had some notable successes, wiping out detachments of over a hundred soldiers in the open field. And they took several towns at the point of a pike but they eventually were defeated in three major battles - New Ross, Arklow and Vinegar Hill. All three showed the advantages of massed firepower over courageous and desperate melee combatants. One of the eyewitness accounts describes charging rebels being "tumbled in twenties."
And this was with musket and cannon.
If melee combat was at all effective, it would still be used.
Then you should start reading my comments. I know that they are long and difficult to get into, but this is for what this thread is meant. I especially love when people prove me right with real world examples and then conclude that I'm wrong and melee combatants are outdated.
Our ability to kill with ranged weaponry has massively increased since then. As an example, on the first day of the battle of the Somme the British suffered ~57,000 casualties, of which ~19,000 were killed.
That was only 3 years after the end of the Moro rebellion. Since then we have developed machine guns with much higher rates of fire, more powerful explosive ordnance, nuclear weapons etc.
Ernestas wrote: That is my point exactly. Video describes 0.38 caliber as somehow underpowered and justifies army switch to 0.45 caliber for increased stopping power. This 0.38 is a basic caliber of W40k and nowadays we went down to even more underpowered calibers, because of belief that it is enough to hit an enemy in order to take it out of action. While it holds true most of the time, because our enemies are not suicidal and delusional, there are many cases where such caliber just fails to do any damage upon impact and enemy trooper continues to fight ignoring injuries. If such calibers would had been employed in that jungle, it would had performed even worse against those charging lunatics.
Modern day most used caliber: .22
Caliber which historically proved to be underpowered to stop charging human being: 0.38
Historical solution: 0.45
Okay, so I gather you are not particularly familiar with firearms. That's fine.
Raw caliber tells you very little- that's just the diameter of the projectile. It says nothing about the shape of the projectile, its mass or the energy behind it. Kinetic energy is a more useful measure
The .38-caliber revolver in question, which was somewhat ineffective against the Moros (as Vaktathi said, lots of it was hearsay from guys who missed their targets) was firing .38 Long Colt, which is a 125gr projectile traveling at 235m/s, for an energy of 224J.
.45ACP, the round that replaced it, is a 230gr projectile traveling at 255m/s, for an energy of 483J.
9x19 NATO- also .38-caliber- is a 124gr projectile traveling at 373m/s, for an energy of 560J. It's more powerful than .45ACP despite being a .38-caliber round.
And .223, the most common modern rifle caliber, is a 55gr projectile at 990m/s, for an energy of a whopping 1,715J.
The stopping power myth is the idea that raw caliber is the most important thing in terminal effect. It has been soundly debunked, over and over again, for the past fifty years, and the holdouts are people who simply refuse to accept the evidence.
Ernestas wrote: I know that high caliber ammunition over-penetrates their target, but I'm not sure if modern ammunition is "designed" to do anything. It is just that lower caliber ammunition simply lacks kinetic energy to penetrate body and gets stuck. If anything, modern ammo is designed to penetrate more, because of its low caliber and low energy struggling to get through flak jackets which results in needle like ammo which just goes through tissue failing to do anything much. If you want a weapon which really inflicts damage on body look no further than AK-47 and similar weapons.
This is so wrong I'm not quite sure where to begin.
1. Ammunition is designed. Full stop. .223 projectiles have a rear-balanced center of gravity, which induces yawing on impact at high velocity. This is in contrast to older ball ammo in full-size rifle calibers, where maximum range was the design goal because they shared ammunition compatibility with LMGs/MMGs.
2. The prevalence of body armor is why we have things like M855 'green tip', rounds which have a hardened steel penetrator to defeat body armor before the yawing behavior begins. Narrow bullets (low caliber) aid armor penetration. They are not 'low energy'.
3. 7.62x39 is an objectively less lethal cartridge than .223 as it does not exhibit this yawing behavior, and whoever told you that the AK-47 'really inflicts damage' should be ignored, because they probably get their gun knowledge from Hollywood. Beyond cartridge design, the actual loadings seen in the field are significantly less lethal due to the Soviet use of steel cores in their ammunition, which do not flatten on impact and routinely overpenetrate. Compare the 5.56 and 7.62 profiles here.
Ernestas wrote: As for stopping power in general, I'm not convinced. In hand gun market, nobody goes for low calibers, because there is a major concern that an assailant will not go down in one shot. There is huge preference for 0.45 caliber precisely because people are concerned that if they are attacked, merely shooting person will not do anything in time.
One of the most popular calibers for concealed carry handguns is .380, 9mm (also a .38-cal, but with more powder than .380) is the most common handgun cartridge in the world, and .45 is increasingly unpopular (often referred to as '.45 AARP' because the guys willingly carrying it are almost universally over 60 and have no idea what they're doing), so no. Where did you even get that?
Ernestas wrote: We have historical precedent where people do survive an entire magazines if it is aimed poorly at them. Furthermore, it is not an issue with surviving, it is issue with spending that much ammo and time on one person. What you going to do when another one comes?
Yeah, that's called 'missing the target'. And the answer to what you do when another comes is 'reload'.
If a small force of Americans could hold off a much greater force of Moros, in unfavorable terrain, armed with poor weapons for the task (ever try reloading a double-action revolver under stress?), what makes you think a modern force with modern weaponry would be less effective?
Ernestas wrote: Not exactly. Bayonets are next to useless in real melee combat
Because the rifle carrying it is more effective in every way, even in close combat.
Ernestas wrote: Nor those soldiers came under-equipped. They had specialized close quarters weapons like shotguns. These weapons back then were far more efficient in their role than any modern day rifle today in same situation.
They were carrying commercial-bought shotguns, weapons intended for hunting birds. Nobody on a modern battlefield who has the option takes a shotgun over a carbine- they exist purely as specialized breaching tools and for firing less-lethal ammunition. A modern day rifle is objectively better than a modern shotgun in close quarters, let alone a vintage side-by-side or M1897.
Ernestas wrote: In addition, laser weapons are silly. To evaporate anything takes extreme amounts of energy. What will happen when you are fighting in heavy mist or jungle? That foliage will essentially take all the bite out of your shot.
That is not how pulse lasers work. Please, just, go read a Wikipedia entry or something. They don't work by evaporation. They're not severely impacted by atmospheric conditions. You might as well be arguing that bullets don't work in the rain because the bullets will get knocked off course.
Look, I mean this in the nicest possible way: You do not really understand what you are talking about. Can I give you some reading suggestions on the evolution of military small arms design if this is something you're interested in?
Ernestas wrote: Then you should start reading my comments. I know that they are long and difficult to get into, but this is for what this thread is meant. I especially love when people prove me right with real world examples and then conclude that I'm wrong and melee combatants are outdated.
I have. That's why I made the comment I did.
You are writing fictional posts about a fictional subject.
There is nothing that can be offered as real-world examples that will prove or disprove your point.
I'm not entirely sure what your point is, to be honest, but I think it's that melee is more powerful than shooting in general (and that this can be applied to the fictional 40k universe).
This thread is hilarious. Thanks Catbarf for the informative and interesting look at modern firearms technology, which was good reading.
Ernestas wrote: Then you should start reading my comments. I know that they are long and difficult to get into, but this is for what this thread is meant. I especially love when people prove me right with real world examples and then conclude that I'm wrong and melee combatants are outdated.
The proof you're wrong is the complete absence of melee combat being a useful tactic against any modern military for well over a century.
In 40k you get to handwave away real-world concerns by just saying Orks are so tough they can walk with no legs or the Chaos gods themselves intervene to keep their cultists alive. In the real world it doesn't matter how determined or drugged up you are a bullet through the heart, or the brain, or the spine will stop you in your tracks, narcotics be damned. Similarly, a bullet in the kneecap will prevent forward motion and it's nothing to do with pain response or shock, it's entirely down to your limbs not working any more.
Thing is, melee 'reasonably' will exist and be something a combat force in the setting would likely be equipped and trained to deal with. Why? Because Daemons, Orks, and Tyranids exist and each have respective reasons to be preferential to melee. Races that equip their troops with technological weaponry would reasonably include melee as part of a general equipment setup because combat against those foes is reasonably part of general warfare. That is before even getting into more theoretical aspects like the effectiveness of a chainsword against an Ork who may very well shrug off taking a half dozen bullets to the chest but is comparatively more vulnerable to being dismembered.
Slipspace wrote: This thread is hilarious. Thanks Catbarf for the informative and interesting look at modern firearms technology, which was good reading.
Ernestas wrote: Then you should start reading my comments. I know that they are long and difficult to get into, but this is for what this thread is meant. I especially love when people prove me right with real world examples and then conclude that I'm wrong and melee combatants are outdated.
The proof you're wrong is the complete absence of melee combat being a useful tactic against any modern military for well over a century.
In 40k you get to handwave away real-world concerns by just saying Orks are so tough they can walk with no legs or the Chaos gods themselves intervene to keep their cultists alive. In the real world it doesn't matter how determined or drugged up you are a bullet through the heart, or the brain, or the spine will stop you in your tracks, narcotics be damned. Similarly, a bullet in the kneecap will prevent forward motion and it's nothing to do with pain response or shock, it's entirely down to your limbs not working any more.
So is the thread about 40k? Or the real world?
Because I think most of us could agree that they are different and not that comparable.
Except it makes zero sense to train against Ork or especially tyranids in melee. The Ork is roughly equivalent to Marine in terms of raw strenght. Tyranid melee organisms are usually equipped with long blades on arms and superior reflexes. A normal, unaugumented human will have little to no chance deflecting an ork strike, or hitting with enough force to damage the ork in melee. They also won't be able to match the speed of an organism that actually has no survival instinct.
Training to match their natural skills in melee would be a collosal waste of time, might as well train the soldiers to grow armor-piercing teeth to deal with tau tanks.
If you assume normal laws of physics apply, a lasblast will have more kinetic energy than a bayonet, and will have better chance of de-arming said Ork than stabbing with a tiny blade.
If you assume normal laws of physics apply, a lasblast will have more kinetic energy than a bayonet, and will have better chance of de-arming said Ork than stabbing with a tiny blade.
This. Time spent drilling your standard guardsmen in the operation of their lasgun and on the firing range is better spent than time trying to train them how to use a bayonet against an Ork.
After all, if these drug crazed soldiers/monstrous fungus people/intergalactic bugs can shrug off lasgun fire whilst charging at you over open ground, why on earth would a knife be any more effective?
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CthuluIsSpy wrote: If you don't have time to shoot, trying to stab an Ork in the eye might buy you enough time to shoot, or for your buddy to shoot.
Not that guardsmen are even that well equipped for melee anyway. They are more shooty than stabby.
Shooting is squeezing a trigger whilst your weapon is pointing at the target. Stabbing (considering these guardsmen are going to be using a rifle mounted bayonet or else they are dropping their primary weapon) is thrusting your weapon at the target.
Both require that the barrel of your gun is pointing at your target. Difference is you aren't trying to make physical contact if you're shooting them which means you are more free to move, less likely to have your attack deflected, can just flick your weapon to automatic or just keep squeezing the trigger.
You can make a lot more attacks by shooting in the amount of time it takes to try and stab them.
Regarding the whole caliber discussion just as an more anecdotal point: I served as a paramedic during my conscription time and back then the Bundeswehr was almost done changing to the G36 (5.56mm) but there where still the older G3 (7.62 mm) around. There where some concerns if the smaller caliber would "do it", but on the whole the advantages where seen as dominant: the G36 was lighter, had larger magazines and much less recoil. The latter usually led to the point that you could be quite precise with the G36 even after a short training period or if you are not the physically strongest. Also with the G3 there had been instances were inexperienced users broke their colarbone due to the riflestock hitting it to hard because they did not put it firmly to their shoulder. Especially the precision thing was important as it was believed (I do not have a study on that, that's what I have been told) that it was more likely that a conscript could hit a target with the smaller caliber than with the larger. And "more stopping power" that can not hit the target is quite useless. And it was said, that the 5.56 was still more than capable to penetrate a helmet on a direct hit.
Due to the lower weight it was also possible to easily carry more reserve ammunition and even we paramedics all got a G36, as did a lot of the other "non fighting" personell. So you simply got more dudes having assault rifles, being able to use them with acceptable precision after shorter training length.
The lasgun is in my opinion that taken to the max: relativly light, sturdy, easy to handle, no recoil, easy to aim (as the shot goes straight, uninfluenced by wind and gravity). It does not really matter if it has not the stopping power of a boltgun, you can put it in the hand of an untrained civilian and he will quite likely hit SOMETHING, which he would not with a boltgun. And a hit with "low impact" is still better than a miss with a "high impact" gun.
I guess they get their melee training more for their normal assignments. They are propably more often deployed against other humans in which lots of the fighting is in huge cities with lots of close quarters and maybe against subhumans or weaker/primitive aliens than against Orks or Tyranids they have 0 chance against in melee anyway. If any of that general training gives them an extra 1% to take down an Ork with them in melee when they die its just a bonus and probably not something that shows up in the calculations for those higher up in command. Or it might do since even a rounding error could affect thousand or tens of thousands of soldiers lives at this scale.
Can also be a form of morale booster. If they think they have a chance that they dont actually have they might not flee as fast and hold the line better so someone else can shoot it dead. So even if they dont get to kill anything in melee them being trained and prepared for melee combat might still be worth it. At least they might fight slow down an ork 0,5s extra if they "grapple" instead of run.
pm713 wrote:I'd like those reading suggestions if you don't mind.
Ian Hogg's Military Small Arms of the 20th Century is a decent general overview, but is more focused on the histories of specific weapons than the field as a whole. If you can find them, the Smithsonian videotape interviews with Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov from 1988-1990 provide a great firsthand account of the development of intermediate-caliber small arms. A paper by Robert Hinrichs entitled 'Rifle Development, Standardization, and Procurement in the United States Military 1950-1967' is a solid overview of the transition from battle rifles to assault rifles.
I'll have to dig more because there are a lot of good but very specific books about particular subjects, weapons, or eras, but general overviews tend to fall into the pop-history category.
NinthMusketeer wrote:Thing is, melee 'reasonably' will exist and be something a combat force in the setting would likely be equipped and trained to deal with. Why? Because Daemons, Orks, and Tyranids exist and each have respective reasons to be preferential to melee.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:If you don't have time to shoot, trying to stab an Ork in the eye might buy you enough time to shoot, or for your buddy to shoot.
I think it is entirely plausible, in a setting full of melee combatants, to be prepared for that eventuality.
Here's the thing, though- if you have time to stab, you have time to shoot. A bayonet has to be aimed, so anytime the bayonet is on-target, the muzzle is as well. And it is much easier (and quicker) to pull a trigger from a convenient one to two meters away than to actually make contact against an enemy who is trying very hard to not get stabbed.
The bayonet's heyday as a weapon was when firearms had a low effective rate of fire, so you couldn't just shoot instead. And even then, when you look at the Thirty Years War, Napoleonic Wars, or American Civil War, a strong theme emerges: The bayonet was primarily a defense against cavalry, secondarily an implement to drive the charge home and break an enemy whose morale is wavering, and actual use as a weapon is somewhere below that.
Even in WW1, despite the bayonet featuring heavily in the public consciousness and artistic depictions, it was not actually frequently used- most trench raids involved short-ranged firefights more than hand-to-hand combat. Here's a quote from Pvt Frank Raine, 18 DLI (British Army), who fought at Marseilles and the Somme:
Well I never used a bayonet. I couldn’t face sticking a bayonet into anybody. I could’ve done it, but I didn’t do it. Safer shooting: I always used to say, if ever it comes to bayonet fighting, I’m having a bullet in the breach. And that’s what happened with me. Instead of going near enough to use your bayonet, you could kill him from two or three yards with a bullet – no personal contact. That appeared obvious.
By the end of WW1, Sturmtruppen outfitted for trench raiding weren't using bayonets; they carried stocked, drum-fed Luger pistols appropriated from the Artillery corps, the MP18 submachine gun, and grenades. Their American counterparts were gearing up with M1897 shotguns (initially equipped with a sword bayonet, but eventually dropped), Browning Automatic Rifles (no bayonet), and Thompson submachine guns (also no bayonet). With an automatic or semi-automatic firearm there just isn't a need for a knife to do damage when the weapon itself is far more capable, and that's even when the expectation was that these would be used in point-blank trench warfare.
If we were to fight 40K's melee-oriented aliens IRL, there is a snowball's chance in hell that we would start ditching rifles to take pistols and swords instead. We would focus on maintaining fire superiority whenever possible to deny their advantage in melee, and train in CQB so that troops know how to use their weapons in close quarters. Who'd favor getting within arm's reach of an Ork or Hormagaunt over shooting them from a safe(r) distance? Give me a carbine- with a bayonet only as a last resort.
Tyel wrote: You can then say "aha! they are immune to bullets" - but this just raises the question of "why wouldn't they be immune to swords?" If a 5.56mm bullet doesn't cut it, arm everyone with automatic elephant guns.
Precision. A melee combatant is much more likely to effectively hit weakpoints in the armour than a ranged attack, or to grapple and disable the enemy before targeting those weakpoints. Making the ranged weapons more powerful only works up to a point within the limitations of the technology of the time, before said weapons become impractical for a human to lug around as a personal weapon. If the armour protection can keep up and remain largely invulnerable to the ranged weaponry of common soldiery then melee remains viable.
Medieval men-at-arms generally required melee to shift because their armour and/or shields (depending on the time) provided great protection against the vast majority of ranged fire short of heavy weapons uncommn outside siege contexts. The same armour also made them very resistant to basically all melee weapons too, but melee combat allowed for hitting the joints and unarmoured areas much more reliably. This obviously didn't make ranged weaponry useless even against men-at-arms, but it left melee as the definitive option.
All it would really take to make melee a viable and frequent part of modern combat is a significant advancement in armour technology, although obviously heavy vehicle-mounted weapons are much mre prevalent and melee is unlikely to ever return to being the primary form of combat. You could argue this did happen with the invention of tanks- even in WWII, troops resorted to close-assault tactics to destroy tanks in the absence of heavy weapon support. This wasnt very effective, but trying to slap on explosives in melee had a better chance of destroying the tank than throwing them from a distance.
Edit to add: I think it is implausible that armour does catch up to firepower in a meaningful way, but in 40k, a premise of the setting is that it has.
Haighus wrote: Medieval men-at-arms generally required melee to shift because their armour and/or shields (depending on the time) provided great protection against the vast majority of ranged fire short of heavy weapons uncommn outside siege contexts.
The key difference being that the typical ranged weapons of the early medieval period- slings, bows, and throwing spears- were effectively melee weapons themselves, relying on the musculature of the human body to supply kinetic energy.
Once windlass-operated crossbows came onto the scene, common armor (mail) stopped being a practical defense against ranged fire. By the time the unreliable handgonnes had started to mature into the more useful arquebus, body armor was starting to disappear from the battlefield- the heavier muskets carried by specialists in the 1500s-1600s were capable of defeating any armor that then existed. By the end of the 1600s, no amount of armor could protect against even common firearms, and the last vestiges (eg the cuirass worn by European heavy cavalry into the 1800s) were, ironically, for protection against bayonets rather than bullets.
You need an awful lot of contrivance to explain why a bullet can't pierce fictional body armor, but a blade with a tiny fraction of the kinetic energy can- and then following on that, more contrivance to explain why the logical solution is to give someone a sword, rather than a captive bolt pistol. Because even if the optimal weapon profile just so happens to be a blade, spear, or club for some reason, we have much better ways of delivering kinetic energy than relying on human musculature.
pm713 wrote:I'd like those reading suggestions if you don't mind.
Ian Hogg's Military Small Arms of the 20th Century is a decent general overview, but is more focused on the histories of specific weapons than the field as a whole. If you can find them, the Smithsonian videotape interviews with Eugene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov from 1988-1990 provide a great firsthand account of the development of intermediate-caliber small arms. A paper by Robert Hinrichs entitled 'Rifle Development, Standardization, and Procurement in the United States Military 1950-1967' is a solid overview of the transition from battle rifles to assault rifles.
I'll have to dig more because there are a lot of good but very specific books about particular subjects, weapons, or eras, but general overviews tend to fall into the pop-history category.
NinthMusketeer wrote:Thing is, melee 'reasonably' will exist and be something a combat force in the setting would likely be equipped and trained to deal with. Why? Because Daemons, Orks, and Tyranids exist and each have respective reasons to be preferential to melee.
CthuluIsSpy wrote:If you don't have time to shoot, trying to stab an Ork in the eye might buy you enough time to shoot, or for your buddy to shoot.
I think it is entirely plausible, in a setting full of melee combatants, to be prepared for that eventuality.
Here's the thing, though- if you have time to stab, you have time to shoot. A bayonet has to be aimed, so anytime the bayonet is on-target, the muzzle is as well. And it is much easier (and quicker) to pull a trigger from a convenient one to two meters away than to actually make contact against an enemy who is trying very hard to not get stabbed.
The bayonet's heyday as a weapon was when firearms had a low effective rate of fire, so you couldn't just shoot instead. And even then, when you look at the Thirty Years War, Napoleonic Wars, or American Civil War, a strong theme emerges: The bayonet was primarily a defense against cavalry, secondarily an implement to drive the charge home and break an enemy whose morale is wavering, and actual use as a weapon is somewhere below that.
Even in WW1, despite the bayonet featuring heavily in the public consciousness and artistic depictions, it was not actually frequently used- most trench raids involved short-ranged firefights more than hand-to-hand combat. Here's a quote from Pvt Frank Raine, 18 DLI (British Army), who fought at Marseilles and the Somme:
Well I never used a bayonet. I couldn’t face sticking a bayonet into anybody. I could’ve done it, but I didn’t do it. Safer shooting: I always used to say, if ever it comes to bayonet fighting, I’m having a bullet in the breach. And that’s what happened with me. Instead of going near enough to use your bayonet, you could kill him from two or three yards with a bullet – no personal contact. That appeared obvious.
By the end of WW1, Sturmtruppen outfitted for trench raiding weren't using bayonets; they carried stocked, drum-fed Luger pistols appropriated from the Artillery corps, the MP18 submachine gun, and grenades. Their American counterparts were gearing up with M1897 shotguns (initially equipped with a sword bayonet, but eventually dropped), Browning Automatic Rifles (no bayonet), and Thompson submachine guns (also no bayonet). With an automatic or semi-automatic firearm there just isn't a need for a knife to do damage when the weapon itself is far more capable, and that's even when the expectation was that these would be used in point-blank trench warfare.
If we were to fight 40K's melee-oriented aliens IRL, there is a snowball's chance in hell that we would start ditching rifles to take pistols and swords instead. We would focus on maintaining fire superiority whenever possible to deny their advantage in melee, and train in CQB so that troops know how to use their weapons in close quarters. Who'd favor getting within arm's reach of an Ork or Hormagaunt over shooting them from a safe(r) distance? Give me a carbine- with a bayonet only as a last resort.
To be fair, a melee weapon also has the advantage of being defensive- you can block enemy melee attacks. Of course, you can do this with a rifle without a bayonet, but having more reach is an advantage in melee. The examples of 40k bayonets we have are also quite clearly meant to be effective cutters (especially Cadian and Vostroyan bayonets) so potentially they would be able to make big, incapacitating cuts like lopping off an arm from an attacker. Of course, this still only makes sense in a context where your enemy is determined to push into melee and can reasonably shrug off your gunfire, to the extent they can reach melee relatively frequently. So basically against Orks, Daemons and Tyranids in particular. Against power armoured foes a very pointy bayonet optimised for thrusting would likely be the better bet, although frankly the only way I could see normal humans successfully taking down a power armoured Marine with bayonets is to somehow overwhelm them in a mass grapple and try and cut as many wire and cables as possible.
