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If it's a glass cannon it's not really practical.

Anyway, The IG business has always been slowed. "hurrr throw as much poorly equipped poorly trained men at the enemy as possible hurrr". If you consider the actual amount of resources the Imperium has, there's no good in-universe reason why every tank can't be better designed and every battle group given better tactics.

Wait, you have a problem with the Russ?

Not the Rhino? The tiny tiny Rhino?

BlaxicanX wrote:If it's a glass cannon it's not really practical.

Anyway, The IG business has always been slowed. "hurrr throw as much poorly equipped poorly trained men at the enemy as possible hurrr". If you consider the actual amount of resources the Imperium has, there's no good in-universe reason why every tank can't be better designed and every battle group given better tactics.

No, there really is. Because the resource they have more than anything else is manpower. Technology is barely understood and rare. Worlds are limited, every material resource is valuable.

But people, are not. They literally have more people than they know what to do with. The las gun carried by your average guardsman is literally more valuable than the man holding it, is likely ten times his age, and will likely be in service long after he dies.

Many real world armies have been in the same situation and acted the same way to great success. It isn't the modern fighting technique, where we have more resources and tech than people, and consequently value human lives more, but it is a valid one for their situation.

BlaxicanX wrote:
Anyway, The IG business has always been slowed. "hurrr throw as much poorly equipped poorly trained men at the enemy as possible hurrr". If you consider the actual amount of resources the Imperium has, there's no good in-universe reason why every tank can't be better designed and every battle group given better tactics.

yeah, it does work.

This HAS happened in real life. look up Russian tactics in WW2.

They would literally send in the first wave of tanks to die specifically to give cover to the advancing 2nd wave from their burning husks. They would send wave after wave of infantry forward untill the German machine gunners ran out of ammunition.

Only 1/2 of every infantryman in the Red Army was actually issued a rifle, they were only given ammunition. Those who weren't had to follow those that had one till they got shot and then they would pick up the rifle.



And you assume they don't use tactics. They do, the experienced tanker companies are extremely skilled soldiers.


Finally you have to consider that LRBTs are small beans compared to whats running around the battlefield. You have Super Heavies and big monsters. The tank's profile really doesn't come into effect.

Grey Templar wrote:

yeah, it does work.

This HAS happened in real life. look up Russian tactics in WW2.

They would literally send in the first wave of tanks to die specifically to give cover to the advancing 2nd wave from their burning husks. They would send wave after wave of infantry forward untill the German machine gunners ran out of ammunition.

Only 1/2 of every infantryman in the Red Army was actually issued a rifle, they were only given ammunition. Those who weren't had to follow those that had one till they got shot and then they would pick up the rifle.

while that did happen in the early part of the war, this statement is, by and large, a myth. While individual soviet soldiers might have been of poorer quality that equivalent german or western allied soldiers, by 1944 they were well trained and well supplied as any army. But their operational and strategic approach to warfare was something like that. (Throw whole army groups in headlong assaults at the enemy)

Grey Templar wrote:This HAS happened in real life. look up Russian tactics in WW2.

WW2 era Russia would get the ever living crap kicked out of it by modern day America, even if the US used only half its total military capability. And we'd do the same to China or India or any other country that relies on sheer numbers to win fights. Which is kind of the point. Superior technology+tactics will always > sheer numbers.

And you assume they don't use tactics. They do, the experienced tanker companies are extremely skilled soldiers.

It's not an assumption. Read any Black Library novel or even any of the more detailed stories in the IG codex. The IG uses WW2 tactics, which is why the Elysians are "notable" for their use of modern day tactics. Take the Necropolis story in Gaunt's Ghosts as an example. Why in God's name would you even try to defend a hive against a massive army like that? As if you're in the Lord of the Rings or something. A multiple mile long army of infantry and walkers would have been a huge juicy target for an air strike or orbital bombardment. It's not like they had any anti-air capabilities.

But you see things like that in the universe all the time. Trench warfare? Really? In the 41st Millenium, you're going to build trenches and sit in them for years at a time?