Melee weapons being both defensive and offensive in nature is something that makes them distinct from purely offensive firearms. A gun is only able to offend the enemy, it cannot protect you directly from an enemy blow (unless it is being used as a bad melee weapon).
Haighus wrote: Medieval men-at-arms generally required melee to shift because their armour and/or shields (depending on the time) provided great protection against the vast majority of ranged fire short of heavy weapons uncommn outside siege contexts.
The key difference being that the typical ranged weapons of the early medieval period- slings, bows, and throwing spears- were effectively melee weapons themselves, relying on the musculature of the human body to supply kinetic energy.
Once windlass-operated crossbows came onto the scene, armor stopped being a practical defense against ranged fire. By the time the unreliable handgonnes had started to mature into the more useful arquebus, body armor was starting to disappear from the battlefield- the heavier muskets carried by specialists in the 1500s-1600s were capable of defeating any armor that then existed. By the end of the 1600s, armor was no longer protection against common firearms, and the last vestiges (eg the cuirass worn by European heavy cavalry into the 1800s) were, ironically, for protection against bayonets rather than bullets.
You need an awful lot of contrivance to explain why a bullet can't pierce fictional body armor, but a blade with a tiny fraction of the kinetic energy can- and then following on that, more contrivance to explain why the logical solution is to give someone a sword, rather than a captive bolt pistol. Because even if the optimal weapon profile just so happens to be a blade, spear, or club for some reason, we have much better ways of delivering kinetic energy than relying on human musculature.
Except this is not born out by the historical record. For a start, guns arrived in Europe before plate armour- plate armour has always been designed with firearms in mind as a potential threat. Windlass (and crannequin) crossbows were also outlasted by plate in widespread use, and the best plate armour was proof* against arquebus at even point-blank range. 16th century muskets (which were much larger than later muskets) were specifically developed as heavy anti-armour weapons, and these large early muskets never fully supplanted arquebus during the period high-quality plate was still widespread- they were mainly light support guns. In wars where plate was widespread, the proportion of muskets relative to arquebus did increase (such as in Flanders).
Despite all these powerful ranged weapons existing, armour use continued to increase through the 15th and first half of the 16th century, and melee remained as important as before. Windlass crossbows certainly were not able to supplant plate armour- knights even largely stopped carrying shields as pointless extra weight during the time heavy crossbows were around. If crossbows were making plate ineffective, knights would have continued using shields.
The French Cuirassiers of the Napleonic wars actually still wore breastplates proofed against musket shot, at close range. Admittedly, by this point weight considerations meant there was no limb armour, but there are accounts of cuirassier armour resisting fire from infantry they are engaging at close range at Waterloo. Obviously there is also the famous example of the Waterloo breastplate rent open by a field gun shot, but field artillery has always been a much bigger threat.
There are strong arguments to be made that socio-economic factors lead to the decline of plate armour during the 16th and 17th century, not purely military effectiveness factors. A significant part of why muskets got smaller again is because they didn't have to contend with effective heavy armour as much.
Melee combat against plate is not really about penetrating it though, it is about targeting weak points, usually by disabling the human wearing it. Grappling techniques were a huge part of medieval martial arts because they allowed a fighter to disable an armoured opponent, and then either make them yield or stick a dagger through a joint. A lot of weapons favoured by men-at-arms were favoured partially because they gave advantages in grapples, like the poleaxe. In other words, the advantage of melee against opponents too well armoured for your ranged firepower to reliably defeat is the precision of being able to target the weak points with a variety of methods. Ranged weapons could sometimes hit a joint or a vision slit, but not reliably.
However, people still need to be able to move and fight in armour, so it is very hard to remove these weakpoints entirely even with improving technology.
*For the most part- the lack of modern quality control meant that almost anything could occasionally get lucky and pierce a supposedly top-quality plate.
If the armour protection can keep up and remain largely invulnerable to the ranged weaponry of common soldiery then melee remains viable.
And that's why full suit of armor made a knight nearly impenetrable to melee attacks that didn't involve spikes and warhammers, whereas it shrunk into a cuiraisse during early gunpowder era and disappeared completely around 1914. And it stil doesn't solve the 40k problem of hulking green monsters that can take any amount of precision hits with a bayonet before going down. It can swing it's weapon faster than a human (muscles=speed, no matter what fantasy novels tell you), it can deliver stronger blow that will be impossible to parry by a human, and it has almost no weak points compared to a human. Oh, and it has longer arms thanks to it's apelike posture, so it has the reach advantage in melee. It'd be like fencing a grizzly bear, good luck with that.
catbarf wrote: By the end of WW1, Sturmtruppen outfitted for trench raiding weren't using bayonets; they carried stocked, drum-fed Luger pistols appropriated from the Artillery corps, the MP18 submachine gun, and grenades. Their American counterparts were gearing up with M1897 shotguns (initially equipped with a sword bayonet, but eventually dropped), Browning Automatic Rifles (no bayonet), and Thompson submachine guns (also no bayonet). With an automatic or semi-automatic firearm there just isn't a need for a knife to do damage when the weapon itself is far more capable, and that's even when the expectation was that these would be used in point-blank trench warfare.
I've heard a lot of soldiers who sharpened their trenching shovels for that purpose, too, because they were just rifleman who didn't have any of those guns. Interestingly, the Germans tried to get shotguns banned and threatened to chop off the hand of any soldier found with shotgun shells on their person if captured.
In the close quarters of a trench, a shotgun can be dreadfully effective, and we have fully automatic shotguns available today. Modern warfare doesn't face a lot of trenches, but they do include a lot of indoor and cave fighting, which isn't that dissimilar in ranges to the trenches.
In 40K, this translates to the shotguns and carbines having shorter ranges, but also being Assault versus the "standard" small arms of the rifles like the Lasrifles (though the Boltguns were carried like SMGs and Carbines). Of course, that was when moving and shooting with Rapid Fire really curtailed your range abilities.
I seem to recall a passage in a book, which could have been from an old IG codex, the infantryman's primer, or a novel, a passage in which a medic was patching a dressing on top of a lethal sound so that the sufferer could 'get back in the fight'. The point of it being that the medic knew that it was a mortal wound, but not an immediately lethal one. To shore up the OP's point about the ineffectiveness of danger combat.
But I agree with a later posted that wounds in 40k should be looked at as critical wounding, not an outright killing blow.
I'm a bit confused by the folks who are saying armour isn't a thing anymore. Do Kevlar vests and other body armour like things not factor in? What about full on riot gear?
Blndmage wrote: I'm a bit confused by the folks who are saying armour isn't a thing anymore. Do Kevlar vests and other body armour like things not factor in? What about full on riot gear?
Body armor capable of stopping rifle rounds has only become a thing in the last two decades. Kevlar vests don't stop rifle rounds and never have. Riot gear doesn't stop even pistol bullets; it's meant to guard against thrown rocks and bottles.
So nowadays you need NIJ Level III armor to stop intermediate-caliber rifle rounds, or Level IV to stop armor-piercing rifle rounds. A single 10x12 plate of AR500 steel to cover your abdomen, with a thickness sufficient for Level III, weighs around eight pounds. If you go with ceramic plates instead, they're lighter, but can be broken by a sharp blow, and must be discarded after successfully stopping a round.
If you catch a rifle round on the plate, it'll knock you on your ass- better than being dead, but there's a good chance you might crack a rib and wind up a casualty anyways. If you take a hit that clips a major artery in the neck, arm, shoulder, or leg, the armor won't help. Or you might get shot in the face, and so far there's no way to armor that. Happens a lot when people take cover and the only thing really exposed is their head. I'm not aware of any ballistic helmet that can stop an armor-piercing rifle round at high velocity.
The point being that while you can get body armor today that will stop basic battlefield threats, the amount of your body you can feasibly have protected is small, so it's not something you can count on. Level III/IV plates are thick and inflexible, and just generally suck to wear- there's a legitimate case to be made that in many situations, the immobility and weight of body armor outweighs the protection it provides. Special forces tend to stay lightweight for this reason- if you look up photos of, say, Navy SEALs, they're usually wearing just a compact plate carrier and a lightweight helmet intended to stop fragmentation and pistol rounds.
So, yeah, while materials science continues to improve and there are some novel technologies on the horizon, body armor is not the bulwark it was in the medieval era. Modern combat is all about avoiding getting shot, and equipment that compromises a soldier's ability to do that ends up sitting in the FOB.
most "bulletproof" vest would be perforated by most readily available rifle FMJ projectiles. Add in a solid penetrator(steel, tungsten, depleted uranium) and most man portable defensive gear is basically ineffective. you might as well be an Ork with all the tshirt saves you'll need to make.
Also, if you've ever been shot and take a hit to the vest, it's more akin to having a roided-up Jose Canseco take a bash brothers swing at your chest. which for all intents and purposes, is what happens kinetic energy wise. scale it up to .75, add in mass-reactive self guided rocket propelled projectiles and boom. But 40k has such things a power armour, rosarius, divine intervention so melee will still be a necessity. cuz, ya know, someone made this all up...on purpose!
Blndmage wrote: I'm a bit confused by the folks who are saying armour isn't a thing anymore. Do Kevlar vests and other body armour like things not factor in? What about full on riot gear?
Depends on what the armor is for. Body armor these days, at least for most modern militaries, is usually designed to be effective against fast moving kinetic penetrators like bullets or shrapnel. It's not that great against slower piercing and stabbing weapons. I suppose it would provide token protection against light slashing weapons, but a solid combat knife wielded by the average dude stands a reasonable chance at penetrating the vest.
But knives aren't what we encounter. Shrapnel is far, far more concerning, as one piece of shrapnel getting in the wrong place can spell the end. By comparison, direct fire is far less concerning, because humans are rather small targets at range, and they get harder to hit when they start shooting back at you. Artillery on the other hand pretty much punches everyone in the face in a wide radius, often exploding above the ground to shower you with light dainty kisses. Hence the Kevlar helmet and jacket.
One thing to consider is that we simply don't encounter anything like what 40k has. We train to fight against human armies. Things like swarms of hormagaunts aren't exactly a threat on the modern battlefield. If, say, housecats decided to go on millions strong rampaging hordes every now and then, we'd probably develop some very nasty solutions.
Ranged combat would still be the focus though. Ranged combat is the only really effective way to conduct a defense-in-depth. Not to mention, it's really exhausting to run across the battlefield, fight in close combat, then do it over and over again. Rather shoot, really.
I seem to recall reading that wearing body armour today to stop bullets can end up weighing more than a full suit of plate armour.
Another important factor to consider is that battles are a lot longer in duration now. You might be patrolling and fighting and then patrolling again in that armour. Granted you can jump in a car for some of it, but you might spend far longer active in a battle situation.
Whilst in the past the battle would be brutal and bloody, but often as not it would be over in hours because after a certain point both sides are exhausted. Eventually you pull back and lick your wounds and regroup.
Special forces groups might even spend days or weeks out on a mission; so not only have they got to carry weapons and armour, but also survival gear, food water etc.... So, again, weight becomes a huge factor.
Exosuits (power armour) from what I gather aren't even being looked at in that context, far too complex for a battle situation as if anything breaks you're totally out of action until you strip it off. Then you've left high tech equipment in the field or you've got to be rescued and pulled out. Though I've heard that they are looking at them for mobile bases to replace forklift trucks and such. So that you can have much smaller and more rugged terrain setups. Helicopters and Harriers and such which need very small staging areas can then have a mobile base setup very fast and you've got people in power suits who can lift the weapons and armour and fuel into place even if the ground under foot is rough.
The IOTV with plates ect weighed in at 35 lbs or more.
It's been several years so I can't remember exactly.
All I recall is I wanted one is size medium or large but was issued one in a size too big and it was extremely frustrating. Ideally you want armor to be a little small, more snug fitting than loose fitting.
If it doesn't fit correctly it just makes everything more difficult to do. I want to say I remember the plates were suppose to stop a 7.62 but they would need to be replaced as soon as possible if it took a hit.
Overread wrote: I seem to recall reading that wearing body armour today to stop bullets can end up weighing more than a full suit of plate armour.
Another important factor to consider is that battles are a lot longer in duration now. You might be patrolling and fighting and then patrolling again in that armour. Granted you can jump in a car for some of it, but you might spend far longer active in a battle situation.
Whilst in the past the battle would be brutal and bloody, but often as not it would be over in hours because after a certain point both sides are exhausted. Eventually you pull back and lick your wounds and regroup.
Special forces groups might even spend days or weeks out on a mission; so not only have they got to carry weapons and armour, but also survival gear, food water etc.... So, again, weight becomes a huge factor.
Exosuits (power armour) from what I gather aren't even being looked at in that context, far too complex for a battle situation as if anything breaks you're totally out of action until you strip it off. Then you've left high tech equipment in the field or you've got to be rescued and pulled out. Though I've heard that they are looking at them for mobile bases to replace forklift trucks and such. So that you can have much smaller and more rugged terrain setups. Helicopters and Harriers and such which need very small staging areas can then have a mobile base setup very fast and you've got people in power suits who can lift the weapons and armour and fuel into place even if the ground under foot is rough.
Well realistically - if you have the tech to make an exosuit - you have the tech to make it totally automated. Ether by remote or autonomous. The future of combat is probably going to be full of robots.
the ancient wrote: Most of you are the problem these days.
Oh my .005 mil of whatever is awesome. Yours isnt.
Same with GW. Theyve forgotten how to joke as well.
Otherwise thered be a Jorus Bronsun, who caused the great rift,.
Or the Suchess Megiahan and Haruid. Who ran away from the hive when things got tough.
the ancient wrote: Most of you are the problem these days.
Oh my .005 mil of whatever is awesome. Yours isnt.
Same with GW. Theyve forgotten how to joke as well.
Otherwise thered be a Jorus Bronsun, who caused the great rift,.
Or the Suchess Megiahan and Haruid. Who ran away from the hive when things got tough.
I suspect Orks are the reason we see melee in 40k.
They’re hard wired for close combat. Much as a nice loud gun is desired, a big choppa and satisfying wet crunches are more desired.
Consider their numbers, and how hard (background wise) they are to keep down.
They’re super numerous in the Galaxy, so your troops will need more than basic HTH training to deal with them.
And Space Marine HTH specialists exist because of their entire ethos - horrific, maximum violence in a single strike. They’re not just there to kill, they’re there to kill so spectacularly and overwhelmingly enemy morale plummets.
They’re hard wired for close combat. Much as a nice loud gun is desired, a big choppa and satisfying wet crunches are more desired.
Consider their numbers, and how hard (background wise) they are to keep down.
They’re super numerous in the Galaxy, so your troops will need more than basic HTH training to deal with them.
And Space Marine HTH specialists exist because of their entire ethos - horrific, maximum violence in a single strike. They’re not just there to kill, they’re there to kill so spectacularly and overwhelmingly enemy morale plummets.
It's a real shame GW didn't give more ranges weapons to Ork boys. I'd take Orks with bolters or shootas with nearly the same profile if it were still available. I've found Ork shooting lists that I have played have done much better than I had expected and I'd like more of that. I was fielding a lot of shoota boys at the end of last edition and shoota boys in trukks were doing well this edition prior to the codex. Don't know if that sort of thing would still work, haven't played a game with the new codex yet.
I'm almost tempted to start a guard army if I ever start a new army or play again. A superior hand to hand army. Fix bayonets! Charge!
OP seems to have missed WW1 completely. They tried what he suggested many times. Complete with the captain executing anyone who refused to go over the top.
In fact the whole schtick of the Imperial Guard and their stupid commanders and Commisars is a skit on the idiotic British Generals of WW1. The Germans called the British "Lions led by Donkeys". Watch a series called Black Adder Goes Forth on the web - you can easily imagine it being set in an Imperial Guard Bunker!
Gareth_Evans wrote: OP seems to have missed WW1 completely. They tried what he suggested many times. Complete with the captain executing anyone who refused to go over the top.
In fact the whole schtick of the Imperial Guard and their stupid commanders and Commisars is a skit on the idiotic British Generals of WW1. The Germans called the British "Lions led by Donkeys". Watch a series called Black Adder Goes Forth on the web - you can easily imagine it being set in an Imperial Guard Bunker!
Just bring tissues for the last episode.
Personally I've always thought it's a mix of terror tactics from Marines and you may as well train some people for melee as Eldar, Dark Eldar, Orks and later Tyranids are definitely going to use close combat.
Gareth_Evans wrote: OP seems to have missed WW1 completely. They tried what he suggested many times. Complete with the captain executing anyone who refused to go over the top.
In fact the whole schtick of the Imperial Guard and their stupid commanders and Commisars is a skit on the idiotic British Generals of WW1. The Germans called the British "Lions led by Donkeys". Watch a series called Black Adder Goes Forth on the web - you can easily imagine it being set in an Imperial Guard Bunker!
Eh, 'lions led by donkeys' is more myth than fact, stemming from the overwhelming majority of accounts of WW1 coming from enlisted. Even maligned generals like Haig learned over the course of the war and replaced obsolete doctrine with novel advances in tactics- human wave attacks were dropped after 1914-1915, replaced with fire-and-maneuver, aerial bombing, night raids, and machine gun barrage in support of infantry. These generals were pioneers in the development of modern combined-arms warfare.
In many cases, decisions which appeared, to the men, to be acts of incompetence were borne out of greater strategic necessity. For example, Haig was forced to order the attack at the Somme a month and a half earlier than he wanted, before complete artillery support was available, because the French Army was on the brink of revolt at Verdun and desperately needed relief. To his men, this seemed like an act of idiocy- the fact that the French Army was in danger of giving up entirely was most certainly not public knowledge.
If anything, it was the French insistence on the élan vital that drove their use of mass infantry assault. But when later supplemented by creeping barrage, gas, and aerial reconnaissance, they saw much greater success. The French offensives at Verdun from October to December of 1916 were, in their own right, surprisingly modern military strategy, and ultimately won the battle.
Blackadder is a great watch; just... keep in mind it's fiction.
All that said, you are right; direct human wave attacks don't work against WW1-era weaponry, let alone modern.
Gareth_Evans wrote:OP seems to have missed WW1 completely. They tried what he suggested many times. Complete with the captain executing anyone who refused to go over the top.
In fact the whole schtick of the Imperial Guard and their stupid commanders and Commisars is a skit on the idiotic British Generals of WW1. The Germans called the British "Lions led by Donkeys". Watch a series called Black Adder Goes Forth on the web - you can easily imagine it being set in an Imperial Guard Bunker!
For that matter, watch all of them.
Also, ranged combat is great...its called artillery!
100 meters? Why are you standing so close to your enemy? The internet just told me this:
The AK-47 and AKM, with the 7.62×39mm cartridge, have a maximum effective range of around 400 meters (1,300 ft) and can travel up to 800 meters (2,600 ft).
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: And Space Marine HTH specialists exist because of their entire ethos - horrific, maximum violence in a single strike. They’re not just there to kill, they’re there to kill so spectacularly and overwhelmingly enemy morale plummets.
More proof that the Eighth Legion is the best legion.
Our ability to kill with ranged weaponry has massively increased since then. As an example, on the first day of the battle of the Somme the British suffered ~57,000 casualties, of which ~19,000 were killed.
That was only 3 years after the end of the Moro rebellion. Since then we have developed machine guns with much higher rates of fire, more powerful explosive ordnance, nuclear weapons etc.
Heavy weapons existed back then too. Like back then, today too there are situations when you can't have or your heavy weapons are disabled or used against you. Vietnam is a great example of modern conflict where melee is very feasible and modern military force could be slaughtered by a better motivated and prepared enemy fighting on their home ground.
I have. That's why I made the comment I did.
You are writing fictional posts about a fictional subject.
There is nothing that can be offered as real-world examples that will prove or disprove your point.
I'm not entirely sure what your point is, to be honest, but I think it's that melee is more powerful than shooting in general (and that this can be applied to the fictional 40k universe).
Because this is half-joking, half serious thread which combines modern day realism with stuff that exist in W40k. People automatically believe that when you are shot by modern rifle, you are pretty much dead. People believe with absolute faith that no melee is possible and modern firepower is absolute. I want to challenge that faith. Though, your faith in your flas...lasgun is commendable guardsmen!
I'd like those reading suggestions if you don't mind.
Certainly, I'm attaching perfect example of most recent lore where melee is displayed realistically. These are veteran guardsmen entrenched in mountain next to choke point with unlimited ammunition and plenty of heavy weapons. They are fighting that is essentially simple humans who charge them over range through killing zone into melee charging them from extreme range with no cover. No tricks. No futuristic tech. Just simple, caveman age technology vs modern firepower. In this story guardsmen get destroyed hard by their attackers. Listen in order to understand why melee is so effective in W40k and can be in ours too.
Ernestas wrote: Heavy weapons existed back then too. Like back then, today too there are situations when you can't have or your heavy weapons are disabled or used against you.
The US troops in the Philippines didn't have 'heavy weapons' (what passed for heavy weapons at the time- field artillery pieces and early crew-served machine guns are NOT comparable to modern belt-feds issued on a platoon basis).
They still had an incredibly lopsided kill ratio.
Ernestas wrote: Vietnam is a great example of modern conflict where melee is very feasible and modern military force could be slaughtered by nothing more than savages with clubs.
No it isn't. Melee combat did not happen with any kind of regularity in Vietnam, even in conditions perfectly suited to it. Jungle warfare in Vietnam wasn't even particularly different (in terrain) from jungle warfare in the Philippines, and we already know how that went.
This is nonsense. Where are you getting your information?
Ernestas wrote: I'm attaching perfect example of most recent lore where melee is displayed realistically. These are veteran guardsmen entrenched in mountain next to choke point with unlimited ammunition and plenty of heavy weapons. They are fighting that is essentially simple humans who charge them over range through killing zone into melee charging them from extreme range with no cover. No tricks. No futuristic tech. Just simple, caveman age technology vs modern firepower. In this story guardsmen get destroyed hard by their attackers. Listen in order to understand why melee is so effective in W40k and can be in ours too.
What about it? I'll summarize so nobody else has to sit through it.
-Hordes of Genestealer-controlled civilians attack a Guard defensive position as a human wave, and are cut down en-masse without effect.
-The narrator says that they can hold them off indefinitely, despite the incredible degree to which they are outnumbered.
-The civilians throw themselves from a nearby cliff onto the defensive lines, breaking things on impact and clogging it up with their bodies.
-The narrator sees this and shoots himself.
So, what can we take from this? Even in GSC-centric 40K fiction, human wave attacks don't work, and it takes the Guard building their defensive position with an incredibly obvious weakness for an alternative strategy to work.
It might as well have been a couple of Pashtuns with hand grenades. Literally nothing in that excerpt provides a justification for human wave attacks being effective.
It might as well have been a couple of Pashtuns with hand grenades. Literally nothing in that excerpt provides a justification for human wave attacks being effective.
like i said, Wave assaults have been preetty ineffective on their own for some time and probably will be until we are at a point were we can once again outnumber bullets casually with no supply issues at all.
Infiltration assault tactics on the other hand can work.
What about it? I'll summarize so nobody else has to sit through it.
-Hordes of Genestealer-controlled civilians attack a Guard defensive position as a human wave, and are cut down en-masse without effect. -The narrator says that they can hold them off indefinitely, despite the incredible degree to which they are outnumbered. -The civilians throw themselves from a nearby cliff onto the defensive lines, breaking things on impact and clogging it up with their bodies. -The narrator sees this and shoots himself.
So, what can we take from this? Even in GSC-centric 40K fiction, human wave attacks don't work, and it takes the Guard building their defensive position with an incredibly obvious weakness for an alternative strategy to work.
It might as well have been a couple of Pashtuns with hand grenades. Literally nothing in that excerpt provides a justification for human wave attacks being effective.
I'm not sure if we had listened to a same video. It proved that despite having every advantage, completely melee force just overpowered modern style army.
-There was a massive effect of those human wave effects which you utterly had missed. Psychological. -That is misunderstanding the context. -This tactic was extremely effective. -Thus human wave assault won. It had its desired effect.
The US troops in the Philippines didn't have 'heavy weapons' (what passed for heavy weapons at the time- field artillery pieces and early crew-served machine guns are NOT comparable to modern belt-feds issued on a platoon basis).
They still had an incredibly lopsided kill ratio.
Those weapons were issued in widespread use from the moment they became practical and yes, they are comparable in effectiveness when they are firing.
Furthermore, these kill ratios are not lopsided. They are in fact favorable. You see, I do not count bugs which I crush beneath my boot as an act of violence as they are utterly beneath my consideration. I do not count how much oxygen soldiers will consume on their mission as it is utterly pointless. I do not count how much ammo soldiers will fire in war as ammunition is just too easily to replace. You count such silly things in order to justify your own pointless beliefs. People who often are sent into melee in W40k are not soldiers. In whatever faction they are so beneath the notice of their betters that my previous comparisons holds true. Chaos slavemasters will send their slaves just to see them being ripped to shreds as it amuses them. Tyranids will create literal mountains of dead hormogaunts as they are so cheap. Ork mere boys should be considered more as a symptom of Ork spores rather than an actual combatant. They are in Ork society as kids are in ours. They might one day become something of value, but for all intents and purposes they are utterly and completely useless and no matter how many you kill, the biggest impact they will have in their misreable lives is when they die and seed surrounding countryside with dozen more Orks.
No it isn't. Melee combat did not happen with any kind of regularity in Vietnam, even in conditions perfectly suited to it. Jungle warfare in Vietnam wasn't even particularly different (in terrain) from jungle warfare in the Philippines, and we already know how that went.
This is nonsense. Where are you getting your information?
Sigh, not melee combat. Engagement ranges. Lack of heavy firepower. That argument is to prove that there are plenty of wars where it is impossible to control engagement ranges or use superior range, accuracy and optics in real war.
Okay, so I gather you are not particularly familiar with firearms. That's fine.
Raw caliber tells you very little- that's just the diameter of the projectile. It says nothing about the shape of the projectile, its mass or the energy behind it. Kinetic energy is a more useful measure
The .38-caliber revolver in question, which was somewhat ineffective against the Moros (as Vaktathi said, lots of it was hearsay from guys who missed their targets) was firing .38 Long Colt, which is a 125gr projectile traveling at 235m/s, for an energy of 224J.
.45ACP, the round that replaced it, is a 230gr projectile traveling at 255m/s, for an energy of 483J.
9x19 NATO- also .38-caliber- is a 124gr projectile traveling at 373m/s, for an energy of 560J. It's more powerful than .45ACP despite being a .38-caliber round.
And .223, the most common modern rifle caliber, is a 55gr projectile at 990m/s, for an energy of a whopping 1,715J.
The stopping power myth is the idea that raw caliber is the most important thing in terminal effect. It has been soundly debunked, over and over again, for the past fifty years, and the holdouts are people who simply refuse to accept the evidence.
You continuously ignore my points. When it comes to stopping power sheer kinetic energy does not matter, size does. Medieval cannon ball might have as much kinetic energy as a modern bullet, but I won't believe that even you will argue that getting directly hit by a cannon ball will have less convincing power for you to stop than a modern bullet. You have a right mind when you mention qualities of a round itself, but largely they are irrelevant and most bullets are designed for ballistic performance and thus they are pretty much identical. You also ignore one of the reason why rifles were replaced by assault rifles. Their larger, more powerful rounds were too powerful to for their intended targets. In a very same way why some anti tank guns were not used, because they would just overpenetrate their intended targets.
In June 2010, the U.S. Army announced it began shipping its new 5.56mm, lead-free, M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round to active combat zones.[141] This upgrade is designed to maximize performance of the 5.56×45mm round, to extend range, improve accuracy, increase penetration and to consistently fragment in soft-tissue when fired from not only standard length M16s, but also the short-barreled M4 carbines
When I dig little further:
It uses the same components as the M855-a jacket, a penetrator, and a metal slug. But the new round contains some subtle changes (see Figure 1). The copper cup, from which the jacket is formed, is reverse-drawn, the opposite of how the M855 jacket is drawn. The hardened steel penetrator is almost twice as heavy as the one used in the M855 and is fully exposed instead of hiding beneath the softer copper jacket.
So, this round has doubled its cap size. What is a massive departure from what previous round was designed to do thus proving my point that new rounds are designed for penetration effect and not soft tissue damage. Article expands deeper on how new round is better, mostly its improvements are tied with more predictable performance which makes round more dependable. Also, improvements in manufacturing and eco friendliness. Considerable portion of soldiers had expressed that their 0.223 caliber lacks stopping power. This is why military improves ammunition which it gives out and considers increasing caliber of their main small arms.
Also no, 0.223 exhibit yawning behavior like all projectiles do. It is more tied to quality of ammunition.
One of the most popular calibers for concealed carry handguns is .380, 9mm (also a .38-cal, but with more powder than .380) is the most common handgun cartridge in the world, and .45 is increasingly unpopular (often referred to as '.45 AARP' because the guys willingly carrying it are almost universally over 60 and have no idea what they're doing), so no. Where did you even get that?
Article briefly touches people concerns with high calibers. Furthermore, you are moving debate goals here. 0.38 cal is a proof that people prefer higher calibers for their stopping power. Now you suddenly ignore an entire argument and somehow to you 0.38 cal is the same as 0.223 cal.
Yeah, that's called 'missing the target'. And the answer to what you do when another comes is 'reload'.
If a small force of Americans could hold off a much greater force of Moros, in unfavorable terrain, armed with poor weapons for the task (ever try reloading a double-action revolver under stress?), what makes you think a modern force with modern weaponry would be less effective?
That is called "hitting your target". You assume ideal conditions where everyone is calm, have time to aim their individual shots. These are not combat conditions nor how human psyche operates. Why modern force would be less effective? Because their weapons have less stopping power than before. Though, not exactly because of introduction of automatic fire. That argument was more to show that existing stopping power is insufficient against suitably determined foe by W40k standards.
Because the rifle carrying it is more effective in every way, even in close combat.
That is sadly a myth. Rifle is long, it requires aiming. It is difficult to quickly shift your angle of attack. It also requires reloading. There is a reason why we have an entirely separate class of guns specially designed for close quarters. Typical melee armament is some sort of sword and a pistol. Pistol is quicker to aim if it comes to duel over range and a sword is superior in close quarters in cutting down enemy opponent. It has wider arc of attack, it is more deadly, it has far greater psychological impact, it doesn't need to reload, it is infinitely more reliable and it can provide intimate defense where assault rifle is next to useless when opponent stands right next to you.
They were carrying commercial-bought shotguns, weapons intended for hunting birds. Nobody on a modern battlefield who has the option takes a shotgun over a carbine- they exist purely as specialized breaching tools and for firing less-lethal ammunition. A modern day rifle is objectively better than a modern shotgun in close quarters, let alone a vintage side-by-side or M1897.
It is like saying that bullets from previous age doesn't hurt. Like I had established previously, when technology matures sufficiently, there aren't any revolutionary improvements made anymore. Modern weapons are more efficient, but they do not have those God like differences in performance which you keep on claiming. In addition, your arguments are disingenuous. That shotgun was a standard army issue weapon.
That is not how pulse lasers work. Please, just, go read a Wikipedia entry or something. They don't work by evaporation. They're not severely impacted by atmospheric conditions. You might as well be arguing that bullets don't work in the rain because the bullets will get knocked off course.
Look, I mean this in the nicest possible way: You do not really understand what you are talking about. Can I give you some reading suggestions on the evolution of military small arms design if this is something you're interested in?
I did read and they are severely impacted by atmospheric conditions. In fact these are major limitations of even existing laser weaponary which we have and want to use today. Furthermore, as power increases so does various physical effects.
Sigh, not melee combat. Engagement ranges. Lack of heavy firepower. That argument is to prove that there are plenty of wars where it is impossible to control engagement ranges or use superior range, accuracy and optics in real war.
What measurement are you using to justify your argument that the US was lacking heavy firepower in Vietnam? Infantry had weapons like the M60 and M16 which massively increased their potential firepower over previous conflicts (Korea and WW2). They also had helicopter support, also equipped with M60s. The US dropped over 3 times as many bombs in the Vietnam war than it did over both theatres of WW2. They had fething Napalm.
I'm failing to see "lack of heavy firepower" in the US's approach to the Vietnam conflict. The failure of the US military in Vietnam was political and doctrinal. The focus on kills as the measure of success of operations etc. was misguided and contributed to the mindsets of command which led to atrocities like My Lai. The revelation of those kinds of atrocities absolutely tanked support for the war back home, which was already pretty low to begin with once the US casualties started to tick up, which had the knock on effect of damaging the morale of the US forces (not gonna feel happy that you're stuck halfway round the world because you got unlucky in a lottery and to top it off when you get home you get lumped in with people who massacred women and children).
Ernestas wrote: I'm not sure if we had listened to a same video. It proved that despite having every advantage, completely melee force just overpowered modern style army.
-There was a massive effect of those human wave effects which you utterly had missed. Psychological.
-That is misunderstanding the context.
-This tactic was extremely effective.
-Thus human wave assault won. It had its desired effect.
'The completely ineffective human wave attack was supported by a non-human-wave attack, and the latter was successful, so human wave attacks work.'
Ernestas wrote: Those weapons were issued in widespread use from the moment they became practical and yes, they are comparable in effectiveness when they are firing.
Triple the effective rates of fire, far higher hit probability thanks to modern optics, lower manpower required to operate, issued on a squad basis rather than battalion basis, and don't require tripods or gun carriages with a non-negligible setup time.
But yeah sure late-1800s machine guns are just like modern MGs. And muskets are just like assault rifles.
Ernestas wrote: Furthermore, these kill ratios are not lopsided. They are in fact favorable. You see, I do not count bugs which I crush beneath my boot as an act of violence as they are utterly beneath my consideration. I do not count how much oxygen soldiers will consume on their mission as it is utterly pointless. I do not count how much ammo soldiers will fire in war as ammunition is just too easily to replace. You count such silly things in order to justify your own pointless beliefs. People who often are sent into melee in W40k are not soldiers. In whatever faction they are so beneath the notice of their betters that my previous comparisons holds true. Chaos slavemasters will send their slaves just to see them being ripped to shreds as it amuses them. Tyranids will create literal mountains of dead hormogaunts as they are so cheap. Ork mere boys should be considered more as a symptom of Ork spores rather than an actual combatant. They are in Ork society as kids are in ours. They might one day become something of value, but for all intents and purposes they are utterly and completely useless and no matter how many you kill, the biggest impact they will have in their misreable lives is when they die and seed surrounding countryside with dozen more Orks.
Even in-universe, Tyranids don't use Hormagaunts to drown defenders in bodies. That's what Termagants are for. They have guns.
You might as well be arguing that spoons are excellent weapons and beat assault rifles... if you have a completely unlimited number of them. That's disingenuous. You know what'd be more scary than a charging horde of Orks with axes? A charging horde of Orks with guns.
Ernestas wrote: You continuously ignore my points. When it comes to stopping power sheer kinetic energy does not matter, size does. Medieval cannon ball might have as much kinetic energy as a modern bullet, but I won't believe that even you will argue that getting directly hit by a cannon ball will have less convincing power for you to stop than a modern bullet. You have a right mind when you mention qualities of a round itself, but largely they are irrelevant and most bullets are designed for ballistic performance and thus they are pretty much identical. You also ignore one of the reason why rifles were replaced by assault rifles. Their larger, more powerful rounds were too powerful to for their intended targets. In a very same way why some anti tank guns were not used, because they would just overpenetrate their intended targets.
This is so completely wrong I don't know where to start.
1. Kinetic energy matters. Size doesn't. Stopping power is a myth. It's not 1980 anymore. Repeating thoroughly debunked ideas doesn't make your points more compelling.
2. Medieval cannonballs had far more energy than modern bullets. Come on. If you're going to use a thought experiment to argue in favor of historical myths, at least get it right.
3. 'Most bullets are designed for ballistic performance and thus they are pretty much identical' is wrong. Utterly wrong. Tell me, what's a boat-tail bullet? Or a spitzer? What's a JHP? Or a wadcutter? How does the weight distribution changes of a tungsten-core projectile affect range and accuracy? What's frangible ammunition used for?
4. I've already mentioned overpenetration as a reason why modern intermediate-caliber firearms are as lethal as older full-sized rifle calibers, why are you repeating it here?
In June 2010, the U.S. Army announced it began shipping its new 5.56mm, lead-free, M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round to active combat zones.[141] This upgrade is designed to maximize performance of the 5.56×45mm round, to extend range, improve accuracy, increase penetration and to consistently fragment in soft-tissue when fired from not only standard length M16s, but also the short-barreled M4 carbines
When I dig little further:
It uses the same components as the M855-a jacket, a penetrator, and a metal slug. But the new round contains some subtle changes (see Figure 1). The copper cup, from which the jacket is formed, is reverse-drawn, the opposite of how the M855 jacket is drawn. The hardened steel penetrator is almost twice as heavy as the one used in the M855 and is fully exposed instead of hiding beneath the softer copper jacket.
So, this round has doubled its cap size. What is a massive departure from what previous round was designed to do thus proving my point that new rounds are designed for penetration effect and not soft tissue damage. Article expands deeper on how new round is better, mostly its improvements are tied with more predictable performance which makes round more dependable. Also, improvements in manufacturing and eco friendliness. Considerable portion of soldiers had expressed that their 0.223 caliber lacks stopping power. This is why military improves ammunition which it gives out and considers increasing caliber of their main small arms.
Did you miss the phrase 'consistently fragment in soft-tissue when fired from not only standard length M16s, but also the short-barreled M4 carbines'? Regular M855 was intended as an armor-piercing round and doesn't yaw when it drops below around 2500fps. In 14.5"-barrel M4s this limited the range of that maximally-lethal effect to around 100 yards. M855A1 extends this to around 300yds.
Also, you post this excerpt about bullet design evolution right after saying that all bullets are 'pretty much identical'? I'm not even sure what your point is here. They took the armor-piercing SS109/M855 round, originally developed to defeat Soviet body armor, and considerably boosted its terminal effects to match the performance of the old M193.
Wait a second- just to be clear, you realize .223 and 5.56 are the same caliber, right?
Ernestas wrote: Also no, 0.223 exhibit yawning behavior like all projectiles do. It is more tied to quality of ammunition.
I don't know what you're trying to say but it's probably wrong.
One of the most popular calibers for concealed carry handguns is .380, 9mm (also a .38-cal, but with more powder than .380) is the most common handgun cartridge in the world, and .45 is increasingly unpopular (often referred to as '.45 AARP' because the guys willingly carrying it are almost universally over 60 and have no idea what they're doing), so no. Where did you even get that?
Article briefly touches people concerns with high calibers. Furthermore, you are moving debate goals here. 0.38 cal is a proof that people prefer higher calibers for their stopping power. Now you suddenly ignore an entire argument and somehow to you 0.38 cal is the same as 0.223 cal.
Oh god, The National Interest. I added The National Interest to my phone's blocklist because their gun articles are shockingly bad and clearly written by someone getting their gun knowledge from Wikipedia. I initially got a good laugh out of an article titled something along the lines of 'The Desert Eagle Combines The Firepower Of A Rifle And A Gun', but after seeing their clickbait trash over and over again it got to be too much. Out in the real world, the most popular handguns for concealed carry are 9mm single-stack polymer-framed striker-fired handguns, the most popular handguns for home defense are 9mm double-stack polymer-framed striker-fired handguns with some competition from steel-framed hammer-fired handguns, and most every military in the world now issues 9mm double-stack polymer-framed striker-fired handguns as standard service weapons. 9mm is .38-caliber. The myth of stopping power is dead and buried.
Nobody said .38 is the same as .223, I don't know where you got that. The difference is that a .223 loading has two to eight times the kinetic energy of any of the .38 calibers. It has more energy and is more powerful despite a smaller caliber. Smaller bullet going fast better than big bullet going slow. Big bullet does not equal big damage. This is not a particularly complicated concept.
Ernestas wrote: That is called "hitting your target". You assume ideal conditions where everyone is calm, have time to aim their individual shots. These are not combat conditions nor how human psyche operates. Why modern force would be less effective? Because their weapons have less stopping power than before. Though, not exactly because of introduction of automatic fire. That argument was more to show that existing stopping power is insufficient against suitably determined foe by W40k standards.
I assume we are applying real-world logic and not anachronistic fantasy-land boomer logic where .30-cal carbines bounce off coats but .45 blows bowling-ball sized holes in both the man and their soul.
Ernestas wrote: That is sadly a myth. Rifle is long, it requires aiming. It is difficult to quickly shift your angle of attack. It also requires reloading. There is a reason why we have an entirely separate class of guns specially designed for close quarters. Typical melee armament is some sort of sword and a pistol. Pistol is quicker to aim if it comes to duel over range and a sword is superior in close quarters in cutting down enemy opponent. It has wider arc of attack, it is more deadly, it has far greater psychological impact, it doesn't need to reload, it is infinitely more reliable and it can provide intimate defense where assault rifle is next to useless when opponent stands right next to you.
God damn, that is pretty bold telling me carbines being effective in close combat is a 'myth'. I guess I'll have to go track down my old combat instructors and tell them the M4 I qualified on for deploying overseas with a .gov was actually a poor choice for the personal protection duties I was expected to fulfill. I guess all the training I did in stabilized point-shooting was just smoke and mirrors.
I should have been carrying a fething sword and pistol instead! Are you getting your combat knowledge from anime?
And I don't even know what that entirely separate class of close quarters guns you could be referring to, because the floor dropped out from under the subgun market in the 90s and the only shotguns you see on the battlefield nowadays are for breaching doors, but I wait with bated breath to hear what could possibly compete with the sheer close-quarters lethality of a fething sword and pistol.
Ernestas wrote: I did read and they are severely impacted by atmospheric conditions.
Over the dozens of miles in the role for which they were envisioned, namely ABM/ASAT, so not relevant to rifle range.
catbarf wrote: You might as well be arguing that spoons are excellent weapons and beat assault rifles... if you have a completely unlimited number of them. That's disingenuous. You know what'd be more scary than a charging horde of Orks with axes? A charging horde of Orks with guns.
Yep, and Orks agree! Unless they're Feral Orks, all Orks are pretty much assumed to have guns even if they're just pistols. And they're very, VERY willing to use them.
catbarf wrote: You might as well be arguing that spoons are excellent weapons and beat assault rifles... if you have a completely unlimited number of them. That's disingenuous. You know what'd be more scary than a charging horde of Orks with axes? A charging horde of Orks with guns.
Yep, and Orks agree! Unless they're Feral Orks, all Orks are pretty much assumed to have guns even if they're just pistols. And they're very, VERY willing to use them.
Feral Orks are usually less of a threat, lol.
This. The biggest threat that Orks have posed to the Tau empire, for example, was when the Orks had scavenged Tau ranged weaponry and were capable of outshooting them.
This thread is a mess. On one side melee combat in modern warfare is very stupid and it will remain so for the foreseeable future.
But on the other 40k is not modern combat, it has a wide spectrum of different technological paradigms that are constantly competing against each other. Although even then ranged warfare tends to dominate in 40k aside of very special niches.
Sigh, not melee combat. Engagement ranges. Lack of heavy firepower. That argument is to prove that there are plenty of wars where it is impossible to control engagement ranges or use superior range, accuracy and optics in real war.
What measurement are you using to justify your argument that the US was lacking heavy firepower in Vietnam? Infantry had weapons like the M60 and M16 which massively increased their potential firepower over previous conflicts (Korea and WW2). They also had helicopter support, also equipped with M60s. The US dropped over 3 times as many bombs in the Vietnam war than it did over both theatres of WW2. They had fething Napalm.
I'm failing to see "lack of heavy firepower" in the US's approach to the Vietnam conflict. The failure of the US military in Vietnam was political and doctrinal. The focus on kills as the measure of success of operations etc. was misguided and contributed to the mindsets of command which led to atrocities like My Lai. The revelation of those kinds of atrocities absolutely tanked support for the war back home, which was already pretty low to begin with once the US casualties started to tick up, which had the knock on effect of damaging the morale of the US forces (not gonna feel happy that you're stuck halfway round the world because you got unlucky in a lottery and to top it off when you get home you get lumped in with people who massacred women and children).
They had all that equipment, but terrain is that prevented effective use of it. Tanks are next to useless. Vehicles can't travel through most terrain. Heavy foliage prevents effective support from air, effectiveness of artillery is also severely hampered. This then results that entire USA military is reduced to only light infantry. Mind you, modern light infantry has all those machine guns and etc, but they are a lot less effective. This is because in jungle you can see 20 meters in front of you reliably. Of course it varies from location to location, but it is extremely easy to sneak upon entire platoons in such terrain. If you would investigate how communists fought in Vietnam, you will see that they had no trouble in ambushing USA troops at close ranges. If these troops would be more dedicated to their goals and would charge into melee there actually be very little one can do to stop it even with all modern and futuristic technology.
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Cronch wrote: Except it makes zero sense to train against Ork or especially tyranids in melee. The Ork is roughly equivalent to Marine in terms of raw strenght. Tyranid melee organisms are usually equipped with long blades on arms and superior reflexes. A normal, unaugumented human will have little to no chance deflecting an ork strike, or hitting with enough force to damage the ork in melee. They also won't be able to match the speed of an organism that actually has no survival instinct. Training to match their natural skills in melee would be a collosal waste of time, might as well train the soldiers to grow armor-piercing teeth to deal with tau tanks.
If you assume normal laws of physics apply, a lasblast will have more kinetic energy than a bayonet, and will have better chance of de-arming said Ork than stabbing with a tiny blade.
There is a rule of diminishing returns. If you take a person, you have a lot to teach him initially. How to assemble his gun, how to shoot, aim, etc. Yet after a week person will know how to maintain his gun and will be able to operate it as well as an average soldier. Any other skills will come very slowly and expensively. Training to compensate for gravity properly, calculating wind, training him to properly hold breath and remain still at very high level. Those skills which makes soldier an exceptional soldier are far harder to come by than simply making soldier jack of all trades. Sword fighting and equipping guardsmen with proper gladius would help them to significantly increase their potency and chances of survival if someone gets into melee range. Even if some tyranid organisms are better equipped in melee, they still are mere animals and proper application of blade can dispatch far greater creature. Now common tactic is to gak its pants and pray to God Emperor that this tyranid doesn't slaughter him.
Energy weapon doesn't carry kinetic energy at all. This was one of my main points. Lasgun is exceptionally poor weapon at providing stopping power. Stub weapons are better. Pulse weapons are better. Bolters are A LOT better than anything at stopping things.