Obviously, these stories are done for the sake of entertainment. But like I said, in-universe there is no excuse for such silliness. There is no excuse to build a 500 mile long trench so you can fight dudes who are staring at you from their own 500 mile trench, while you have ships with guns on them in orbit above.

Finally you have to consider that LRBTs are small beans compared to whats running around the battlefield. You have Super Heavies and big monsters. The tank's profile really doesn't come into effect.

Sure, but that doesn't mean they should stick with an inferior design for the thing.

BlaxicanX wrote:
Sure, but that doesn't mean they should stick with an inferior design for the thing.

except for the fact that the techpriests would literally flip their lids if someone came around with a total redesign of the Leman Russ. Thats the one thing that really hampers them as well. I'm sure somebody came up with a vastly superior tank for IG to use... and they were probably promptly hauled away for tech heresy.

Hence we get armored vehicles that have been around for centuries at a time, because the mechanicus views innovation as a crime, rather than a gift. Yeah they make small modifications, but they're not about to design a new battletank from scratch to replace a model that's been around since the great crusades....

BlaxicanX wrote:"hurrr throw as much poorly equipped poorly trained men at the enemy as possible hurrr".

This is not true, at least as far as for conscripts... If you refer to Cadian Shock Troops and Death Corps of Krieg as "poorly equipped poorly trained men" of course...

MrMoustaffa wrote:

BlaxicanX wrote:
Sure, but that doesn't mean they should stick with an inferior design for the thing.

except for the fact that the techpriests would literally flip their lids if someone came around with a total redesign of the Leman Russ. Thats the one thing that really hampers them as well. I'm sure somebody came up with a vastly superior tank for IG to use... and they were probably promptly hauled away for tech heresy.

Hence we get armored vehicles that have been around for centuries at a time, because the mechanicus views innovation as a crime, rather than a gift. Yeah they make small modifications, but they're not about to design a new battletank from scratch to replace a model that's been around since the great crusades....

Yep, and that's exactly my point. There is no good in-universe explaination for why the Imperium acts the way it does. It's just hopelessly stupid. It is its own worst enemy.

This is not true, at least as far as for conscripts... If you refer to Cadian Shock Troops and Death Corps of Krieg as "poorly equipped poorly trained men" of course...

By modern day standards, I absolutely would. Let me know when the Krieg soldiers fight with every enemy location noted by a UAV hovering thousands of feet above the battlefield and outlined on their HUD's. Lemme know when the Cadian Shock Troops decide to just call in an air-strike on an enemy heavy weapons fortification, instead of taking it head on and diving from cover to cover.

But they don't have UAVs and HUDs, that's the point - they might have some fantastically advanced technology such as the ships in orbit, laser rifles etc. but these are ancient relics and no-one actually knows how they work, everything is ritualised to the point where the manual becomes a devotional prayer book. To use a modern example - say the Mechanicus got hold of your average modern day car. They would literally pray to it to make it work, they don't know how the car starts when the key is turned, only that it does, and they ascribe that to, essentially, magic and divine providence.

UAVs are also considered heretical BTW, unless they were servitor controlled. Any machine intelligence is outlawed completely.

That is strange, I always tough that Leman Russ have HUD, infrared and all that ( hence the "Machine Spirit" - the Mechanicus AI controlling the tank ). They also have hunter missle to fire, adn that require advanced calculations and programming.

Is there anything in fluff to disregard this?

p.s. Mechanicus knows how stuff works ( except the real complicated ones ), the "machine spirit" prayers are just paravan to keep ordinary people to figure out how machines work. Because if that happened they won't need the Mechanicus anymore, are they? Grimdark.

Where does it say LR have Machine Spirits? i know LR ( Land Raider does.... )

Hunter missile have advanced calculation and programming? Source? I think its just an AT rocket... like what we currently have.