Ernestas wrote: Then you should start reading my comments. I know that they are long and difficult to get into, but this is for what this thread is meant. I especially love when people prove me right with real world examples and then conclude that I'm wrong and melee combatants are outdated.
I have. That's why I made the comment I did.
You are writing fictional posts about a fictional subject.
There is nothing that can be offered as real-world examples that will prove or disprove your point.
I'm not entirely sure what your point is, to be honest, but I think it's that melee is more powerful than shooting in general (and that this can be applied to the fictional 40k universe).
I'm writing real posts about how real combat operates and want to show that if we translate W40k armies into real world, even without most of its tech, their way of fighting would still work. I also had proved my point and point was further proven by other commenters. Please look for previous video where tribe assaulted USA soldiers with swords.
Response to catbarfMade
Spoiler:
The completely ineffective human wave attack was supported by a non-human-wave attack, and the latter was successful, so human wave attacks work.
You should listen more carefully, because now you just skimmed through video and got basic facts about story wrong. There were no non-human wave attack in that story.
Triple the effective rates of fire, far higher hit probability thanks to modern optics, lower manpower required to operate, issued on a squad basis rather than battalion basis, and don't require tripods or gun carriages with a non-negligible setup time.
But yeah sure late-1800s machine guns are just like modern MGs. And muskets are just like assault rifles.
Calm down and stop exaggerating. If my machine gun fires 450 shots per second and yours 650 shots per second it doesn't mean that my gun is not dangerous. In fact, I will kill you and your entire platoon just as well with 450 shots per seconds. After all, difference between Sherman and Abrams tank is largely just academic when all you have to fight it is your assault rifle.
Even in-universe, Tyranids don't use Hormagaunts to drown defenders in bodies. That's what Termagants are for. They have guns.
You might as well be arguing that spoons are excellent weapons and beat assault rifles... if you have a completely unlimited number of them. That's disingenuous. You know what'd be more scary than a charging horde of Orks with axes? A charging horde of Orks with guns.
I have a question. When was a last time you read or listened to some W40k lore? Because seriously, telling me that tyranids main tactic is not to run into enemy until they run out of ammunition or are overrun is so out of touch with how they are depicted in lore that I don't know what to say to you.
Yes, I have near unlimited number of spoons. It is a point which you had ignored multiple times. Spoon makes poor gunners, because guns are expensive, complicated to use. So, I give them a big stick.
This is so completely wrong I don't know where to start.
1. Kinetic energy matters. Size doesn't. Stopping power is a myth. It's not 1980 anymore. Repeating thoroughly debunked ideas doesn't make your points more compelling. 2. Medieval cannonballs had far more energy than modern bullets. Come on. If you're going to use a thought experiment to argue in favor of historical myths, at least get it right. 3. 'Most bullets are designed for ballistic performance and thus they are pretty much identical' is wrong. Utterly wrong. Tell me, what's a boat-tail bullet? Or a spitzer? What's a JHP? Or a wadcutter? How does the weight distribution changes of a tungsten-core projectile affect range and accuracy? What's frangible ammunition used for? 4. I've already mentioned overpenetration as a reason why modern intermediate-caliber firearms are as lethal as older full-sized rifle calibers, why are you repeating it here?
1. You are not debunking anything. You just keep repeating your own baseless statements while ignoring my arguments and examples. 2. You are imagining siege cannons, there were a lot of types of cannons and powder used was very weak by comparison to modern powder. 3. Tell me, what are main ammunition type for soldiers? You continuously move discussion goals to talk about whatever while not knowing what you are even fighting against. A soldier having multiple types of ammunition is very rare and is rather reserved for specialized missions. That holds true in our world through history and in W40k.
Did you miss the phrase 'consistently fragment in soft-tissue when fired from not only standard length M16s, but also the short-barreled M4 carbines'? Regular M855 was intended as an armor-piercing round and doesn't yaw when it drops below around 2500fps. In 14.5"-barrel M4s this limited the range of that maximally-lethal effect to around 100 yards. M855A1 extends this to around 300yds.
Also, you post this excerpt about bullet design evolution right after saying that all bullets are 'pretty much identical'? I'm not even sure what your point is here. They took the armor-piercing SS109/M855 round, originally developed to defeat Soviet body armor, and considerably boosted its terminal effects to match the performance of the old M193.
Wait a second- just to be clear, you realize .223 and 5.56 are the same caliber, right?
This article talks about issues with bullet which you were talking about. You said that new generation ammo is designed to be better in causing damage to soft tissue. I had said that no, it is actually designed to penetrate more due to small caliber. You disagreed and so I had proven you wrong. In addition, performance against soft and hard tissues are often exclusive, the better round acts against soft target, worse its anti-armor performance becomes.
I don't know what you're trying to say but it's probably wrong.
You don't know what you are arguing against, but instead you just argue for a sake of it?
Oh god, The National Interest. I added The National Interest to my phone's blocklist because their gun articles are shockingly bad and clearly written by someone getting their gun knowledge from Wikipedia. I initially got a good laugh out of an article titled something along the lines of 'The Desert Eagle Combines The Firepower Of A Rifle And A Gun', but after seeing their clickbait trash over and over again it got to be too much. Out in the real world, the most popular handguns for concealed carry are 9mm single-stack polymer-framed striker-fired handguns, the most popular handguns for home defense are 9mm double-stack polymer-framed striker-fired handguns with some competition from steel-framed hammer-fired handguns, and most every military in the world now issues 9mm double-stack polymer-framed striker-fired handguns as standard service weapons. 9mm is .38-caliber. The myth of stopping power is dead and buried.
Nobody said .38 is the same as .223, I don't know where you got that. The difference is that a .223 loading has two to eight times the kinetic energy of any of the .38 calibers. It has more energy and is more powerful despite a smaller caliber. Smaller bullet going fast better than big bullet going slow. Big bullet does not equal big damage. This is not a particularly complicated concept.
You continue to ignore entire argument and continue to move debate goals. USA military had moved to bigger caliber because previous calibers lacked stopping power. That caliber is 0.38. Then "forgot" that point and acted that 0.38 caliber is same as 0.223. My point is that mass provides greater stopping power than velocity. Bullet going fast does not stop target on its own. Hence, my argument about rifles which we used in WW1 and their issue of being too powerful against normal human targets as they would overpenetrate. This is why your argument that small bullet goes fast and thus is better at stopping target is just a confused argument which lacks real world examples or internal logic when compared to other guns.
I assume we are applying real-world logic and not anachronistic fantasy-land boomer logic where .30-cal carbines bounce off coats but .45 blows bowling-ball sized holes in both the man and their soul.
That is called: armor penetration. It directly scales with bullets velocity and density.
God damn, that is pretty bold telling me carbines being effective in close combat is a 'myth'. I guess I'll have to go track down my old combat instructors and tell them the M4 I qualified on before deploying overseas with a .gov was actually a poor choice for the personal protection duties I was expected to fulfill. I guess all the sims I gave and took from a couple of feet away (cracked a rib, it was fun!) were flukes and the training I did in stabilized point-shooting was just smoke and mirrors.
I should have been carrying a fething sword and pistol instead! Are you getting your combat knowledge from anime?
And I don't even know what that entirely separate class of close quarters guns you could be referring to, because the floor dropped out from under the subgun market in the 90s and the only shotguns you see on the battlefield nowadays are for breaching doors, but I wait with bated breath to hear what could possibly compete with the sheer close-quarters lethality of a fething sword and pistol.
Indeed it is. Many things are actually here just for psychological effect. Like bayonetes being very poor melee weapons despite being used through centuries and armies were telling lies to themselves that no really, we don't need melee weapon, because we have bayonets now and they are just as good.
Yes, all that was just messing around. If I would had been here with sword and pistol, I will often get a first shot on you, because my pistol is lighter and thus I can "draw" and aim it quicker than you can your assault rifle. That is about unexpected scenarios where you can't just aim rifle ahead of me, but have to rather shift in unexpected ways or even worse, your rifle is not in firing position already. If I'm next to you, you can't really use your weapon, because enemy won't allow it.
Here is some reality check of that would happen if you would happen in real combat:
Same would apply even more to assault rifle if it is in not ready position.
Over the dozens of miles in the role for which they were envisioned, namely ABM/ASAT, so not relevant to rifle range.
You forgot again. That argument was tied to real lasgun suffering quite heavily in its performance due to atmospheric condition or minor obstacles in its path like foliage.
That video isn't a combat video.
If they were in a battle situation the officer would be approaching with their gun already drawn; depending on the situation it would likely already be pointed at the potential suspect. In a warzone you're not ambling around patrolling; you're patrolling with your gun in hand; you're ready to shoot and engage because its a battle situation and anyone who isn't on your site is potentially an armed enemy out to kill you.
Police are typically in very different situations and will be in situations where they aren't expecting attacks. The western style of policing is not military style, even if at times they do arm up like the military. The way you approach and interact with your own population is very different to how you approach and interact with a hostile population.
Yet you can be sure if it was and armed police situation the officer would be approaching with their gun already drawn.
Overread wrote: That video isn't a combat video.
If they were in a battle situation the officer would be approaching with their gun already drawn; depending on the situation it would likely already be pointed at the potential suspect. In a warzone you're not ambling around patrolling; you're patrolling with your gun in hand; you're ready to shoot and engage because its a battle situation and anyone who isn't on your site is potentially an armed enemy out to kill you.
Police are typically in very different situations and will be in situations where they aren't expecting attacks. The western style of policing is not military style, even if at times they do arm up like the military. The way you approach and interact with your own population is very different to how you approach and interact with a hostile population.
Yet you can be sure if it was and armed police situation the officer would be approaching with their gun already drawn.
That is true, but in real combat scenario you will rarely get someone charging at you while you are facing him with your weapon drawn. Human being will use cover, surprise you. They might even suppress you with their own fire while designated melee chargers will try to kill you up close. They might throw a grenade at you or be driven utterly insane and will surprise you at their boldness, tenacity and sheer madness. If we come to urban fighting, armies relies on very regimented style of fighting to assault and defend positions, but all of this will go out of a window when fighting dedicated enemy. Squads will be thinned out, ammunition will run low, etc. It is only matter of time before people will start making mistakes or simply won't have enough manpower to cover everything. Then if we compare forces who will charge into melee without any tactics like Orks or Tyranids then we have inhuman element. Orks being simply way too tough for 0.223 caliber to be effective no matter what catbarf might think and Tyranids in lore just throw endless waves of disposable beasts until something really nasty comes along like Tyranid Warrior.
Ernestas wrote: You should listen more carefully, because now you just skimmed through video and got basic facts about story wrong. There were no non-human wave attack in that story.
Jumping off a cliff to literally throw bodies on a defensive position doesn't justify melee combat, dude.
Ernestas wrote: Calm down and stop exaggerating. If my machine gun fires 450 shots per second and yours 650 shots per second it doesn't mean that my gun is not dangerous. In fact, I will kill you and your entire platoon just as well with 450 shots per seconds. After all, difference between Sherman and Abrams tank is largely just academic when all you have to fight it is your assault rifle.
I'm not exaggerating, you don't have any idea what the hell you're talking about. The machine guns the US troops had in the Philippines were immobile, unreliable, inaccurate, and intended for static defense. That is why they did not have or use them in any substantial numbers in jungle warfare against the Moros. A modern machine gun does not have these downsides; you can carry it and (to a limited degree) fire it like an oversized assault rifle. It also has a tremendously higher effective rate of fire (you have given two examples of mechanical rate of fire, which is a worthless metric).
Ernestas wrote: I have a question. When was a last time you read or listened to some W40k lore? Because seriously, telling me that tyranids main tactic is not to run into enemy until they run out of ammunition or are overrun is so out of touch with how they are depicted in lore that I don't know what to say to you.
I literally just said that's what Termagants are for. The ones with guns. My codex literally says that they exist to expend the defenders' ammunition in preparation for the real assault. It's not Hormagaunts, the melee bugs, being used that way.
Ernestas wrote: 3. Tell me, what are main ammunition type for soldiers? You continuously move discussion goals to talk about whatever while not knowing what you are even fighting against. A soldier having multiple types of ammunition is very rare and is rather reserved for specialized missions. That holds true in our world through history and in W40k.
How on earth do you go from 'soldiers usually only carry one kind of ammunition' to 'all bullets are more or less identical and bullet design hasn't changed significantly over time'?
Ernestas wrote: This article talks about issues with bullet which you were talking about. You said that new generation ammo is designed to be better in causing damage to soft tissue. I had said that no, it is actually designed to penetrate more due to small caliber. You disagreed and so I had proven you wrong. In addition, performance against soft and hard tissues are often exclusive, the better round acts against soft target, worse its anti-armor performance becomes.
I don't think you quite understand the article you were quoting. M855A1 replicates the terminal performance of M193 which in turn was an improvement over the lethality of the older, heavier, more powerful M80 ball cartridge in .308. They improved the terminal lethality, then they improved the armor penetration, then they improved both.
Ernestas wrote: You continue to ignore entire argument and continue to move debate goals. USA military had moved to bigger caliber because previous calibers lacked stopping power. That caliber is 0.38. Then "forgot" that point and acted that 0.38 caliber is same as 0.223. My point is that mass provides greater stopping power than velocity. Bullet going fast does not stop target on its own. Hence, my argument about rifles which we used in WW1 and their issue of being too powerful against normal human targets as they would overpenetrate. This is why your argument that small bullet goes fast and thus is better at stopping target is just a confused argument which lacks real world examples or internal logic when compared to other guns.
Nothing says 'I have no idea how ballistics works' like clinging to stopping power, so I will continue to ignore it. An extremely lightweight .223 is less likely to overpenetrate and waste its kinetic energy and more likely to incapacitate its target than a big, slow, heavy .45ACP.
Ernestas wrote: Indeed it is. Many things are actually here just for psychological effect. Like bayonetes being very poor melee weapons despite being used through centuries and armies were telling lies to themselves that no really, we don't need melee weapon, because we have bayonets now and they are just as good.
Yes, all that was just messing around. If I would had been here with sword and pistol, I will often get a first shot on you, because my pistol is lighter and thus I can "draw" and aim it quicker than you can your assault rifle. That is about unexpected scenarios where you can't just aim rifle ahead of me, but have to rather shift in unexpected ways or even worse, your rifle is not in firing position already. If I'm next to you, you can't really use your weapon, because enemy won't allow it.
Here is some reality check of that would happen if you would happen in real combat:
Same would apply even more to assault rifle if it is in not ready position.
This is a joke, right? You are trolling at my expense?
You don't know what the 21-foot-rule you're citing means. (Hint: It's about being able to engage someone with your weapon holstered in an old-style leather retention holster. It has no relevance to someone with their weapon drawn)
You obviously don't know how awful trying to aim a handgun- let alone one-handed- is in comparison to a rifle.
You seem to think that every SWAT agency in the country must be overwhelmingly incompetent for willingly going into cramped houses against armed suspects, while themselves armed with carbines and not... fething swords and pistols. Yeah, SWAT officers die left and right to perps with handguns 'aiming it quicker' or swordsmen bursting out of closets to impale the whole team before they can react.
Anyways, I wasn't trained how to use a carbine in MOUT as a 'psychological tool' while the helpless instructors secretly knew that if I went up against a sword & pistol gunman I was dead meat. All I'll say on that subject is that I have plenty of reason to think the way I was trained is effective, and the very idea is so fething stupid I'm not going to engage on it.
I am utterly floored by how committed you are to arguing something that you obviously haven't the slightest bit of real-world experience with.
Ernestas wrote: You forgot again. That argument was tied to real lasgun suffering quite heavily in its performance due to atmospheric condition or minor obstacles in its path like foliage.
I didn't forget anything. You read something about atmospheric bloom and lasers, which would only come up in the context of ABM/ASAT, and assumed it's relevant to fictional laser rifles at a few hundred yards.
Why I'm arguing so strongly for melee? Well, because I truly believe in. I might not had fortune to become a soldier, but I have extensive training in various martial arts. Most notably, I had trained how to fight with real swords in real combat like soldiers did centuries ago. So I intimately know how dangerous guy with sword can be. What instructors don't tell you and what they don't know is what I know and can do with a sword.
Pointing assault rifle at me won't do you any good, because it is very easy to parry your gun. I can wield sword quicker than person can wield an assault rifle, so I will be quicker to bring my sword to my side or react to an unexpected scenario. I also know how absolutely dangerous I can be with a sword. If I'm in a room with my sword in my hand and you are not holding your weapon to my direction, you are dead. My arm with a sword can reach more or less 2 meters with lunging. I have developed strong leg work as part of melee training and can mover remarkably quickly in very short distances in my fighting style. That video is actually quite realistic of what would happen if I would charge a soldier with a sword which is not pointing his gun at me.
I know why we do not try to attack in melee. Guns are more effective. Yet, my argument was that we do not charge anymore, because people gotten too lazy and weak willed. In W40k I would enslave millions if not billions of people. My armies would not be mere couple hundred thousand, but would be numbering in millions upon millions. I would not train my soldiers to highest, professional standard of today, but would enslave and force others to do my bidding. At this level, suddenly guns become expensive and complicated to use when your soldiers are mad children, men and women including elderly. Additionally, even if melee is effective in some scenarios in real life, we don't use it, because modern armies are casualties averse. In our world, suffering 10% casualties in your regiment after battle would be considered as heavy. Even a single death is enough to announce on national news. In W40k, IG suffers 40% and calls it just hard fought battle. We simply lack will and are too self centered to fight to our full capacity as a species. We are too concerned about our own survival and how we look. This is why we do not like or apply such tactics, because they are very heavy on casualties. Even if I would take my sword and pistol into modern fighting in hypothetical army which uses melee today, I would not be expecting to survive for long. One, two, maybe three encounters with an enemy and I will be dead. That is simply mind boggling attrition rate for modern nation and army to endure. This is why it is not done and is not being thinked about at all.
Ernestas wrote: Why I'm arguing so strongly for melee? Well, because I truly believe in. I might not had fortune to become a soldier, but I have extensive training in various martial arts.
Martial arts are good to have, but it doesn't matter how many martial arts you use when you're riddled with bullets.
Don’t feed the trolls. The “martial arts master” claims that his tactics would revolutionize warfare despite having no practical experience at all. More importantly a sword is completely irrelevant against armored vehicles and aircraft. Write me when you can parry MLRS strikes. The last real shock army died at Rorke’s Drift.
Ernestas wrote: In W40k I would enslave millions if not billions of people. My armies would not be mere couple hundred thousand, but would be numbering in millions upon millions. I would not train my soldiers to highest, professional standard of today, but would enslave and force others to do my bidding.
Please, please write this novel.
In our world, suffering 10% casualties in your regiment after battle would be considered as heavy. Even a single death is enough to announce on national news.
THE REAL WORLD
In W40k, IG suffers 40% and calls it just hard fought battle.
Ernestas your argument is jumping all over the place.
One moment you're talking about 100m ranges; then jungles; then WW1 then modern police forces; then 2ft indoor encounters then back to jungles.
Plus each time you admit that ranged firepower is superior you then jump to 40K.
I know why we do not try to attack in melee. Guns are more effective. Yet, my argument was that we do not charge anymore, because people gotten too lazy and weak willed. In W40k I would enslave millions if not billions of people.
Right there you do it all in one line. You admit ranged fire is superior; then you make some odd argument that we don't blindly charged into close combat because we are weak willed? Then you shift the whole debate back into 40K.
In the real world you don't charge into close combat because you're dead. The ranged weapons rule the battlefield even before you consider the higher value we place on life today than in the past. Heck don't think that people have become weaker over the generations - self preservation is and always has been there. Warriors in the old days got freaking scared - heck most ancient battles in close combat weren't won with numbers lost to death, but more due to moral loss. When your army saw enough die and the situation go back that they broke and ran away. Self preservation isn't something new.
Honestly I think you need to just admit defeat. Close combat works in 40K because basically the game is emulating the musket era of combat; when ranged weapons were strong, but not totally dominating. Plus 40K has means of battle that are honestly insane - being able to take losses into the actual millions if not billions and still come out winning. These are insane ways to right. It's regularly pointed out that if the Imperium were not a bureaucratic and mostly insane Empire it could have made huge victories and won the war generations ago. Of course the same argument can be said for most factions.
Ernestas wrote: Why I'm arguing so strongly for melee? Well, because I truly believe in. I might not had fortune to become a soldier, but I have extensive training in various martial arts. Most notably, I had trained how to fight with real swords in real combat like soldiers did centuries ago. So I intimately know how dangerous guy with sword can be. What instructors don't tell you and what they don't know is what I know and can do with a sword.
So you've studied an obsolete form of combat as a hobby- blithely ignoring why it is now obsolete- and, lacking any familiarity with the reality of modern combat, have Dunning-Kruger'd yourself into thinking not only that your technique can hack it on a modern battlefield, but that combat instructors don't appreciate the superior effectiveness of a sword because they don't know any better. Very cool.
I studied Filipino Martial Arts (FMA/Kali/Escrima) under Doug Marcaida. I think I can hold my own with a machete. I still wouldn't take a machete over a handgun for any reason.
You know that most people who actually train for fighting do study hand-to-hand and use of melee weapons, right? It's not some 'forgotten art' that modern instructors are too out-of-touch to teach, it's just that once you've trained with close combat weapons and trained with firearms, it's obvious which is superior.
Ernestas wrote: Pointing assault rifle at me won't do you any good, because it is very easy to parry your gun. I can wield sword quicker than person can wield an assault rifle, so I will be quicker to bring my sword to my side or react to an unexpected scenario. I also know how absolutely dangerous I can be with a sword. If I'm in a room with my sword in my hand and you are not holding your weapon to my direction, you are dead. My arm with a sword can reach more or less 2 meters with lunging. I have developed strong leg work as part of melee training and can mover remarkably quickly in very short distances in my fighting style. That video is actually quite realistic of what would happen if I would charge a soldier with a sword which is not pointing his gun at me.
I'm curious...Ernestas you say "you didn't have the fortune to become a soldier, but I am well trained with swords", then you presume to tell people who have trained with and carried firearms for a living (that's several of us, by the way) that we don't know what we're talking about?
You cite a video about the 21-foot rule. Have you actually performed that drill? Do you know why it exists? A lot of us have actually done this stuff in real life. We're not just making stuff up on the internet.
Pointing assault rifle at me won't do you any good, because it is very easy to parry your gun.
Are you a literal Jedi?
In all fairness parrying a gun isn't that hard and the gun itself doesn't pose a threat. Its bullets you need to watch out for. (Which as an aside also kill Jedi).
Also regarding the "untrained, enslaved masses" argument: I think from my limited experience that it is much easier to learn how to kill someone with a gun than in CC. I highly doupt that I (male, 80 kg, not completely unfit) could reliably overpower someone my size, not even with some months of melee training. It's not just strength and technique, I doupt that I could bring myself to run towards someone and stab him or smash his head with a club.
But in my military service I got handed an assault rifle and a pistol, had a short introduction (mainly in safety rules and maintenance) and maybe 20 minutes on the shooting range with each (I was paramedic, so just basic training). And I assume I could kill with both. And while I don't think I would have the "courage" to maul someone with a shovel, roughly aiming an assault rifle at his torso and pull the trigger... is not that hard.
More importantly anyone, even a child with a gun can kill a highly trained soldier with a lucky shot (and a magazine has quite a few of those), while being no match in melee.