LunaHound wrote:Where does it say LR have Machine Spirits? i know LR ( Land Raider does.... )

Leman Russ have it to, as well as any other major Imperial Tank ( except Sentinels at least ). The difference is that machine Spirit of Land Raider is more advanced in terms that it can drive and fire itself even after all crew is dead, while Leman Russ can't.

Hunter missile have advanced calculation and programming? Source? I think its just an AT rocket... like what we currently have.

"They are effectively krak missiles with massively extended range, although only one is mounted on a vehicle due to the vast increase in size. They are also unique in that they are guided weapons with an on-board artificial intelligence, known as a "logis-engine." Sensors in the missile's nose transmits information on the target and surrounding environment to the logis-engine, which guides the missile in flight by manipulating its stabilising fins, allowing the missile to match the target's movements and avoid obstacles. The missile's warhead is an impact fused shaped charge, designed for maximum armour penetration. Other instruments include an internal gyroscope for stable flight and a small battery to power the sensor and logis-engine."
- Imperial Armour Volume Two - Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, p.251

Brother Coa wrote:

LunaHound wrote:Where does it say LR have Machine Spirits? i know LR ( Land Raider does.... )

Leman Russ have it to, as well as any other major Imperial Tank ( except Sentinels at least ). The difference is that machine Spirit of Land Raider is more advanced in terms that it can drive and fire itself even after all crew is dead, while Leman Russ can't.

Hunter missile have advanced calculation and programming? Source? I think its just an AT rocket... like what we currently have.

"They are effectively krak missiles with massively extended range, although only one is mounted on a vehicle due to the vast increase in size. They are also unique in that they are guided weapons with an on-board artificial intelligence, known as a "logis-engine." Sensors in the missile's nose transmits information on the target and surrounding environment to the logis-engine, which guides the missile in flight by manipulating its stabilising fins, allowing the missile to match the target's movements and avoid obstacles. The missile's warhead is an impact fused shaped charge, designed for maximum armour penetration. Other instruments include an internal gyroscope for stable flight and a small battery to power the sensor and logis-engine."
- Imperial Armour Volume Two - Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, p.251

Sounds like those things on fighters.... target acquisition or w/e

they also have it in modern tanks.

It seems to boil down to x, y, z in 40k is horribly inefficient or doesn't make strategic or tactical sense, but that's the way it is, b/c it's grimdark...and you know what, I'm actually okay with that. I love 40k lore.

In some ways, part of their appeal(LR design, melee combat....dreadnought legs/feet :p) is in their 'grimdark ineffifiency', TBH. *But*, let's not ever pretend that these elements actually *do* make sense.

(If that point makes any sense)

Ronin-Sage wrote:It seems to boil down to x, y, z in 40k is horribly inefficient or doesn't make strategic or tactical sense, but that's the way it is, b/c it's grimdark...and you know what, I'm actually okay with that. I love 40k lore.

In some ways, part of their appeal(LR design, melee combat....dreadnought legs/feet :p) is in their 'grimdark ineffifiency', TBH. *But*, let's not ever pretend that these elements actually *do* make sense.

(If that point makes any sense)

Certainly, there are many things that are head-scratchingly odd about 40k, and plenty that just seem flatly wrong, or bad, to us. A Dreadnought is just a poor design for, well, doing anything ever. This is just a clear case of GW not having a physicist on their model-design staff; it's also worth pointing out the the proportions of tabletop models are pretty much universally screwed up.

However, as has been pointed out in this very thread, many of the things that are commonly derided as nonsensical could actually have fairly reasonable explanations. By which I mean an explanation that goes beyond 'because they're stupid' or 'because they're religious fanatics' or 'because GRIMDARK'. You have looked at all the points made about the Leman Russ, right? Visually, it's practically identical to modern amphibious armored vehicles. The high track design does actually have certain advantages over the low-slung design of modern MBTs, namely greater flexibility in deployment and less constrained tactical mobility. To the Imperium, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of less effective armor and lower top speed.