And even caught in CC I think my chances would be way better with a rifles, trying to fall back and shot than with a sword.
Getting to your personal experience: you mentioned your abilities in close combat, even swordfighting. That must have taken quite some time to learn. Yet still: if you fail to surprise your opponent, je already has his weapon at the ready or he is not alone, you are quite likely dead after the first real engagement, even if your enemy barely had 10 minutes of training
Any country can teach a soldier how to load and "point" (not even properly aim) a simple modern rifle within minutes. Obviously days and weeks and then years to become exceptionally proficient with it, depending on your desired result. Many of the world's best Special Forces soldiers have been killed by a fifteen year old waving an AKM pattern rifle while squeezing the trigger.
This is an ancient answer to a problem, dating back to the first archers and crossbowmen who "broke the rules" of war by slaying rich, armored knights on their pretty horses. It was hugely insulting to the elite "Knights" of the world when cheap mercenary crossbowmen started to turn the tides of battles, or simple English long-bowmen were murder-hosing trained soldiers at range, etc.
Missile weaponry (i.e. any thrown, hurled, fired, slung projectile) became a thing because it's actually IMMENSELY practical, far more so than any close combat training/weapons/equipment.
I'd like to point out that the Welsh bowmen were largely a time-limited offer. Training a bowman takes as long as training a knight, and it took truly, astoundingly arrogant French knights to line up the perfect battlefield for the archers to work. It wasn't the crossbows, and certainly not the very limited amount of longbowmen that killed heavy cavalry, it was the changing economy. It took until roughly XVIIIc to truly obsolete cavalry as main offensive force, when improvements in guns finally let them reload fast enough to outkill the cavalry charge.
Though the last cavalry on cavalry battle took place in 1920...
Another point that often gets forgotten in the real world is that most people don't want to kill. Even in WW1 and 2 when you had loads of patriotic movies and campaigns and loads of people conscripted on both sides - many wouldn't actually shoot to kill. From what I gather it was actually very difficult to get people to kill. See you can't train someone to kill till you're in the actual battle situation. You can train them to stab bags and shoot targets, but the actual kill training only happens on the battlefield.
So even if you've put a gun in everyone's hand it doesn't make them a killer. However even if armed with a semi automatic the gunfire alone will make the enemy put their heads down and seek cover when they come under fire. So even if your conscripted soldiers don't even aim for the kill shot it will still have an effect.
Overread wrote: Another point that often gets forgotten in the real world is that most people don't want to kill. Even in WW1 and 2 when you had loads of patriotic movies and campaigns and loads of people conscripted on both sides - many wouldn't actually shoot to kill. From what I gather it was actually very difficult to get people to kill. See you can't train someone to kill till you're in the actual battle situation. You can train them to stab bags and shoot targets, but the actual kill training only happens on the battlefield.
Overread wrote: Another point that often gets forgotten in the real world is that most people don't want to kill. Even in WW1 and 2 when you had loads of patriotic movies and campaigns and loads of people conscripted on both sides - many wouldn't actually shoot to kill. From what I gather it was actually very difficult to get people to kill. See you can't train someone to kill till you're in the actual battle situation. You can train them to stab bags and shoot targets, but the actual kill training only happens on the battlefield.
Either way, it is accepted that by Vietnam upwards of 90% of soldiers were able and willing to shoot to kill in combat.
Ahh I'd honestly not read far into it at all. Though I'd also heard that modern armies were different, partly because a good few rely less on mass conscription and more on the attitude of the "professional soldier" angle. I suspect there are grains of truth in it all, especially when you deal with massive wars that suddenly conscript en-mass like the World Wars; but also when you've situations like the 1st World War where at one stage both sides were playing football against each other (at least the lower ranks were).
To get at that from another angle: I think (personal opinion) you would still find much more people able and willing to kill with a gun than with a sword.
There is whole of a lot difference along the range of for example:
- strangling someone to death barehanded
- mauling him with a club
- stabbing him to death with a sword
- aiming a pistol directly at a lethal target of his body and pulling the trigger
- roughly aiming an assault gun at him and pull the trigger
- hold a machine gun in his general direction, close your eyes and swiwell it around a bit
- punch his coordinates into a targeting computer and hit a button without ever even seeing his face.
- pay your taxes and elect a goverment that decides who should be killed an when
The result is... somewhat the same. But the more... abstract it gets, the less you have to really see what you are doing and the smaller your actual action gets, the more likely it is that your average Joe would do it.
In these old statements that in WW1 and 2 soldiers would be unwilling to really aim at someone and shoot, they usually claim that they "just generally aimed in the direction of the gunfire". Those might be unaimed shots, but that does not mean they did not kill.
I posted a quote on page 4 from a British soldier who fought in WW1 explicitly saying that he didn't have the stomach to use a bayonet, but was fine with shooting a man.
When you see those quotes about 'unwilling to really aim at someone and shoot' keep in mind that much of it cites back to Marshall's questionable 'research' (which may have been at least partially invented), and also that on a 20th century battlefield being able to see your enemy clearly is a rarity. If you're trading fire with someone in cover over a hundred yards away, you're shooting generally at muzzle flashes, not taking aimed shots at visible targets. Let alone if it's insurgents pot-shotting you from 500+m.
Anyways, in the context of this thread we're assuming that these melee combatants are crazed berserkers with no compunctions. Let's not give OP the impression that melee would become viable if only soldiers were willing to use it...
Another point about swords, because guns run out of ammo etc. Swords get blunt. And break. And get stuck in people. And in melee, are actually quite terrible if there is a big press of bodies and you can't actually move and use the damn thing. And you can only swing so fast, and lunge so fast, especially with the press of bodies and the sheer noise and confusion of battle. And as someone who lifts somewhat heavy objects for fun, and who has enjoyed various sports including boxing, you will get bloody tired just holding your arms up close to your head, especially when the other guy Is punching back, let alone moving round, and lugging a sword around and swinging the bloody thing.
Yeah, all of that is why most soldiers carried around a dagger or other short blade as a backup weapon. Swords are nice and all, but they're not the ULTIMATE WEAPON, even for melee.
Elbows wrote:I'm curious...Ernestas you say "you didn't have the fortune to become a soldier, but I am well trained with swords", then you presume to tell people who have trained with and carried firearms for a living (that's several of us, by the way) that we don't know what we're talking about?
You cite a video about the 21-foot rule. Have you actually performed that drill? Do you know why it exists? A lot of us have actually done this stuff in real life. We're not just making stuff up on the internet.
bingo, those of us who train always train based on the assumption that gak goes wrong. if you always plan on it going perfectly....you don't know how to plan/train.
and what do these all have in common??? Not legal to use in warfare according to the Geneva Convention.
G2 seems to only make gimmicks to get the media in a twist. But the first and third look similar to Speer Gold Dot, which is a good example of the current state of the art.
In any case, they're all fine according to the Geneva Convention. Expanding ammunition is technically banned by the Hague Convention of 1899, but the US was not a signatory, although we do still abide by it (even though it is only meant to regulate formal war against signatory states, not COIN). So no hollowpoints. In many ways, though, the Hague Convention is why modern .223 loads are so effective, as their yawing behavior produces immediate fragmentation with comparable effect to a frangible or hollowpoint load while still being technically legal.
Also non-military government entities aren't bound by those restrictions, which can be interesting, because if you're an intelligence officer or part of a diplomatic staff you can legally carry hollowpoints while in an active warzone, but it has to be kept at arm's length from anything involved in the military supply chain.
Deadnight wrote: Another point about swords, because guns run out of ammo etc. Swords get blunt. And break. And get stuck in people. And in melee, are actually quite terrible if there is a big press of bodies and you can't actually move and use the damn thing. And you can only swing so fast, and lunge so fast, especially with the press of bodies and the sheer noise and confusion of battle. And as someone who lifts somewhat heavy objects for fun, and who has enjoyed various sports including boxing, you will get bloody tired just holding your arms up close to your head, especially when the other guy Is punching back, let alone moving round, and lugging a sword around and swinging the bloody thing.
''Blades don't need reloading'' Yeah but they need resharpening, oiling and gak. I hate that quote so much.
Deadnight wrote: Another point about swords, because guns run out of ammo etc. Swords get blunt. And break. And get stuck in people. And in melee, are actually quite terrible if there is a big press of bodies and you can't actually move and use the damn thing. And you can only swing so fast, and lunge so fast, especially with the press of bodies and the sheer noise and confusion of battle. And as someone who lifts somewhat heavy objects for fun, and who has enjoyed various sports including boxing, you will get bloody tired just holding your arms up close to your head, especially when the other guy Is punching back, let alone moving round, and lugging a sword around and swinging the bloody thing.
Yeah, its why historically spears and polearms have been the primary weapon of most armies. They're not only cheaper and easier to maintain, but you can use them effectively in formation, which is how fighting was done back then. None of that Hollywood gak where everything is a swirling maelstrom and every combatant pairs off with another to have a nice duel. If the battle gets to that point then something has gone really wrong, tactically speaking.
Even samurai and knights used those over swords; to them swords were actually sidearms.
Hell, in the case of samurai their primary weapons were actually bows and later guns.
Swords are useful weapons, but there's a lot of romanticism behind them that gives rise to several misconceptions of how they were used.
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catbarf wrote: I posted a quote on page 4 from a British soldier who fought in WW1 explicitly saying that he didn't have the stomach to use a bayonet, but was fine with shooting a man.
On the flip side, you do have Mad Jack Churchill in WW2 and the Japanese Imperial Army, who carried swords into battle, so there's that. Those are more exceptions than rules though, and the Banzai charge was a suicide tactic to be used when things have gone wrong anyway.
Yeah, its why historically spears and polearms have been the primary weapon of most armies. They're not only cheaper and easier to maintain, but you can use them effectively in formation, which is how fighting was done back then. None of that Hollywood gak where everything is a swirling maelstrom and every combatant pairs off with another to have a nice duel. If the battle gets to that point then something has gone really wrong, tactically speaking.
Even samurai and knights used those over swords; to them swords were actually sidearms.
Hell, in the case of samurai their primary weapons were actually bows and later guns.
Swords are useful weapons, but there's a lot of romanticism behind them that gives rise to several misconceptions of how they were used.
This is all true. I love history, and I'm familiar enough with the historical facts (and historical based fictions - I do love my Bernard Cornwall novels!), rather than the mythology that is built up.
Interesting fact about swords - they were hard to make, especially in antiquity, and expensive, which is why often they were a status symbol as well. It's why blades were often shorter and why the romans stuck with the gladius for most of their infantry for so long. Also because it was effective. The longsword is a truly terrible weapon for being stuck in a melee. ALso, the same amount of metal that goes into a sword can make quite a few spear points. Same story, interestingly, with plate armour. As I ready it, It's one of the reasons why the iconic Roman plate (Lorica segmentum, iirc?) fell out of favour for mail.
When it came to an actual scrap, what won was either the spear or the short sword. And even then, it wasn't swords that 'won'. It was 'morale'. Most casualties were caused when a warband/army broke, and were chased down. And getting into that press was a short, and sharp affair. People don't actually like being that close to sharp things for an extended period of time. You basically had to get people drunk or high to get them to fight.
Cronch wrote: Also, in 40k, swords do need power packs. And lube. And spare chains.
Soul-Butter.
The last Soul balm you'll ever need for your demonic sword! Just finished a fight and didn't slay enough innocents? Sword still screaming in your ears at night hungry? Soul-Butter!
Made from the congealed souls of a dozen Guardsmen, each pack is good for 10 uses and guarantees to sooth even the most hungry and irate sword. Just remove the butter from the packaging and rub lightly all over the blade either after each battle and once just before bed (if you've been unfortunate enough not to have fought a battle that day).
New this year - Soul-Butter-Bites - for the mouthy sword in your armoury. An essential training aid in how to tame your sword, especially when combined with Click-Screamers
OP needs to stop trying to legitimise 40k as a serious setting. A focus on Close combat is a nonsensical form of warfare and has been for literally centuries in reality, let alone in the year 40,000.
blood reaper wrote: OP needs to stop trying to legitimise 40k as a serious setting. A focus on Close combat is a nonsensical form of warfare and has been for literally centuries in reality, let alone in the year 40,000.
Technically its only been truely obsolete since 1862, with the introduction of the gatling gun. Charging into melee suddenly became a much riskier endeavor, especially when one factors in improvements to tactics and firearms.
blood reaper wrote: OP needs to stop trying to legitimise 40k as a serious setting. A focus on Close combat is a nonsensical form of warfare and has been for literally centuries in reality, let alone in the year 40,000.
40k has walking tanks also known as the Adeptus Astartes and power weapons.
blood reaper wrote: OP needs to stop trying to legitimise 40k as a serious setting. A focus on Close combat is a nonsensical form of warfare and has been for literally centuries in reality, let alone in the year 40,000.
40k has walking tanks also known as the Adeptus Astartes and power weapons.
Neither of those make close combat viable when anti-tank weapons are widespread and means of knocking out vehicles are readily available.
blood reaper wrote: OP needs to stop trying to legitimise 40k as a serious setting. A focus on Close combat is a nonsensical form of warfare and has been for literally centuries in reality, let alone in the year 40,000.
40k has walking tanks also known as the Adeptus Astartes and power weapons.
Neither of those make close combat viable when anti-tank weapons are widespread and means of knocking out vehicles are readily available.
Anti-tank weapons are not really that wide spread. And anti-tank weapons are not really optimal for roughly human sized targets (Astartes are bigger than humans but not that much bigger).
Bobthehero wrote: Hellguns and the volley version are probably as common as power swords and don't involve you having to get close, either.
I'm pretty sure hellguns' AP is more of a game mechanic than actual lore. Or rather Space Marines are heavily nerfed in the tabletop so a 5 man squad doesn't murder the entire enemy army.
Tyran wrote: I have read books, and there is stuff like marines just walking through heavy artillery bombardment as if it was rain for them.
There's also stories of Marines in full power armor being overpowered by a single creature that is canonically physically weaker than your average unaugmented adult human, so clearly Marines should be weaker than humans.
Tyran wrote: I have read books, and there is stuff like marines just walking through heavy artillery bombardment as if it was rain for them.
There's also stories of Marines in full power armor being overpowered by a single creature that is canonically physically weaker than your average unaugmented adult human, so clearly Marines should be weaker than humans.
Which would supports the argument that melee combat as viable. If heavy artillery doesn't work and they are weaker than humans, the logical conclusion is to beat them to death with your fists.
But if you can beat them to death with fists, but artillery doesn't work on them, logically they'd sit and shoot at you from behind cover, and you are not impervious to guns like they are, so melee is not viable.
Tyran wrote: Which would supports the argument that melee combat as viable.
No it doesn't. It proves that GW either doesn't know, or doesn't care, to write consistent material.
Bobthehero wrote: And somehow, it would make sense that a creature weaker than a human can kill a SM with a handheld weapon, but artillery can't? Yeah, clearly..
Worse. It was a Spore Mine (which has a strength rating of 1-- the lowest rating in the game!), somehow dragging a power armored marine off of the top of a Rhino.
And this wasn't a common Marine grunt, it was a veteran.
Bear in mind, this was the same book series that had backflipping terminator armor.
Tyran wrote: Which would supports the argument that melee combat as viable.
No it doesn't. It proves that GW either doesn't know, or doesn't care, to write consistent material.
GW explicitly doesn't care, they have repeated it multiple times.
Bobthehero wrote: And somehow, it would make sense that a creature weaker than a human can kill a SM with a handheld weapon, but artillery can't? Yeah, clearly..
Worse. It was a Spore Mine (which has a strength rating of 1-- the lowest rating in the game!), somehow dragging a power armored marine off of the top of a Rhino.
And this wasn't a common Marine grunt, it was a veteran.
Bear in mind, this was the same book series that had backflipping terminator armor.
On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore, unless you believe a human can punch as hard as a lasgun.
Tyran wrote: On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore
No, but it is lore-adjacent. Spore Mines aren't bundles of muscles, they're just living bombs.
And I'm glad you admit that your outlandish example is ridiculous and you shouldn't use it. Glad to hear that.
Even if you disregard that example, we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world, and of individual marines blasting, punching and tearing their way through hordes of enemies. The narrative of Space Marines relies on that fact.
On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore, unless you believe a human can punch as hard as a lasgun.
To be fair, this is one of those things where the concept of Stength gets nebulous. I can definitely impart more total force with my fist than a bullet for example, I can trivially push over a steel target with an elbow push or quick jab punch (if I dont mind punching steel plate) that would take several bullet strikes to accomplish, but the bullets are concentrating their energy onto a far smaller area, allowing them to overcome material my fist will not with substantially less total energy usage.
Tyran wrote: On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore
No, but it is lore-adjacent. Spore Mines aren't bundles of muscles, they're just living bombs.
And I'm glad you admit that your outlandish example is ridiculous and you shouldn't use it. Glad to hear that.
Even if you disregard that example, we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world, and of individual marines blasting, punching and tearing their way through hordes of enemies. The narrative of Space Marines relies on that fact.
Both of those scenarios are achievable given the right context. Space Marines at a fortified choke point can certainly kill lots of enemies. Or units dispersed among dense ruins, where the numbers of the enemy are hard to bring to bear.
For conquering, Space Marines spend a lot of time re-conquering worlds that might be rebelling. Space Marines will take over defense platforms and just point the guns at the PDF. Space Marines by default can level cities with their Strike Cruiser. Written well, a strike force can work wonders and still not be outside the realm of reason.
Written poorly, it's just the worst bolter-schlock.
Tyran wrote: we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world
We also have examples of a hundred Sisters being able to conquer entire worlds, too-- Sisters being ranged-combat focused unaugmented humans who don't have the biology to drop pod. If you had a point, you have failed to prove it. Conquering a world doesn't necessarily mean killing everyone on it, and rarely does. It can easily simply be dropping down and killing the leader and declaring yourself (or your boss, or the emperor) the new leader, then intimidating everyone else in to agreeing with you.
Tyran wrote: we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world
We also have examples of a hundred Sisters being able to conquer entire worlds, too-- Sisters being ranged-combat focused unaugmented humans who don't have the biology to drop pod. If you had a point, you have failed to prove it. Conquering a world doesn't necessarily mean killing everyone on it, and rarely does. It can easily simply be dropping down and killing the leader and declaring yourself (or your boss, or the emperor) the new leader, then intimidating everyone else in to agreeing with you.
It usually does involve military defeating the defenders.
And sisters do have their own melee-focused units. And while unaugmented they do use power armor and have a tendency to defy physics thanks to their acts of faith. Speaking of acts of faith, didn't the last PA had human priests cutting Crisis Suits in half?
Tyran wrote: And sisters do have their own melee-focused units.
If you're going to argue that Sisters as a whole are focused on melee I'm going to laugh you out of this thread. Sisters have precisely two melee-focused units, and both are literally just their punishment detail where they go to redeem themselves for their failure or die trying.
Tyran wrote: On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore
No, but it is lore-adjacent. Spore Mines aren't bundles of muscles, they're just living bombs.
And I'm glad you admit that your outlandish example is ridiculous and you shouldn't use it. Glad to hear that.
Even if you disregard that example, we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world, and of individual marines blasting, punching and tearing their way through hordes of enemies. The narrative of Space Marines relies on that fact.
You want to know how such a thing can be done? A lightning strike at the leadership either as a decapitation strike or to get them to catipulate or surrender. The average grunt on the field never hears anything other than silence or the order to stand down.
Tyran wrote: On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore
No, but it is lore-adjacent. Spore Mines aren't bundles of muscles, they're just living bombs.
And I'm glad you admit that your outlandish example is ridiculous and you shouldn't use it. Glad to hear that.
Even if you disregard that example, we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world, and of individual marines blasting, punching and tearing their way through hordes of enemies. The narrative of Space Marines relies on that fact.
You want to know how such a thing can be done? A lightning strike at the leadership either as a decapitation strike or to get them to catipulate or surrender. The average grunt on the field never hears anything other than silence or the order to stand down.
To be fair, this sort of thing relies heavily on there being no chain of command or competing power centers to step up on leadership, that people will cease resistance when command elements are disconnected, and such command centers being both easily identified and easily accessible to orbital attack.
This works if the force in question is relatively small, led by a single unifying commander operating from an identifiable surface position. Lord Evildoer in his Castle of Doom leading his warband of core of Chaos marines at the head of a few thousand cultists can be defeated relatively easily that way. This makes for lots of easy 40k stories. However, if we're talking about the generalized rebellion of Planet BigIndustry with billions of combatants, underground or mobile field command centers, extensive organization and a coherent chain of command, and a populace dedicated to the fight, the decapitation strike doesnt work at all.
Unfortunately a lot of 40k fluff, particularly Space Marine stuff, is written in such a way, having marines do things that is absolutely not their specialty and that they have neither the numbers nor tools to accomplish, but sounded cool to the author at the time.
Tyran wrote: On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore
No, but it is lore-adjacent. Spore Mines aren't bundles of muscles, they're just living bombs.
And I'm glad you admit that your outlandish example is ridiculous and you shouldn't use it. Glad to hear that.
Even if you disregard that example, we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world, and of individual marines blasting, punching and tearing their way through hordes of enemies. The narrative of Space Marines relies on that fact.
You want to know how such a thing can be done? A lightning strike at the leadership either as a decapitation strike or to get them to catipulate or surrender. The average grunt on the field never hears anything other than silence or the order to stand down.
To be fair, this sort of thing relies heavily on there being no chain of command or competing power centers to step up on leadership, that people will cease resistance when command elements are disconnected, and such command centers being both easily identified and easily accessible to orbital attack.
This works if the force in question is relatively small, led by a single unifying commander operating from an identifiable surface position. Lord Evildoer in his Castle of Doom leading his warband of core of Chaos marines at the head of a few thousand cultists can be defeated relatively easily that way. This makes for lots of easy 40k stories. However, if we're talking about the generalized rebellion of Planet BigIndustry with billions of combatants, underground or mobile field command centers, extensive organization and a coherent chain of command, and a populace dedicated to the fight, the decapitation strike doesnt work at all.
Unfortunately a lot of 40k fluff, particularly Space Marine stuff, is written in such a way, having marines do things that is absolutely not their specialty and that they have neither the numbers nor tools to accomplish, but sounded cool to the author at the time.
This. There aren't enough marines to make a meaningful difference on a galactic scale.
Tyran wrote: On the other hand, game mechanics is not lore
No, but it is lore-adjacent. Spore Mines aren't bundles of muscles, they're just living bombs.
And I'm glad you admit that your outlandish example is ridiculous and you shouldn't use it. Glad to hear that.
Even if you disregard that example, we still have multiple examples of a single company of Marines being able to conquer an entire world, and of individual marines blasting, punching and tearing their way through hordes of enemies. The narrative of Space Marines relies on that fact.
You want to know how such a thing can be done? A lightning strike at the leadership either as a decapitation strike or to get them to catipulate or surrender. The average grunt on the field never hears anything other than silence or the order to stand down.
To be fair, this sort of thing relies heavily on there being no chain of command or competing power centers to step up on leadership, that people will cease resistance when command elements are disconnected, and such command centers being both easily identified and easily accessible to orbital attack.
This works if the force in question is relatively small, led by a single unifying commander operating from an identifiable surface position. Lord Evildoer in his Castle of Doom leading his warband of core of Chaos marines at the head of a few thousand cultists can be defeated relatively easily that way. This makes for lots of easy 40k stories. However, if we're talking about the generalized rebellion of Planet BigIndustry with billions of combatants, underground or mobile field command centers, extensive organization and a coherent chain of command, and a populace dedicated to the fight, the decapitation strike doesnt work at all.
Thankfully for the Imperium there's always sterilization and repopulation.
But really, orbital supremacy will count for a lot. Space Marines can knock out a bunch of defenses and just wait for the Guard to arrive, if need be.
Unfortunately a lot of 40k fluff, particularly Space Marine stuff, is written in such a way, having marines do things that is absolutely not their specialty and that they have neither the numbers nor tools to accomplish, but sounded cool to the author at the time.
Tyran wrote: And sisters do have their own melee-focused units.
If you're going to argue that Sisters as a whole are focused on melee I'm going to laugh you out of this thread. Sisters have precisely two melee-focused units, and both are literally just their punishment detail where they go to redeem themselves for their failure or die trying.
Except that I wasn't arguing they are as a whole melee focused, but that they have melee focused units.
catbarfMade, last time you had answered such long comment so quickly that I was unable to make another far shorter and easier comment. Please make some effort into your posting as it is quite pointless to talk when all you encounter is someone in denial and trying to win by shouting louder.
Spoiler:
Jumping off a cliff to literally throw bodies on a defensive position doesn't justify melee combat, dude.
I showed you a simple video. You got several basic facts wrong about that story from "holding them indefinitely" to "sending alien waves" and now you avoid acknowledging this and move discussion goal even further. The whole point which you are missing is that real life is not some counter strike match. Soldiers morale and psychology plays a massive role in real combat scenarios. In combat zones entire platoons are unable to fire upon children even if they know for sure they are carrying bombs and are walking to kill them. They break down mentally on a field and are paralyzed while you imagine that in combat they will be "no scope" headshotting their opponents. You ignore this massive aspect of warfare and thus you cannot see the effectiveness of such tactics for what they are. These human wave attacks had broken down hardened veterans mentally and thus they could not carry any longer. Same would happen and in real life. Soldiers break for far less than W40k is willing to throw at them.
I'm not exaggerating, you don't have any idea what the hell you're talking about. The machine guns the US troops had in the Philippines were immobile, unreliable, inaccurate, and intended for static defense. That is why they did not have or use them in any substantial numbers in jungle warfare against the Moros. A modern machine gun does not have these downsides; you can carry it and (to a limited degree) fire it like an oversized assault rifle. It also has a tremendously higher effective rate of fire (you have given two examples of mechanical rate of fire, which is a worthless metric).
Yes you are. I had said that while firing these guns are just as good. All advantages made these things more efficient. Furthermore, soldiers in jungles had specialized weapons which you had ignored. Light machine gun is worse than a shotgun if ranges are close enough and reaction times are low enough.
I literally just said that's what Termagants are for. The ones with guns. My codex literally says that they exist to expend the defenders' ammunition in preparation for the real assault. It's not Hormagaunts, the melee bugs, being used that way.
You should actually read some stories rather than trying to understand lore from codexes. In Tyranid swarms range troops are here to be mixed with melee assaults. Tyranids are primary focused towards melee assaults with some range elements mixed in. Humans on the other hand are primary ranged force with some melee elements mixed in. That is, if there is a Chaos space marine doing his stuff, he will have platoon of maddened fanatics charing enemy lines or holding flanks around him. The key emphasis is on Chaos space marine delivering main source of damage, melee elements here is just to distract enemy, reveal their positions that this dude with bolter could do his job. Melee if applied in combat would look like that, it is supporting element for more valuable troops. Tyranids on the other hand are melee first which means that they put range assets to ultimately support their claws and teeth rather than vice versa.
[spoiler]How on earth do you go from 'soldiers usually only carry one kind of ammunition' to 'all bullets are more or less identical and bullet design hasn't changed significantly over time'?
How on Earth do you start providing examples of specific, specialized ammunition while pretending it is standard issue?
I don't think you quite understand the article you were quoting. M855A1 replicates the terminal performance of M193 which in turn was an improvement over the lethality of the older, heavier, more powerful M80 ball cartridge in .308. They improved the terminal lethality, then they improved the armor penetration, then they improved both.
Bullet design does not work that way. Like I had said, usually penetration and soft tissue damage is mutually exclusive elements and 0.223 is known to lack stopping power of its bigger cousin.
I have ignored any argument based on 'stopping power' because it is a myth with no real-world basis. The FBI themselves released a paper demonstrating that stopping power is bogus and justifying a switch back to a smaller caliber.
Nothing says 'I have no idea how ballistics works' like clinging to stopping power, so I will continue to ignore it. An extremely lightweight .223 is less likely to overpenetrate and waste its kinetic energy and more likely to incapacitate its target than a big, slow, heavy .45ACP.
You had ignored all arguments, because you think you know what you do not. It took you so many posts for you to even bother looking up some information and throw it out. Far less about actually commenting what is written in them. Usually when person does that, he just quoted just whole bunch of information which loosely if at all supports his position.
You don't know what the 21-foot-rule you're citing means. (Hint: It's about being able to engage someone with your weapon holstered in an old-style leather retention holster. It has no relevance to someone with their weapon drawn)
You obviously don't know how awful trying to aim a handgun- let alone one-handed- is in comparison to a rifle.
You seem to think that every SWAT agency in the country must be overwhelmingly incompetent for willingly going into cramped houses against armed suspects, while themselves armed with carbines and not... fething swords and pistols. Yeah, SWAT officers die left and right to perps with handguns 'aiming it quicker' or swordsmen bursting out of closets to impale the whole team before they can react.
Anyways, I wasn't trained how to use a carbine in MOUT as a 'psychological tool' while the helpless instructors secretly knew that if I went up against a sword & pistol gunman I was dead meat. All I'll say on that subject is that I have plenty of reason to think the way I was trained is effective, and the very idea is so fething stupid I'm not going to engage on it.
I am utterly floored by how committed you are to arguing something that you obviously haven't the slightest bit of real-world experience with.
How are your strawman looking? Please find a better alternative then. This video is a great example to visual show reader how dangerous man with a knife is. Person with weapon drawn obviously will be able to fire first, but if he is not already pointing to general direction of charging enemy, same scenario will hold true.
You do not need to aim when your opponent is right next to you. You again are thinking of utterly different scenarios for utterly different roles and I'm not sure why you are talking about aiming a rifle in one hand now.
Sigh, stop clowning around. SWAT utilize SPECIALIZED WEAPONARY AND ARMOR. Furthermore, they face just militia level threats at best. Usually it is just some gangster who just happen to have a gun. Being a swordsman requires discipline, years of training so naturally they will not exist nor anyone who is such great as to become one will find themselves in situation where they are using their sword against policemen. Nor they would be effective against them due to their armor. If they would have a power sword then yes, a swordsman could cut through entire unit of SWAT in an instant if given that chance.
I didn't forget anything. You read something about atmospheric bloom and lasers, which would only come up in the context of ABM/ASAT, and assumed it's relevant to fictional laser rifles at a few hundred yards.
Lasers are affected by numerous interrelated linear and nonlinear phenomena such as molecular and aerosol absorption and scattering, atmospheric turbulence, and thermal blooming not to mention just plain old beam divergence.
So you've studied an obsolete form of combat as a hobby- blithely ignoring why it is now obsolete- and, lacking any familiarity with the reality of modern combat, have Dunning-Kruger'd yourself into thinking not only that your technique can hack it on a modern battlefield, but that combat instructors don't appreciate the superior effectiveness of a sword because they don't know any better. Very cool.
I studied Filipino Martial Arts (FMA/Kali/Escrima) under Doug Marcaida. I think I can hold my own with a machete. I still wouldn't take a machete over a handgun for any reason.
You know that most people who actually train for fighting do study hand-to-hand and use of melee weapons, right? It's not some 'forgotten art' that modern instructors are too out-of-touch to teach, it's just that once you've trained with close combat weapons and trained with firearms, it's obvious which is superior.
When I had said that sword is superior in its performance than an assault rifle? It is you who make those absolutely idiotic points and then complain when I point out how idiotic it is. I had said that if you let enemy to be so close to you as in few meters of you, suddenly guns like assault rifles lose their effectiveness and melee weapons like swords become just as dangerous if not more.
Yes, it is forgotten art. Modern trainers largely focus on unarmed martial arts. In reality nobody knows how to use sword well and I offer perspective usually found nowhere else, because I have understanding of how deadly swordmaster can be in close quarters. I'm by no means such myself, but I know how quick hits are. A swordmaster can strike "inhumanly fast" as authors love to describe. Sword becomes just a blur and when you block and counter attack, it is more contest of endurance and persistence. You follow movement of person's muscles rather than following his blade and try to tire him or to force him to make a mistake. Someone adept at using a sword is a lot more dangerous than someone holding most guns at a range where sword is effective. It is faster, more precise, it is more flexible. If we would go into W40k, they have some truly horrific weapons like chainsaw which would bite into a flesh. With merest touch you could see your comrade being cut in pieces as weapon claws itself into his flesh. Power weapons are in a league of its own. You have formation of SWAT assaulting a room? If someone with power sword would get a swing at them, he would cut through their shields, through their armor and their flesh as it would be nothing. That level of deadliness far surpass any ballistic weapon we have today. We would not go into such idiotic comparisons if you could acknowledge something as simple as that dude standing next to you is more dangerous to you if he is holding a knife rather than an assault rifle.
Sigh, stop clowning around. SWAT utilize SPECIALIZED WEAPONARY AND ARMOR. Furthermore, they face just militia level threats at best. Usually it is just some gangster who just happen to have a gun. Being a swordsman requires discipline, years of training so naturally they will not exist nor anyone who is such great as to become one will find themselves in situation where they are using their sword against policemen. Nor they would be effective against them due to their armor. If they would have a power sword then yes, a swordsman could cut through entire unit of SWAT in an instant if given that chance.
By your own admission SWAT armour would defeat a swordsman.
. A swordmaster can strike "inhumanly fast" as authors love to describe. Sword becomes just a blur and when you block and counter attack, it is more contest of endurance and persistence. You follow movement of person's muscles rather than following his blade and try to tire him or to force him to make a mistake. Someone adept at using a sword is a lot more dangerous than someone holding most guns at a range where sword is effective. It is faster, more precise, it is more flexible.
Then the swordsman becomes inhumanly powerful again?
Power weapons are in a league of its own. You have formation of SWAT assaulting a room? If someone with power sword would get a swing at them, he would cut through their shields, through their armor and their flesh as it would be nothing
Then you're back to fantasy land again
Seriously I'm starting to wonder if you are having trouble with the basic separation of reality and fantasy.
Most of the people arguing against you are talking about the REAL WORLD situations.
Most of the thread agrees with you regarding the 40K world since the technology and setting is basically emulating a sort of musket/rifle era level of technology effectiveness. Even though they've got gattling RPG launchers and plasma guns and lasers and such.
If swords could beat guns as much as you claim in the real world then real world armies would still use swordsmen. Soldiers would go to battle armed with swords as well as their guns. SWAT would be carrying swords.
Plus modern troops still carry their knives and such. They just don't use them anywhere near as much in actual combat as they do the gun they are carrying and using.
Overread wrote: Ernestas your argument is jumping all over the place.
One moment you're talking about 100m ranges; then jungles; then WW1 then modern police forces; then 2ft indoor encounters then back to jungles.
Plus each time you admit that ranged firepower is superior you then jump to 40K.
I know why we do not try to attack in melee. Guns are more effective. Yet, my argument was that we do not charge anymore, because people gotten too lazy and weak willed. In W40k I would enslave millions if not billions of people.
Right there you do it all in one line. You admit ranged fire is superior; then you make some odd argument that we don't blindly charged into close combat because we are weak willed? Then you shift the whole debate back into 40K.
In the real world you don't charge into close combat because you're dead. The ranged weapons rule the battlefield even before you consider the higher value we place on life today than in the past. Heck don't think that people have become weaker over the generations - self preservation is and always has been there. Warriors in the old days got freaking scared - heck most ancient battles in close combat weren't won with numbers lost to death, but more due to moral loss. When your army saw enough die and the situation go back that they broke and ran away. Self preservation isn't something new.
Honestly I think you need to just admit defeat. Close combat works in 40K because basically the game is emulating the musket era of combat; when ranged weapons were strong, but not totally dominating. Plus 40K has means of battle that are honestly insane - being able to take losses into the actual millions if not billions and still come out winning. These are insane ways to right. It's regularly pointed out that if the Imperium were not a bureaucratic and mostly insane Empire it could have made huge victories and won the war generations ago. Of course the same argument can be said for most factions.
It is because of catbarf making ridiculous points of how a melee weapon stands no chance in melee combat and how assault rifle is so much superior. Of course ranged weapon will be better at range, but if someone gets close, range weaponary even in our world is quite inferior in performance against pistols and other melee weapons. As for those other things, these are examples of how dangerous someone determined can be. I wanted to show how long 100 meters is in real life and how quickly it can be covered. Jungles is just one visualized example where soldiers had fight of their lives against nothing more than half naked beserkers who just charged and died. Indoor encounters was brought int by catbarf if I remember correctly, because he believes that it is better to have an assault rifle than a dagger when I'm standing next to someone else.
This was exactly my point. These fads as "self preservation" makes us weak. In my given example with USA soldiers encountering hostile tribe, they had shown how much determined enemy is dangerous. Human being can charge through multiple shots and our modern caliber would be too small to stop such beserker. Full auto would be necessary and then soldiers will be reloading magazines which would allow them to get into melee. The only thing which does not allow melee to be effective is low determination of modern population. If something from W40k would come, nothing too spectacular like just maddening effects of a warp, making humans into mad, deranged lunatics who would charge enemies on their own, that alone would be sufficient to make melee into a viable form of fighting. I agree that it is extremely heavily on human casualties, but usually the ones charging are considered to be quite worthless.
By your own admission SWAT armour would defeat a swordsman.
Yes, their shields makes them untouchable and in general, flak armor would block hits as swords are quite primitive. We did not had any development in melee weapons for quite a while.
Then the swordsman becomes inhumanly powerful again?
Yes, movement of their sword, swinging and attacking is very quick and precise if you are properly trained with a sword. If you are confused about previous statement, the issue is with penetrating armor and SWAT shields. It is about covering distance and getting a hit. If swordsman is in range, he can actually wield his sword with this "inhuman power" again, because of his training.
Then you're back to fantasy land again
Seriously I'm starting to wonder if you are having trouble with the basic separation of reality and fantasy.
Most of the people arguing against you are talking about the REAL WORLD situations.
Most of the thread agrees with you regarding the 40K world since the technology and setting is basically emulating a sort of musket/rifle era level of technology effectiveness. Even though they've got gattling RPG launchers and plasma guns and lasers and such.
If swords could beat guns as much as you claim in the real world then real world armies would still use swordsmen. Soldiers would go to battle armed with swords as well as their guns. SWAT would be carrying swords.
Plus modern troops still carry their knives and such. They just don't use them anywhere near as much in actual combat as they do the gun they are carrying and using.
I have same questions and to you. Do you comprehend what you are reading at all. How many power weapons do we have? I make a simple comparison how real world scenario would differ if we would have a power sword which would enable a swordman to cut through armor with impunity and that alone confuses you to no end. Imagine this scenario as an RPG. You have one weapon. Then you have a cheat code to get another OP weapon. Suddenly even unfavorable situation becomes one sided, because you used cheat code and got OP weapon. This is what this is.
You mean those wildmen who were drugged up with close combat weapons in the jungles who lost around 500 men compared to 14 or so Americans lost. Where the americans were armed with ranged weapons?
I mean yes the tribesmen fought hard, but they still lost 35 times more men than the ranged weapon armed Americans.
To me that's a pretty clear sign that ranged weapons ARE better. To kill 100 soldiers with ranged weapons you might need 3500 warriors with swords and in dense jungles to win. If it were anywhere more open those numbers would go up even higher.
It's at the point where primitive VS advanced weapon victories are measured in tiny numbers; and often required contrived or very specific situations to win.
A pistol is not "a melee weapon" in real life. Trying to shoot someone who's trying to grab or punch you is a very, very difficult and dangerous proposition. Worst case scenario is that you've just allowed your opponent to disarm you, or discharged your weapon into yourself of a comrade.
Your focus on people being somehow weak-willed and unable to fight is strange.
I mean, if someone tries to grab you, if you have a sword you're just as eff'd, because the person is INSIDE your defensive range and you can't effectively block or stab/swing. I can't give you a direct quote, but I recall a medieval text that, when faced with two knife-wielding opponents in an alley, recommended that a solitary swordsman flee the fight. Because a sword is not a "melee" weapon either compared to knife or fist.
Agamemnon2 wrote: A pistol is not "a melee weapon" in real life. Trying to shoot someone who's trying to grab or punch you is a very, very difficult and dangerous proposition. Worst case scenario is that you've just allowed your opponent to disarm you, or discharged your weapon into yourself of a comrade.
A pistol is a melee weapon by all practical measures. Techniques like center axis relock are all about using handguns in confined areas, including places and ranges where you wouldn't have the room to effectively use a sword. I've done kill-house clearing with both handguns and carbines against simulated (volunteer, simunitions) knife-wielding attackers. Only times I got tagged were when my team was incapacitated or absent and I was taken by surprise (ie stabbed in the back), scenarios where it wouldn't matter what weapon the other guy is using, I'm dead either way.
If you have your weapon drawn/shouldered already, it is not hard to engage someone at point blank range. The risk that gives rise to the 21-foot rule is when the weapon is holstered before the threat is recognized. Drawing a handgun from a conventional retention holster while being attacked and without resulting in a struggle for the weapon is not easy.
Whether we're talking sappers in WW1 or tunnel rats in Vietnam, troops expecting extremely close-quarters combat have historically universally opted for handguns over melee weapons when they've had the option. Troops expecting more conventional CQB have opted for submachine guns and shotguns. Nobody in the last, oh, hundred-odd years has gone into combat of any sort saying 'gee, I really wish I brought a sword instead of this self-loading firearm'.
Ernestas is an overenthusiastic hobbyist with no practical experience to inform him otherwise. That's really all there is to it here.
One thing I have also a hard time wrapping my head around: in this threat there have been mentions in the likes of this quote by Ernestas:
That is true, but in real combat scenario you will rarely get someone charging at you while you are facing him with your weapon drawn. Human being will use cover, surprise you. They might even suppress you with their own fire while designated melee chargers will try to kill you up close
in the general meaning of "A melee capable opponent can, under the right circumstances, get up close enough to a surprised ranged combattant to use his CC weaponry". In the same vein there was mentionining of Vietcong getting real close to american soldiers in the jungle - close enough to spring amongst them and use melee
My problem is: when I can surprise my enemy enough to get into melee... than I'm definitly close enough for VERY effective EDIT: ranged combat. I mean in those scenarios I have an surprised enemy maybe 5 yards away that has no weapon drawn. And it seems that I'm not surprised and had time to draw my weapon (else I would not have my sword ready). Wouldn't it in this scenario be much more efficient and also safe for me to throw a grenade/shoot a pistol/assault rifle/shotgun? I would even have time to aim for the head, maybe even to rest my gun on a nice stable support.
Looking at the Vietcong: If me and my guys have approached that unsuspecting GI column up to 10 Yards through the jungle, wouldn't it be much more sensible to unload our rifles into them and then retreat just to prepare the next ambush? Until they get their weapons ready we would be far away without any losses while they would definitly suffer.
One might argue with ammunition consumption, but that never seems to be a real problem in WH40k
Pyroalchi wrote: My problem is: when I can surprise my enemy enough to get into melee... than I'm definitly close enough for VERY effective EDIT: ranged combat. I mean in those scenarios I have an surprised enemy maybe 5 yards away that has no weapon drawn. And it seems that I'm not surprised and had time to draw my weapon (else I would not have my sword ready). Wouldn't it in this scenario be much more efficient and also safe for me to throw a grenade/shoot a pistol/assault rifle/shotgun? I would even have time to aim for the head, maybe even to rest my gun on a nice stable support.
At five yards you absolutely don't have time to aim for the head or brace your weapon, but otherwise yeah you are pretty much spot on. At that range three rounds rapid, center-mass, is real easy. The closer he gets, the easier the shot. By the time your assailant is two yards away- striking distance- if your weapon is loaded you basically cannot miss.
Melee casualties suffered from bayonet assaults against prepared defenders, as in the occasional use of banzai charges among the Japanese during WW2 or the mass infantry assaults carried out by the Chinese in the Korean War, come almost universally from defenders being too overwhelmed by the number of attackers to effectively engage each one. But you need a LOT of charging infantry combined with an already-disordered defender, and even then it has never been enough to actually win- just inflict a few scattered casualties with incredibly lopsided (30+:1) kill ratios.
There were instances of individual Japanese soldiers in the Philippines popping out of concealed positions for a point-blank bayonet or grenade attack against patrols. It was a psychological weapon in non-combat contexts, not an effective battlefield tactic.
Ernestas is an overenthusiastic hobbyist with no practical experience to inform him otherwise. That's really all there is to it here.
Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. In fact I'd go so far as to call him a crackpot or a looney, regarding his constant refrain about how people in the modern age are apparently some kind of sissified soyboys too weak for the purity of martial combat. It's really quite disturbing.
Ernestas is an overenthusiastic hobbyist with no practical experience to inform him otherwise. That's really all there is to it here.
Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. In fact I'd go so far as to call him a crackpot or a looney, regarding his constant refrain about how people in the modern age are apparently some kind of sissified soyboys too weak for the purity of martial combat. It's really quite disturbing.
He's also subtly and continously changing his argument and cherry-picking which points to continue to dispute.
The topic is 'why ranged combat is impractical' where now his argument is 'in a very specific set of circumstances a sword *might* beat a gun'.
I am convinced he is a troll, but his arguments are so outlandish it's actually endearing.
Next on the docket, why grenades are the best sniper weapon.
Cronch wrote: I am convinced he is a troll, but his arguments are so outlandish it's actually endearing.
Next on the docket, why grenades are the best sniper weapon.
Hey, I've seen those killcams from Call of Duty. No way a bullet could fly over a house and back down to take out the whole enemy unit at their spawn point!
Overread wrote: You mean those wildmen who were drugged up with close combat weapons in the jungles who lost around 500 men compared to 14 or so Americans lost. Where the americans were armed with ranged weapons?
I mean yes the tribesmen fought hard, but they still lost 35 times more men than the ranged weapon armed Americans.
To me that's a pretty clear sign that ranged weapons ARE better. To kill 100 soldiers with ranged weapons you might need 3500 warriors with swords and in dense jungles to win. If it were anywhere more open those numbers would go up even higher.
It's at the point where primitive VS advanced weapon victories are measured in tiny numbers; and often required contrived or very specific situations to win.
Yes, exactly. The issue is that you do not consider how other factions think. You are like Tau, you assume that your opponent will be sane and will fight a sane war. That couldn't be further from the truth. Even amongst Imperium there are simply insane forces like Black Templars who just charge into ambushes and enemy firepower with swords. They endure obscene levels of attrition and they are one of the two remaining loyalist legions in existence, recruiting probably even at the greater numbers than that during Crusade era.