Assault Terminators, the other example brought up here of 'nonsensical' things in the Imperium, actually also make sense; they are an elite, highly specialized unit, designed for a very specific kind of fight. The Imperium possesses the resources necessary to create units that specialize to such a radical extent, and their preferred modus operandi (shock assaults from orbit) lend themselves very much to exactly the kind of fighting that Assault Terminators excel in.

In short; dismissing everything that doesn't IMMEDIATELY seem 'advanced' about the Imperium as stupid and nonsensical is, IMO, a case of people not bothering to consider the reasons WHY something might actually be the way it is. There is usually a reason; the cases where you just have to shrug and chalk something up to 'grimdark' are honestly fairly rare.

Is it fair to point out that the artists, writers, developers, and all other people who work at GW were most likely not in the military, were most likely not mechanical engineers with a background in armored vehicle design, and most damning of all, were actually out to design something that looked cool because it was only ever designed to be a model on a table in a game?

I do not want people to think that debate is pointless, we all debate everything in 40k almost daily (for some of us its probably much more than that) but as many posters before I have noted, the Russ fits the grimdark, lost technology and hope for progress vibe. It fits the universe it was put in.

I have to admit, the Dreadnought design is one of the few things I can't think of any justification for beyond tradition/bad understanding of tech. Usually sufficiently advanced propulsion/materials tech and a different approach to warfare provide several good in universe reasons, but unless the dreadnoughts just walk through everything, they are just a weird design. Cool, but... weird.

riplikash wrote:I have to admit, the Dreadnought design is one of the few things I can't think of any justification for beyond tradition/bad understanding of tech. Usually sufficiently advanced propulsion/materials tech and a different approach to warfare provide several good in universe reasons, but unless the dreadnoughts just walk through everything, they are just a weird design. Cool, but... weird.

To be fair though, Dreadnoughts pretty much do walk through everything....

True.

And I have to admit, they would make sense as a kind of mobile turret, especially in urban terrain. They are just weird as the final resting place of a revered warrior. His combat skills are really going to waste in such a limited form. Now a contemptor dreadnought, THERE is a body worthy of a revered warrior.

Tibbsy wrote:But they don't have UAVs and HUDs, that's the point - they might have some fantastically advanced technology such as the ships in orbit, laser rifles etc. but these are ancient relics and no-one actually knows how they work, everything is ritualised to the point where the manual becomes a devotional prayer book. To use a modern example - say the Mechanicus got hold of your average modern day car. They would literally pray to it to make it work, they don't know how the car starts when the key is turned, only that it does, and they ascribe that to, essentially, magic and divine providence.

UAVs are also considered heretical BTW, unless they were servitor controlled. Any machine intelligence is outlawed completely.

How does this negate my point that the Imperium of Man is stupid as hell and their military tactics don't make any sense from an out of universe perspective?

BlaxicanX wrote:How does this negate my point that the Imperium of Man is stupid as hell and their military tactics don't make any sense from an out of universe perspective?

Becaues it does make sense if you take the history, politics, and sociology into account. It's like saying the people in fallout are stupid and don't make sense because they use old crappy guns, make homes out of scrap, and use bottlecaps for money.

It doesn't make you stupid to make the best of a bad situation you can't get yourself out of. It doesn't make you stupid to be trapped in a post apocalyptic dystopia and to not use optimally designed equipment.

The point is, for what they have, and with their limitations, many of the decisions of the Imperium of Man DO make sense from an out of universe perspective. It's a post apocalyptic story about a future space empire doing the best they can in a crappy situation. Of COURSE they aren't using optimally designed equipment, that is the POINT of post apocalyptic dyspepsia stories.

But no, your right. Those people in mad max were stupid for making a bus into a tank. Don't they know the high profile makes it vulnerable and that the four wheel design is suboptimal for all terrain movement? There are WAY better designs out there than some stupid bus with armor bolted on.

You get that is what you are saying, right? The Leman Russ is a TRACTOR! A farming vehicle with armor and guns strapped on. They use it because of the designs they had available it was the most suited for their needs, and best suited their style of warfare. And so people have gone on at length to explain that to you.