In a same spirit imagine a force without moral scrupulous who can send millions upon millions of unarmed civilians into enemy lines. Partly for military purposes and sometimes just for their amusement, because it is fun to see people being butchered by machine guns, artillery fire and minefields. Here, this is what you are fighting against. Often in lore when Chaos armies land, they do not carry just Chaos space marines. They do not have just spikey Imperial Guard regiments, but they also unload millions of people with varying levels of sanity. Even if we assume 1:35 kill ratio, this is nearly 30,000 guardsmen killed by something which their enemy considers to be utterly worthless. In a same manner Tyranid swarms operate. They will just keep coming, charging at you with endless numbers of teeth and claw. Even if you kill millions upon millions of Tyranids, you still be losing soldiers at an alarming rate and hive mind simply doesn't care. It eats fallen Tyranids and remake them anew.
In w40k armies do not fight for kill rates. They do not care about damage inflicted. Fights are often to the death and war is total. Total casualties endured are far less important than achieving victory on a battlefield. This is why sometimes Imperium is memed for no reason, because it prioritizes victory over material and manpower loss.
It's at the point where primitive VS advanced weapon victories are measured in tiny numbers; and often required contrived or very specific situations to win.
The problem with real life examples is that they only have one part of an equation. For example, they have guys who are cannon fodder, but they lack guys who do damage. Even in Tyranid swarm there are small beasts who are meant to die and then there are big guys like Tyranids warriors who are meant to inflict damage. We have examples of soldiers just running into melee against modern armies, but the issue with them is that there is no superpower to support them. If they would be used in intelligent way like to advance before main force to get ambushed, walk into minefields or to distract enemy while other soldiers with small arms take up positions, these guys would suddenly become far more effective.
A pistol is not "a melee weapon" in real life. Trying to shoot someone who's trying to grab or punch you is a very, very difficult and dangerous proposition. Worst case scenario is that you've just allowed your opponent to disarm you, or discharged your weapon into yourself of a comrade.
Your focus on people being somehow weak-willed and unable to fight is strange.
That is usual combination for close quarters combat though. In W40k it is chainsword and las pistol/bolt pistol. In our world, it is ballistic shield and a pistol. There are concerns and everything you said holds true, but that is even more relevant if you are dealing with a bigger weapon. Pistol is quite small and light, thus any such concerns are the lowest compared to all small arms types.
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My problem is: when I can surprise my enemy enough to get into melee... than I'm definitly close enough for VERY effective EDIT: ranged combat. I mean in those scenarios I have an surprised enemy maybe 5 yards away that has no weapon drawn. And it seems that I'm not surprised and had time to draw my weapon (else I would not have my sword ready). Wouldn't it in this scenario be much more efficient and also safe for me to throw a grenade/shoot a pistol/assault rifle/shotgun? I would even have time to aim for the head, maybe even to rest my gun on a nice stable support.Looking at the Vietcong: If me and my guys have approached that unsuspecting GI column up to 10 Yards through the jungle, wouldn't it be much more sensible to unload our rifles into them and then retreat just to prepare the next ambush? Until they get their weapons ready we would be far away without any losses while they would definitly suffer.
Simple, psychological impact. If suddenly your squadmate gets eviscerated by roaring chainsword and you see behind you a massive brute cutting through your friend while his blood splatters all around you, it is going to mess you up psychologically and you are going to break down on a battlefield sooner or later. I had presented somewhere in this thread a video of why such charges are so effective. They break people down mentally. Wouldn't it be more effective to throw a grenade or fire? Yes and no. In most cases people or things who are charging are too stupid or insane to effectively use a firearm. Small arms are complicated to use really. This is why Ogryns for example have custom made guns marked as "Ogryn proof". As for normal soldier who values his own life and is competent with infantry weapons, it is often better just to fire.
As for W40k, the problem is that they use armor. In our world we can manufacture heavy machine proof body armor quite easily. If we are going to equip soldiers with such armor, soon we will have to face similar dilemma where it would take extreme amounts of ammunition until you put small enemy force of such armored soldiers down. If on the other hand you have a melee weapon who can put such soldier down instantly then it would be a lot more quicker just to kill him with a sword. Firing or throwing a grenade would cause all of them to scatter and then it would be impossible to do anything. If you ever tried to simulate a firefight in dense terrain, you would know that it is really hard to see anything nearby if that person doesn't want to get seen.
Ernestas is an overenthusiastic hobbyist with no practical experience to inform him otherwise. That's really all there is to it here.
Oh, I don't disagree with that at all. In fact I'd go so far as to call him a crackpot or a looney, regarding his constant refrain about how people in the modern age are apparently some kind of sissified soyboys too weak for the purity of martial combat. It's really quite disturbing.
He's also subtly and continously changing his argument and cherry-picking which points to continue to dispute.
The topic is 'why ranged combat is impractical' where now his argument is 'in a very specific set of circumstances a sword *might* beat a gun'.
That is called: presenting examples. In argumentation you have three things to worry about. Initial statement. An argument why this statement is true. Then you have to present an example where your argument holds true.
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Melissia wrote: I laugh at the idea that modern soldiers are somehow weak-willed.
Modern soldiers face a more chaotic and destructive battlefield than ever before.
Before we had to charge into concentrated small arms fire over and over again and engage enemies eye to eye. Now we break down, because we once had seen an actual combat and someone had killed someone in combat. This is from where this disdain comes from.
Yes. An explosive device had detonated right next to me. I had experienced something akin to shell shock. I do not know how soldiers call it. I fell on a ground on instinct. Surrounding sounds had dimmed, I became dizzy, confused. World around me seemed to slow down as I looked around.
Gunfire, especially while right next to me seemed overwhelming. I do not understand why soldiers are not wearing headphones integrated into their helmets with inter-squad comms and adaptable sound dampening. It seems that it would be impossible to communicate anything vocally on real battlefield.
Ernestas wrote: Yes. An explosive device had detonated right next to me. I had experienced something akin to shell shock. I do not know how soldiers call it. I fell on a ground on instinct. Surrounding sounds had dimmed, I became dizzy, confused. World around me seemed to slow down as I looked around.
Gunfire, especially while right next to me seemed overwhelming. I do not understand why soldiers are not wearing headphones integrated into their helmets with inter-squad comms and adaptable sound dampening. It seems that it would be impossible to communicate anything vocally on real battlefield.
And do you know WHY you felt dizy confused and also mostlikely afraid?
Let me help you: YOU DIDN'T expect it and FELT POWERLESS. This is what really is dangerous, the hulking brute fighting in melee, still leaves you with an intact illusion of power or capability to act. A sniper, a shell or grenades, don't.
This is why the shock value of guns is a lot higher then melee and what is in essence the main hinderance for melee strategies in a nutshell. ALL strategies that want to get into close quarters to seize a position therefore rely nowadays upon shock and awe or infiltration.
A horde of slaves as your starter exemple or drugged up berzerkers, is automatically forfeit because they neither acomplish one or the other effectively.
I agree that an illusion of power is very important. This is why soldiers do hold such belief in their rifles. This is why soldiers were lied to about bayonets and how they are just as effective as spears they had replaced.
Though, I do not think that such effects do not apply to soldiers which we are talking about. Berserkers and madman do not care about self preservation. While I was confused what was happening as it was new experience to me, a berserker will keep on running. In the end, they are not meant to win a battle for you. They are meant to distract opponent, to expose their positions, to walk into ambushes, etc. In lore Chaos usually just enslave entire population of a city and with effects of a warp, most go mad. These madman will be charging your line while Lost and the Damned will advance behind them providing suppressive fire and flanking you.
My point was that it takes very little to replicate tactics used in W40k and make them viable in our world. All that stands in our way is our morality and lack of universal maddening tool which would make person throw itself upon enemy lines with heedless abandon. We have various drugs which take all fear away, but they are rather expensive and complicated to use on such wide scale not to mention that there are plenty of undesired side effects. Initially I argued that IF we had frenzon drug in our world, melee would become viable in modern combat. It would not replace ranged combat, but it would become an actual threat. In lore any serious force which throws people at modern gunlines have them drugged with frenzon which makes them superhumanly strong and fast while making them fearless and to ignore even most grievous of injuries. I don't believe that is beyond realms of possibility, especially now we have drugs who do little bit of everything already what frenzon does.
Not with actual shrapnel shredding his muscles and ripping tendons from the bone. Not when his eardrums burst and his brain is so rattled inside his head he loses consciousness. You can be as frenzied as you want, your mind is held in a soft spongy orb inside a bony box that is very, very easy to break.
Also, a fun little fact- "frenzied" troops are hilarious. There's an account of an SS unit that got so high on their "panzerschokolade" that one man saw "americans" in the darkness and the unit had to surrender to the actual americans next morning, because they fired all their ammo into the night.
Ernestas wrote: I agree that an illusion of power is very important. This is why soldiers do hold such belief in their rifles. This is why soldiers were lied to about bayonets and how they are just as effective as spears they had replaced.
Such effects do not apply to soldiers which we are talking about. Berserkers and madman do not care about self preservation.
And here we fall into the next trap. Have you looked at WW1? Yes? Do you know what "Elan" is? Let me tell you, in german there has now been an established Bonmot called 08/15 Lösung, literally 08/15 solution, tracing back to the 08/15 german machine guns that cut bloddy swaths in early french counter assaults of highly motivated (elan) french rifle men.
While I was confused what was happening as it was new experience to me, a berserker will keep on running. In the end, they are not meant to win a battle for you. They are meant to distract opponent, to expose their positions, to walk into ambushes, etc. In lore Chaos usually just enslave entire population of a city and with effects of a warp, most go mad. These madman will be charging your line while Lost and the Damned will advance behind them providing suppressive fire and flanking you.
This: Is what the average Chaos footsoldier looks like in 40K He is equiped with a Standard backfield formation Autogun in most cases. Sometimes if he is lucky or an actual traitor guardsmen he is equipped with a lasgun.
this is literally what you can expect from second rate formations in the 40k universe.
Not with actual shrapnel shredding his muscles and ripping tendons from the bone. Not when his eardrums burst and his brain is so rattled inside his head he loses consciousness. You can be as frenzied as you want, your mind is held in a soft spongy orb inside a bony box that is very, very easy to break.
Also, a fun little fact- "frenzied" troops are hilarious. There's an account of an SS unit that got so high on their "panzerschokolade" that one man saw "americans" in the darkness and the unit had to surrender to the actual americans next morning, because they fired all their ammo into the night.
Also this, drugged up soldiers, especiall to a point of fearlessness, ARE great targets preciscly because they make themselves targets, even more so then the happy go lucky WW1 early war french.
Another note, these drugged up soldiers, even in the best case suffered in overall performance the longer the engagement and campaigns went on.
Ernestas you keep using 40K (FANTASY) to deflect/discount real world arguments. You keep saying that if Chaos in the 40K world can win battles with close combat troops against powerful ranged weapons then we should be able to do so in reality as well.
The world doesn't work like that.
The fact that pretty much every single situation of primitive closecombat weapons and charging ranged weapons fails doesn't seem to be registering in your mind. Even where the close combat armies gain a victory its often with insanely high losses. Even more so once gattling weapons and automatic rifles and such start to appear on the battlefields.
Also this, drugged up soldiers, especiall to a point of fearlessness, ARE great targets preciscly because they make themselves targets, even more so then the happy go lucky WW1 early war french.
Another note, these drugged up soldiers, even in the best case suffered in overall performance the longer the engagement and campaigns went on.
I forget its name, but there's a book written on real world werewolves that I read a while back which spoke about battle berserk and how some of those warriors would take a concoction of drugs to induce a frenzy state. They went on to note that whilst they would be capable of great feats in battle, they might then spend several days asleep afterwards; their bodies and muscles utterly shredded and worn out from the influence. For many modern battle situations you can't go and spend several days safely sleeping after one fight. It worked in the old days way back before guns when a grand battle might well be one major encounter; or even further back when it was closer to warring townships/tribes/villages where, again, you might only get one major engagement to settle the matter.
I believe they also touched on control and the risk of friendly damage taken from people in such a state as well. Which would mean that instead of presenting a unified front where each warrior protects the next; the berserkers had to almost be on their own. A powerful fearsome psychological weapon, but not likely as effective as orderly rank and file troops where they fight with an organised pattern. And we see this in real world warfare; as armies got bigger and bigger we see less of this berserker aspect and more rank and file ordered drills; formations and the like.
Also this, drugged up soldiers, especiall to a point of fearlessness, ARE great targets preciscly because they make themselves targets, even more so then the happy go lucky WW1 early war french.
Another note, these drugged up soldiers, even in the best case suffered in overall performance the longer the engagement and campaigns went on.
I forget its name, but there's a book written on real world werewolves that I read a while back which spoke about battle berserk and how some of those warriors would take a concoction of drugs to induce a frenzy state. They went on to note that whilst they would be capable of great feats in battle, they might then spend several days asleep afterwards; their bodies and muscles utterly shredded and worn out from the influence. For many modern battle situations you can't go and spend several days safely sleeping after one fight. It worked in the old days way back before guns when a grand battle might well be one major encounter; or even further back when it was closer to warring townships/tribes/villages where, again, you might only get one major engagement to settle the matter.
I believe they also touched on control and the risk of friendly damage taken from people in such a state as well. Which would mean that instead of presenting a unified front where each warrior protects the next; the berserkers had to almost be on their own. A powerful fearsome psychological weapon, but not likely as effective as orderly rank and file troops where they fight with an organised pattern. And we see this in real world warfare; as armies got bigger and bigger we see less of this berserker aspect and more rank and file ordered drills; formations and the like.
Don't even need to go that far back, you can f.e. look at the Wehrmacht during WW2. Pervetin use had serious drawbacks especially obvious during barbaross. Crippling the longterm effectiveness of users of it quite heavily. And we are just talking about pervetin, not druggd out completely stuff that you find in 40k.
All that stands in our way is our morality and lack of universal maddening tool which would make person throw itself upon enemy lines with heedless abandon. We have various drugs which take all fear away, but they are rather expensive and complicated to use on such wide scale not to mention that there are plenty of undesired side effects. Initially I argued that IF we had frenzon drug in our world, melee would become viable in modern combat. It would not replace ranged combat, but it would become an actual threat. In lore any serious force which throws people at modern gunlines have them drugged with frenzon which makes them superhumanly strong and fast while making them fearless and to ignore even most grievous of injuries. I don't believe that is beyond realms of possibility, especially now we have drugs who do little bit of everything already what frenzon does.
Your belief is incorrect. It doesn't matter what drugs you give to people to turn them into these mythical indestructible berserkers, the body still stops working when a bullet shreds the heart, brain, lungs or any number of other organs. You still can't run when you get shot in the kneecap or your femur is shattered by a bullet in the leg even with enough drugs coursing through you to keep you high for weeks. This whole thread is people telling you you're wrong and explaining why you're wrong, followed by you...ignoring those points and restating your incorrect assertions.
Also in OPs examples there is usually a chaos force that in the end wants its slave masses to die and has no lack of reinforcements (if the writer wants it). That is definitly not the case on earth.
Even if you assume a fictional country doing that and dedicating a large mass of forcably conscripted drugged up troops for more or less suicidal CC mass attacks to provide distraction for the "real" shooty troops and also demoralize the enemy in the way OP describes... They would loose the majority of said CC troops within the first battles and would be unable to replace them. Especially since any force large enough to be threatening to lets say a modern shooty devision with machine guns, vehicles etc. would cover so much area that the majority of them would be shredded from air or by artillery.
If (in WH40k) Chaos would really want to make effective use of enslaved hives etc. they should make half of their slaves build lasguns for the other half. If I imagine being standard guardsmen with Heavy Bolters, Flamers and Stubbers at their hands in a Regiment including tanks, artillery and maybe airsupport, I would be a lot more concerned about 10.000 penal soldiers with Lasguns than about 100.000 drugged up crazy slaves with swords. Mainly because while I could face all 10.000 penals firing simulatanously from cover, the CC slaves have to come out in the open at some time, because they are just too many to all hide.
Cronch wrote: Of course, now that you armed your slaves, you need to worry about having armed slaves among your troops.
But if Close Combat were as effective as the OP suggests, then they're actually less dangerous once you've given them lasguns instead of pointy bits, so it all works out.
Cronch wrote: Of course, now that you armed your slaves, you need to worry about having armed slaves among your troops.
But if Close Combat were as effective as the OP suggests, then they're actually less dangerous once you've given them lasguns instead of pointy bits, so it all works out.
Ah, but you can use a lasgun to tape a spork to it, turning it into deadliest weapon known to man and demon: laser-guded, extended range tactical spork.
The real question, why even bother arming slaves, if you can recruit the willing into actual effective and motivated fighting forces and use the rest as labour,
Spoiler:
like any really successfull chaos cult/ Renegade warband is depicted?
Cronch wrote: Of course, now that you armed your slaves, you need to worry about having armed slaves among your troops.
But if Close Combat were as effective as the OP suggests, then they're actually less dangerous once you've given them lasguns instead of pointy bits, so it all works out.
Ah, but you can use a lasgun to tape a spork to it, turning it into deadliest weapon known to man and demon: laser-guded, extended range tactical spork.
Woah woah woah man, not even Chaos slaves would go that far. That's just disgusting. NSFW this for brutality.
All that stands in our way is our morality and lack of universal maddening tool which would make person throw itself upon enemy lines with heedless abandon. We have various drugs which take all fear away, but they are rather expensive and complicated to use on such wide scale not to mention that there are plenty of undesired side effects. Initially I argued that IF we had frenzon drug in our world, melee would become viable in modern combat. It would not replace ranged combat, but it would become an actual threat. In lore any serious force which throws people at modern gunlines have them drugged with frenzon which makes them superhumanly strong and fast while making them fearless and to ignore even most grievous of injuries. I don't believe that is beyond realms of possibility, especially now we have drugs who do little bit of everything already what frenzon does.
Your belief is incorrect. It doesn't matter what drugs you give to people to turn them into these mythical indestructible berserkers, the body still stops working when a bullet shreds the heart, brain, lungs or any number of other organs. You still can't run when you get shot in the kneecap or your femur is shattered by a bullet in the leg even with enough drugs coursing through you to keep you high for weeks. This whole thread is people telling you you're wrong and explaining why you're wrong, followed by you...ignoring those points and restating your incorrect assertions.
And also, lets assume one of the fantastical example scenarios is true - in the real world you could be completely overwhelmed by a force on combat drugs and in vastly superior numbers, who will attempt to rush you and engage you in melee - what in that scenario makes you think that arming yourself with a sword and facing them in melee is a winning strategy in any way shape or form?
It's illogical madness whether it's fantasy or reality.
Cronch wrote: Of course, now that you armed your slaves, you need to worry about having armed slaves among your troops.
But if Close Combat were as effective as the OP suggests, then they're actually less dangerous once you've given them lasguns instead of pointy bits, so it all works out.
Ah, but you can use a lasgun to tape a spork to it, turning it into deadliest weapon known to man and demon: laser-guded, extended range tactical spork.
Woah woah woah man, not even Chaos slaves would go that far. That's just disgusting. NSFW this for brutality.
Except of course if you are slaanesh or khorne.
Excessive violence andthe corresponding bloodflow from a tactical spork bayonett would please both in an unholly communion.
Probably also the only thing they'd agree on beeing good
Excommunicatus wrote: Yeah. The main battle-armament of the Adeptus Astartes has a maximum effective range that is shorter than a tennis court (78').
An Earthshaker's much-vaunted range translates, in reality, to less than a quarter of a kilometre.
I think they're mentioned in Vraks as shelling targets at least like 30km out. I think we can assume range compression so that it fits on the tabletop. Basically every tabletop miniatures game has fairly intense range compression.
Epic Armageddon was interesting - it stated 90cm was the distance to the horizon (at that height about 4-5 miles depending on elevation), but then that became 'stretchy' at close range with 15cm (the engagement range for small arms), assumed to be about 300m not the 1000 odd it would have been if you sticked with the horizon calculation The rationale being units behaved differently close to each other and this allowed you to get more manoeuvre in rather than crowding units into tiny areas. (It also meant a combat squad had a frontage of roughly 50m.)
Ernestas wrote: Yes. An explosive device had detonated right next to me. I had experienced something akin to shell shock. I do not know how soldiers call it. I fell on a ground on instinct. Surrounding sounds had dimmed, I became dizzy, confused. World around me seemed to slow down as I looked around.
Gunfire, especially while right next to me seemed overwhelming. I do not understand why soldiers are not wearing headphones integrated into their helmets with inter-squad comms and adaptable sound dampening. It seems that it would be impossible to communicate anything vocally on real battlefield.
That isn't shell shock. Shell shock is PTSD. It is not just disorientation, it can be the complete shutdown of your ability to function, to reason, walk, talk, sleep, etc.
If you want to make melee viable in modern warfare don't use humans.
Humans have gak logistical requirements like needing a decade and half to be viable combatants.
But if you make drones, equip them with close ranged weapons like explosives and throw them at the enemy you have loitering munitions, which are very viable weapons.
Tyran wrote: If you want to make melee viable in modern warfare don't use humans.
Humans have gak logistical requirements like needing a decade and half to be viable combatants.
But if you make drones, equip them with close ranged weapons like explosives and throw them at the enemy you have loitering munitions, which are very viable weapons.
Well that’s an idea for a new Tau drone, remove the guns from a drone and strap some knives to it, have at least 1 halfway competent melee model with a squad of fire warriors, give it the ability to join combat like a character to aid nearby units.
To be fair, with the current ranged centric 40k ruleset, Firewarriors are probably already great for assault. Because they probably won't kill much of anything, meaning they can tripoint more effectively to tie a unit into CC.
Epic Armageddon was interesting - it stated 90cm was the distance to the horizon (at that height about 4-5 miles depending on elevation), but then that became 'stretchy' at close range with 15cm (the engagement range for small arms), assumed to be about 300m not the 1000 odd it would have been if you sticked with the horizon calculation The rationale being units behaved differently close to each other and this allowed you to get more manoeuvre in rather than crowding units into tiny areas. (It also meant a combat squad had a frontage of roughly 50m.)
Exaltable info.
The translation across scales and armament is interesting ... indeed.
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Gir Spirit Bane wrote: Lads, this is a game where 8 foot super soldiers which can spit acid and fire rockets regularly engage british football hooligan mushrooms, 20 meters alien monsters and robots older than most planets.
I think we need to leave any pretence of realism at the door and just enjoy the spectacle.
If this acid did not work as real acid works and if the ages of robots were not subject to natural laws for instance entropy then the setting loses something, no?
I'm not quite getting your point. You refer to general Chaos footsolder, but they are already far better solders than most Chaos brings to the table numerically speaking. Zombies, demons is supernatural element which is mostly dangerous as a shock troops. Yet, the biggest part of Chaos forces are not these renegade soldiers, it is civilian population which was being driven mad and now is being sent at your line in millions. I do believe that if in reality we would have anything like that, any military force would be at a breaking point mentally and hard pressed logistically to provide enough ammunition to the frontlines. This is at the core of my argument, we devalue human life so much that it is worth less than a mine on which it would trip and explode. That artillery shell which took out few of these people was worth more than these troops. Combat drugs and remote control devices are worth more than them.
Ernestas you keep using 40K (FANTASY) to deflect/discount real world arguments. You keep saying that if Chaos in the 40K world can win battles with close combat troops against powerful ranged weapons then we should be able to do so in reality as well.
The world doesn't work like that.
I know that melee combat in real life would not work. What I'm saying is that we need just little bit of push for it to be as a viable thing in futuristic environments. One thing is that we have our morals. In W40k people often do not. Here we would lack necessary tools in making people charge enemy lines, in W40k there is maddening presence of the Warp and if that fails, they have effective combat drugs like frenzone which makes anyone to beserker. What I'm saying is that we need a very small push in terms of our capacity to make W40k into modern, real-life combat.