But you just keep going on and on about how stupid they are for not using an optimal tank design in a post apocalyptic dystopia. 40k is a mix between star trek, mad max, and judge dredd. The sooner you come to grips with that the happier you will be.

Whats funny is that the IG does have orbital relays, and targeting matrics, which im assuming translates into UAVs and HUDs. Their tanks have sensor suites and auspexes which are super radar or something similar. And as for poorly equiped you do realise Flak armor can stop a .50cal round. And lasguns are roughly equal to modern assualt rifles, only they dont require massive baggage trains to carry their ammo. The IG is only poorly equiped compared to space marines.

As for space and air assets, it standing naval policy to not use orbital weapons once troops have hit dirtside. And air assets are maurader bombers, thunderbolt fighter bombers, vulture gunships, and vendetta gunships. There their, only its more heroic to read about mass infantry charges, rather then air strikes.

As for the Russ, it must be a damn fine tractor, seeing as its the best tank in the galaxy. Hardly any thing can scratch it and it can run on any combustable material.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:As for the Russ, it must be a damn fine tractor, seeing as its the best tank in the galaxy. Hardly any thing can scratch it and it can run on any combustable material.

Well...yes. It is. It's STC tech after all. That is kind of the point, Golden Age humanity could make better tractors than most other factions can make tanks.

Though I don't know where you get the idea it is the 'best tank in the galaxy'. The Imperium has quite a few superior designs, as do the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Space Marines, Adeptus Mechanus, and Necrons. They just don't fit into the regular tabletop game.

For what it does though, it is a darn good tank.

I dont include super heavies. Theyre pretty rare. Really what can compete with a leman russ? Hammerhead. (technically its a gunship) and well thats about it. Maybe falcons. Predators get demolished, and the necrons really dont have anything. Land Raiders are less tanks and more transports.

*Sings*

If you are wondering how he eats and breaths
And other science facts....

Just repeat to yourself; "It's just a show".
"I should really just relax".

*Sings*

riplikash wrote:
Though I don't know where you get the idea it is the 'best tank in the galaxy'. The Imperium has quite a few superior designs, as do the Eldar, Dark Eldar, Space Marines, Adeptus Mechanus, and Necrons. They just don't fit into the regular tabletop game.

Because it is reliable, cheap, durable and has big firepower.
Only Hammerhead and Prism Tank can challenge him in battle, and even they would lose against Vanquisher pattern.
It's 'best tank in the galaxy' because of it - the fact that even advanced alien civilizations can't match simple Human technology.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I dont include super heavies. Theyre pretty rare. Really what can compete with a leman russ? Hammerhead. (technically its a gunship) and well thats about it. Maybe falcons. Predators get demolished, and the necrons really dont have anything. Land Raiders are less tanks and more transports.

That's an artificial distinction that exists for the purposes game balance. You can't just say it's the most powerful tank because we aren't counting the more powerful tanks. That is all a super heavy is, something too powerful to be used within the scale of of 40k, a medium skirmish game. Yes, the Leman Russ is on the upper end of what the Warhammer 40k tabletop game will allow. That doesn't make it the most powerful tank in the galaxy.

It also seems fairly arbitrary to exclude the Leman Russ, hammerhead, various Necron vehicle mounted weaponry, and even monolith. The Leman Russ doesn't count because it holds people too? And there is a patter that houses a demolisher canon instead. The hammerhead and Necron vehicles don't count because they don't use tracks?

If you define the class so that everything more powerful is excluded, you can make whichever vehicle you like the most powerful.

I excluded super heavies due to rareity. When people see leman russes it is no big deal, if people see baneblades its the apocypse. Its because its not rare its the better tank then the super heavies.

ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:I dont include super heavies. Theyre pretty rare. Really what can compete with a leman russ? Hammerhead. (technically its a gunship) and well thats about it. Maybe falcons. Predators get demolished, and the necrons really dont have anything. Land Raiders are less tanks and more transports.

Doomsday Arks and Monoliths would like a word with you.