Here is why it would work. Do you know how much trouble military has just trying to stop suicide bombers? Now imagine that these suicide bombers would not be exceptional individuals (because very few are willing to do so), but rather EVERYONE. And these people not only are charging you with bombs, melee and occasional ranged weapon, but there is an active global war going on with adversary fully capable in fighting you head on by itself. This is why these cannon fodder is dangerous. Its saps morale, ammunition and from time to time wipes out guardsmen all the while being cheap addition to main military force of your enemy who has far more dangerous, disciplined and better equipped and trained troops than these.
Don't even need to go that far back, you can f.e. look at the Wehrmacht during WW2. Pervetin use had serious drawbacks especially obvious during barbaross. Crippling the longterm effectiveness of users of it quite heavily. And we are just talking about pervetin, not druggd out completely stuff that you find in 40k.
I will have to read more about combat drugs which we had used in our world. Though, the main difference is this. We have soldiers. Soldiers are all about the long run. They require discipline, training, equipment. They are here to fight war from start to finish. Thus they need to endure as much as possible, this is why stress and requirements which they are put under usually are quite low. Any hardship is more about carrying your own logistical chain as your backpack. Combat drugs are for combat. It is to kill and be killed kind of thing. Soldiers will never be recipients of said drugs, because their value lies in long term capacity of being able to persevere, conduct complex maneuvers and to force attrition upon the enemy. Anything that messes up with their long term capacity like combat drugs is bad. This is why you do not usually hear IG, Lost and the Damned and most soldiers using combat drugs. Yet, it is perfect for beserkers of some warriors whose goal is to fight in a skirmish and provide as much tactical advantage as possible. They are not expected to survive and their worth is not in the long war. They often are being spent as ammunition of war.
Your belief is incorrect. It doesn't matter what drugs you give to people to turn them into these mythical indestructible berserkers, the body still stops working when a bullet shreds the heart, brain, lungs or any number of other organs. You still can't run when you get shot in the kneecap or your femur is shattered by a bullet in the leg even with enough drugs coursing through you to keep you high for weeks. This whole thread is people telling you you're wrong and explaining why you're wrong, followed by you...ignoring those points and restating your incorrect assertions.
That is incorrect. Human body is capable of enduring multiple bullet wounds without stopping to fight. There are critical areas of course some of which you had mentioned, but you will have to riddle a really determined opponent with bullets, set him on fire or explode him in order for him to just stop fighting.
That is incorrect. Human body is capable of enduring multiple bullet wounds without stopping to fight. There are critical areas of course some of which you had mentioned, but you will have to riddle a really determined opponent with bullets, set him on fire or explode him in order for him to just stop fighting.
every somewhat competently trained Light infantry will just shoot into the triangle of death. Your average swiss füsilier has an engagement range of 300 m. and is trained for that distance.
Glad someone else caught that. And the fact that "kelbo-hal" thinks someone can continue fighting after massive damage to vital organs (heart/and or lungs) tells me he's never actually shot anything.
He's also never played Serious Sam - otherwise he'd know that strapping bombs to people and making them run right at you - doesn't work (I mean it does the first few times, but once you're a battle hardened warrior capable of shrugging off a few bullet holes and learning to dodge in the open - you're fine!)
edit - on a more serious note I think anyone who wants some better idea of bullet wounds might want to watch The Three Kings film. I recall they did several bullet wounds pretty well including the collapsed lung. I'm not saying its documentary style; but it does at least show that one shot to the right spot will down people.
Your belief is incorrect. It doesn't matter what drugs you give to people to turn them into these mythical indestructible berserkers, the body still stops working when a bullet shreds the heart, brain, lungs or any number of other organs. You still can't run when you get shot in the kneecap or your femur is shattered by a bullet in the leg even with enough drugs coursing through you to keep you high for weeks. This whole thread is people telling you you're wrong and explaining why you're wrong, followed by you...ignoring those points and restating your incorrect assertions.
That is incorrect. Human body is capable of enduring multiple bullet wounds without stopping to fight. There are critical areas of course some of which you had mentioned, but you will have to riddle a really determined opponent with bullets, set him on fire or explode him in order for him to just stop fighting.
No, no, no, no, no. Just...no. The number of ways a human being can be incapacitated with even a single bullet is quite remarkable. Almost any injury to centre-mass (AKA triangle of death as Not Online mentions) will incapacitate any human being. This is to do with physiology, not psychology. All those squishy bits in the middle of a human body are necessary, and often even the smallest interruption of their function stops the human body from working properly almost instantly.
Kelbo-Hal wrote: Here is why it would work. Do you know how much trouble military has just trying to stop suicide bombers? Now imagine that these suicide bombers would not be exceptional individuals (because very few are willing to do so), but rather EVERYONE. And these people not only are charging you with bombs, melee and occasional ranged weapon, but there is an active global war going on with adversary fully capable in fighting you head on by itself. This is why these cannon fodder is dangerous. Its saps morale, ammunition and from time to time wipes out guardsmen all the while being cheap addition to main military force of your enemy who has far more dangerous, disciplined and better equipped and trained troops than these.
Real-world militaries have trouble dealing with suicide bombers when deployed from ambush. That is, when they're concealed among civilian populations, hidden in vehicles, or approaching a checkpoint in an urban area at high speed and you have two, maybe three seconds to respond.
IEDs in the open get shot. SVBIEDs in the open get shot. Neither of these is applicable on an open battlefield.
The Islamic State learned this lesson after continuously losing SVBIEDs to hostile fire. So they started building up-armored SVBIEDs.
Congratulations, you have resistance to small arms. Oops, infantry are still packing a ton of weapons capable of penetrating improvised armor. So they continued to innovate.
ISIL reached the point of up-armoring vehicles as SVBIEDs, turning them into two-man vehicles, with an emplaced machine gun and gunner intended to suppress the target.
And then these continued to sustain high losses against Peshmerga irregulars, and around 2017 they gave up and returned to more conventional tactics.
Have you thought about why an organization willing to go to such lengths to make suicide attacks viable, with no shortage of willing martyrs, wouldn't just strap bombs to volunteers and use them in a human wave attack like you keep insisting is viable? It's not like they're going up against a professional military, so it should be even easier.
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Kelbo-Hal wrote: Combat drugs are for combat. It is to kill and be killed kind of thing. Soldiers will never be recipients of said drugs, because their value lies in long term capacity of being able to persevere, conduct complex maneuvers and to force attrition upon the enemy. Anything that messes up with their long term capacity like combat drugs is bad.
You don't have the slightest clue what you are talking about. Just stop.
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Kelbo-Hal wrote: Thus they need to endure as much as possible, this is why stress and requirements which they are put under usually are quite low.
Ah yes, soldiers are typically put under low stress so as not to damage them. Military service is really just a breeze. Right. Got it.
I hope someone is enjoying this.
Automatically Appended Next Post: The oscillation between 'yeah I know melee doesn't work in real life' and 'I have a sword and have studied swordfighting, and modern military trainers are unaware of the lethality of swords in close combat, so I could take on a rifleman and win!' is giving me whiplash.
In fairness, most of you are overlooking the psychological factor of people under stress or in combat. On one hand, people have died from completely non-lethal wounds such as a .22 lodged in the thigh simply due to the stress and trauma of being shot. On the other hand there's a case where an off-duty police officer had an assailant try to carjack her SUV in her own driveway and shot her in the heart point blank with a .357 magnum. In her rage she chased him for a block on foot and gunned him down with with her 9mm service pistol - and survived.
These may be extreme cases which can't be applied to any general situation but to argue psychology isn't a strong factor in one's physiological capability is simply incorrect.
I would still have to argue however, that even determined fanaticism matched against trained forces with superior weaponry will have a very difficult if not impossible task unless there are unusual extenuating circumstances to give the fanatics another edge.
amanita wrote: On the other hand there's a case where an off-duty police officer had an assailant try to carjack her SUV in her own driveway and shot her in the heart point blank with a .357 magnum. In her rage she chased him for a block on foot and gunned him down with with her 9mm service pistol - and survived.
In short, she was shot, did not chase the assailant a block but only followed him round her truck where she shot him. She then collapsed in her driveway and flatlined. She was able to be resuscitated by paramedics but suffered damage to her intestine, spleen, liver, stomach, heart and a broken rib from the fragmentation of a hollow point round.
She flatlined again at the hospital, requiring 45 minutes of heart massage to bring her back. Then she was in a comatose state for 7 days.
So, I don't really think it holds up as an example.
Ah, thanks for finding that - it had been some years since I read the account so I had missed some of the details.
Still, for you to say it doesn't hold up as an example is rather curious. I take it you don't think people are capable of extraordinary feats when most would be incapacitated?
This reminds me of when engineers wanted to study martial artists' ability to break concrete blocks. They'd done the math and were astonished to find that the martial artists could break blocks that should have broken their hands yet they were unharmed. Subsequently they realized that the martial artist's bone density was much greater due to the healing of micro-fractures produced over time. Now this is a physiological event unaccounted for, but it relates to issue. Adrenalin, sheer willpower and belief CAN overcome in some cases where logic would indicate otherwise.
amanita wrote: This reminds me of when engineers wanted to study martial artists' ability to break concrete blocks. They'd done the math and were astonished to find that the martial artists could break blocks that should have broken their hands yet they were unharmed. Subsequently they realized that the martial artist's bone density was much greater due to the healing of micro-fractures produced over time. Now this is a physiological event unaccounted for, but it relates to issue. Adrenalin, sheer willpower and belief CAN overcome in some cases where logic would indicate otherwise.
Okay, but we have ample historical evidence of combatants, high as a kite on drugs, still dying to concentrated gunfire.
One of the oft-repeated examples is the experience of US Army Rangers during the 'Black Hawk Down' (Op Gothic Serpent) incident. They reported hitting Somalis who, at the height of their Khat stimulation in the early evening, were picked up by their comrades and carried out of the line of fire. This prompted an investigation into the weapons used, which determined that the FMJ ammunition used by the Rangers had a maximally terminal range of about 100yds when fired through their 14.5" M4s, after which they lost the velocity to yaw/fragment as intended.
The ammunition was redesigned to a newer standard (M855A1) and the issue was solved. Insurgents on amphetamines drop like a sack of bricks when hit by the newer ammo. They can be so strung out that they don't consciously recognize the hit, but a fist-sized hole in your heart, spinal column, or any major artery is not ignorable.
I get that adrenaline and state of mind have a huge impact on incapacitation. But there are limits.
Not only are there limits, but as noted in the recent example above of the police officer and in others through the thread. Most people who go through a period of extreme exertion and/or injury often come out the other end at the very best exhausted to the point of collapse for days. At the other end of the scale they can be physically and mentally crippled from the experience. Sure you got what was likely 5 mins of heroic action - and you pay for it for the rest of your life.
Furthermore many required immediate medical attention in the field or very soon after in order to survive. That means you've got to have trained people, with the right resources and a clear mind on hand to save the hero. A whole unit drugged up on its own might achieve great things - then its gunned down, wounded and worn out and if alone you've just lose those soldiers.
amanita wrote: This reminds me of when engineers wanted to study martial artists' ability to break concrete blocks. They'd done the math and were astonished to find that the martial artists could break blocks that should have broken their hands yet they were unharmed. Subsequently they realized that the martial artist's bone density was much greater due to the healing of micro-fractures produced over time. Now this is a physiological event unaccounted for, but it relates to issue. Adrenalin, sheer willpower and belief CAN overcome in some cases where logic would indicate otherwise.
Okay, but we have ample historical evidence of combatants, high as a kite on drugs, still dying to concentrated gunfire.
One of the oft-repeated examples is the experience of US Army Rangers during the 'Black Hawk Down' (Op Gothic Serpent) incident. They reported hitting Somalis who, at the height of their Khat stimulation in the early evening, were picked up by their comrades and carried out of the line of fire. This prompted an investigation into the weapons used, which determined that the FMJ ammunition used by the Rangers had a maximally terminal range of about 100yds when fired through their 14.5" M4s, after which they lost the velocity to yaw/fragment as intended.
The ammunition was redesigned to a newer standard (M855A1) and the issue was solved. Insurgents on amphetamines drop like a sack of bricks when hit by the newer ammo. They can be so strung out that they don't consciously recognize the hit, but a fist-sized hole in your heart, spinal column, or any major artery is not ignorable.
I get that adrenaline and state of mind have a huge impact on incapacitation. But there are limits.
I agree completely. I merely wanted to mention that there are exceptions concerning the physiological impairment of combatants under unusual circumstances. Not in any way those exceptions can be relied upon tactically.
All of this talk seems to be concentrated on the oft chance idea that a man or woman on enough drug can survive a bullet wound to engage the enemy at close combat and there cause some damage. This is not only a huge stretch, but it's basically taking into account the weakest and one of the mosty useless weapon of modern warfare: the infantry rifle. Most of modern war's casualties are caused by artillery and air strikes. The question isn't can some dude endure a gunshot wound, the question is can some dude endure artillery shells and missiles. Even if they could, close combat would still be terrible as it's a slow way to kill people.
Even if melee was deadlier than ranged combat, there's one factor you have to account for: fatigue. Even a drone is gonna require far more energy to run up and fight in close quarters than to sit back and fire a gun. Even hopped up on drugs, a human being will reach muscle failure within a hour of strenuous melee combat, while a gunman can literally keep firing for hours. It don't matter if you can't feel any pain if you're unable to lift your arms anymore.
epronovost wrote: All of this talk seems to be concentrated on the oft chance idea that a man or woman on enough drug can survive a bullet wound to engage the enemy at close combat and there cause some damage. This is not only a huge stretch, but it's basically taking into account the weakest and one of the mosty useless weapon of modern warfare: the infantry rifle. Most of modern war's casualties are caused by artillery and air strikes. The question isn't can some dude endure a gunshot wound, the question is can some dude endure artillery shells and missiles. Even if they could, close combat would still be terrible as it's a slow way to kill people.
Inflicting casualties is not what war is entirely about. It's about taking ground and reducing the enemy's ability to continue fighting. If your guys are jacked up on drugs and not giving a feth then they are less likely to give up/surrender/retreat and more likely to require becoming a casualty to end their ability to fight. Drugs might be great for winning the battle (if it doesn't mess with your ability to understand and execute orders) but they generally have a long effect which is bad for the overall operation/war.
Also what that "unless" infantry rifle is doing is establishing moments of firepower superiority and allowing troops to advance and take the position. Enemy gets pushed back, loses the will to fight, they flee or surrender. All that artillery is effective at inflicting casualties but it's also great at forcing the enemy to seek cover, increase their distress, and help discourage the enemy from continuing the fight.
That is true for humans, and somewhat true for ground drones. But flying drones are going to expend the same energy anyway.
And of course explosive drones are meant to cease to exists so it's not as if energy is a truly important issue for them.
Even a flying drone takes more energy, because they either have a weapon that needs to swing (requiring more energy both for the swing and to stabilize the drone) or thrust (about the same as above) with enough force to inflict actual damage, while avoiding the attacks coming towards it. A drone shooting at you from 100 yards away is an incredibly small target and is only threatened by things which would be nigh impossible to dodge, meaning less energy expenditure there. It DOES need to account for recoil, but even that's less taxing than stabilizing a thrust or slash. Furthermore, if it's unable to fly, it can still be dangerous at a long range (albeit with a limited area), while a melee drone would be pretty much useless.
Exploding drones are a fair point, but honestly at that point you might as well just be firing mortars at your target, for far less resources.
To address the drone idea for close combat, this is still a stupid idea. The concept of a flying close combat drone is rather pointless. An identical flying drone with a ranged weapon would be far, far superior. It could basically defeat it's competing drone by flying away from it and shooting at it at the same time. As for the idea that a "flying suicide-bombing drone" as "close combat" weapon, this is ridiculous. We already have primitive version of those. They are called "guided missiles". They are very efficient and they are ranged weapons. If you absolutely wanted to resurrect close combat doctrines in modern or futuristic warfare, you have more chance with cavalry and even then. Their use would be extremely limited and focused on certain scenario.
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Vankraken wrote: what that "unless" infantry rifle is doing is establishing moments of firepower superiority and allowing troops to advance and take the position.
That job is more often attributed to drone and air strike or light artillery support like mortars. The infantry rifle is basically icing on the cake, desperate measures or suppression in very close range engagement against enemy skirmishers. Even then, machine guns sections and sniper fire is more often favored when cannons and bombs aren't available.
That is incorrect. Human body is capable of enduring multiple bullet wounds without stopping to fight. There are critical areas of course some of which you had mentioned, but you will have to riddle a really determined opponent with bullets, set him on fire or explode him in order for him to just stop fighting.
That is incorrect.
Please stop posting if you're going to simply spout nonsense. This isn't Hollywood. Can a person survive multiple non-lethal gunshot wounds? Sure. Will a person who's high on meth ignore the immediate effects of a non-lethal gunshot wound? Sure. There is no motivation or drug, however, which will allow a human body to ignore actual effective gunshots. These are not "a few critical areas" that are impossible to hit or strike.
The use of lethal force, for instance, in a law enforcement capacity has three primary targets: spine, lungs, and heart. In a desperate instance the head, followed by the pelvis in more modern instruction, are "back up" locations if you don't have another option.
No motivation or drug will allow you to ignore a gunshot wound to your heart.
No motivation or drug will allow you to move and function if your spine is severed or incapacitated.
No motivation or drug will allow you to breathe if your lungs collapse.
No motivation or drug will allow you to function if a gunshot wound to the head impacts your brain significantly. (oddly you can survive weird stuff like crossbow bolts...but that's freak science and obviously a rare occurence)
No motivation or drug will allow you to walk if your pelvis is shattered.
The goal of employing a firearm - in most instances - is the immediate cessation of the threat; stopping your target immediately with the quickest available force. Can you survive a shot to your thigh, and your arm, and your shoulder, and a grazing bullet to your skull, and some shrapnel in your legs and losing a finger? Sure. 100%. Happens all the time in combat. Can adrenaline pull you through in situations like that? Yes. Is there a significant chance you bleed out in short order afterwards? Also yes. This is how you end up with Medal of Honor recipients, even posthumously awarded ones. This would be akin to taking non-lethal knife and sword wounds in a fight with someone. The first rule of a knife fight is simple: you're going to get cut.
You do not have to "riddle" someone with bullets to stop them. In fact, science and combat medicine has shown that most of the time, a simple non-lethal gunshot wound will incapacitate the average soldier or make them completely combat ineffective. There are instances where that is not the case, and those are the fringe cases you're talking about. In reality, a properly place shot will kill a person outright, two, three, or five shots...even more likely.
There's also the fact that your option when fighting against a billion(s) strong horde isn't more guys with swords or more guys with rifles. It's artillery fired nuclear shells, buried nuclear mines, virus bombs, exterminatus, etc. You simply don't get worlds back from the Tyranids, Orks or well-entrenched chaos uprisings.
On defense, you need to stop them in space or at least keep them from landing en mass. Otherwise, see my point above.
It may be worth looking up the NATO plans for the Fulda Gap to get an idea of what our outdated forces from the late 40's to the early 90's could do about a massed assault of air, armor, and soldiers.
Even in the lore the Imperium generally employs copious amounts of artillery to bombard the enemy (and often their own troops sacrificed to help stop the advancing enemy forces).
In fact most of the races use artillery - even Tyranids use long ranged weapons like vast clouds of sporemines. Backed up with Exocrines, Rapture Cannon, biovores, barbed stranglers and other long ranged capable weapons. All long before gaunts and such swarm over the defensive positions.
flandarz wrote:
Exploding drones are a fair point, but honestly at that point you might as well just be firing mortars at your target, for far less resources.
Different weapon, exploding drones, also known as loitering munitions, have a far greater range than mortars. And arguably more tactically flexibility.
epronovost wrote:To address the drone idea for close combat, this is still a stupid idea. The concept of a flying close combat drone is rather pointless. An identical flying drone with a ranged weapon would be far, far superior. It could basically defeat it's competing drone by flying away from it and shooting at it at the same time. As for the idea that a "flying suicide-bombing drone" as "close combat" weapon, this is ridiculous. We already have primitive version of those. They are called "guided missiles". They are very efficient and they are ranged weapons. If you absolutely wanted to resurrect close combat doctrines in modern or futuristic warfare, you have more chance with cavalry and even then. Their use would be extremely limited and focused on certain scenario.
Guided missiles are a far different weapon from LMs. LMs are cheaper, easier to deploy and have better maneuverability at the cost of far less individual explosive power and far slower.
flandarz wrote:
Exploding drones are a fair point, but honestly at that point you might as well just be firing mortars at your target, for far less resources.
Different weapon, exploding drones, also known as loitering munitions, have a far greater range than mortars. And arguably more tactically flexibility...
Wouldn't it be cheaper to mount missiles on your drones than having to blow up the whole drone?
flandarz wrote:
Exploding drones are a fair point, but honestly at that point you might as well just be firing mortars at your target, for far less resources.
Different weapon, exploding drones, also known as loitering munitions, have a far greater range than mortars. And arguably more tactically flexibility...
Wouldn't it be cheaper to mount missiles on your drones than having to blow up the whole drone?
A proper UAV is far more expensive, that is the cost of requiring the systems to support missiles and of course the missiles themselves. Also the UAVs are meant to make round trips, which limits their range compared to LMs.
Tyran wrote: A proper UAV is far more expensive, that is the cost of requiring the systems to support missiles and of course the missiles themselves. Also the UAVs are meant to make round trips, which limits their range compared to LMs.
Even for a one-way trip you need command and control nodes along the way and those are prone to jamming or outright being blown up. Otherwise, you're looking at sentient machines or putting a servitor into each of these one-use weapons which is wasteful.
As always the best answer to a massed assault is strategic weapons not boots on the ground.
Even for a one-way trip you need command and control nodes along the way and those are prone to jamming or outright being blown up. Otherwise, you're looking at sentient machines or putting a servitor into each of these one-use weapons which is wasteful.
As always the best answer to a massed assault is strategic weapons not boots on the ground.
Strategic weapons have political downsides that make them not viable outside of literally the Armageddon.
As for the LMs, some models are actually capable of autonomous attacks, the idea being that you launch a swarm of them to overwhelm enemy AA. The LMs for this role are designed to target radar emissions.
Other roles for LMs is stealth attacks as they are quite stealthy. Remember those bombings on Saudi oil infrastructure by Houthies/Iranians? They were made using LMs.
Some models are quite small, being able to be carried and launched by infantry.
Tyran wrote: Strategic weapons have political downsides that make them not viable outside of literally the Armageddon.
Not in 40k and not when you're facing an unstoppable tide of enemies you can't fight with conventional weapons. We considered tactical and strategic nuclear weapons as a vital part of the defense of West Germany in the Cold War, now replace Germany with an entire planet producing vital resources and pretty much anything, including scorched earth tactics come into play. Also, consider that mere nuclear fallout is practically a utopia compared to the conditions in under hives and death worlds and 40k will pave over the craters and slap something new on top of it as if the battle never happened.
Bayonets are like cannons on airplanes- no longer viable in 99% of cases (if I recall, since Vietnam war ONE combat airplane was downed by another planes' gun and two helicopters. That's it, 50 years and 3 kills) but no one is willing to get rid of them in case you find yourself in that 1% situation.
