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 Deadshot wrote:
@Peregrine

I agree on the bit about Heavy Weapons but WMDs in 40k are called Exterminatus, ie, blow the planet up. Which is bad because you need the planet. As stated.

Even a modern nuclear warhead would leave the area inhospitanle without Radiation gear which is too expensive to waste on lowly grunts and workers. Hence, you lose irreplacable land which you can't afford.

There would be plenty of solutions before Exterminatus even becomes an option option.

Such as?

Veteran Sergeant wrote:If 40K has Future Rifles, and Future Tanks, and Future Artillery, and Future Airplanes and Future Grenades and Future Bombs, then contextually Future Swords seem somewhat questionable to use, since it means crossing Future Open Space to get Future Shot At.

Sigg'd.

Well, I think 40k took much influence from Dune, where void shield and force fields gives many units strong protection against ranged weapons.

Strong psykers can even use telekenis to stop a bolt round dead in mid flight, and hold it there, and lasgun and autorifle shots bounce off power armor like nothing.

 -Volsung- wrote:
Well, I think 40k took much influence from Dune, where void shield and force fields gives many units strong protection against ranged weapons.

Strong psykers can even use telekenis to stop a bolt round dead in mid flight, and hold it there, and lasgun and autorifle shots bounce off power armor like nothing.

Very, very few units on foot in the setting have access to energy shields of any kind.

 Deadshot wrote:
I agree on the bit about Heavy Weapons but WMDs in 40k are called Exterminatus, ie, blow the planet up. Which is bad because you need the planet. As stated.

You're forgetting about tactical nuclear weapons. You know, the kind that just kill everything within a mile or two radius with no real effect on the planet as a whole.

Even a modern nuclear warhead would leave the area inhospitanle without Radiation gear which is too expensive to waste on lowly grunts and workers. Hence, you lose irreplacable land which you can't afford.

Everything in 40k is already inhospitable. Over and over again the fluff brags about how grimdark it is that you have billions of people crammed into giant planet-scale factories where they never see sunlight, and everything outside the factory is a toxic waste dump. For example, the entire war for Armageddon: everything outside the hive cities is already an inhospitable wasteland, so just nuke the orks until there aren't any left and be done with it.

Earth has 153,295,000 square km of land.

The B53 nuclear bomb, the largest the USA ever built, has a blast radius of 2,580 km square. You'd have to drop over 59,000 of those to affect every part of the earth.

They may have bigger bombs or bigger planets or whatever in the future, but the point of this post is that its a hell of a lot harder to 'glass a planet' or purge a planet of enemies than one might think. It won't work for the same reason no amount of artillery could win WW1 on its own without the foot sloggers to back it up (and believe me, they tried to do this)

In real life, I highly doubt there would be that much CC, but for the sake of keeping the actual game fun with some different combat styles there just is.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Earth has 153,295,000 square km of land.

The B53 nuclear bomb, the largest the USA ever built, has a blast radius of 2,580 km square. You'd have to drop over 59,000 of those to affect every part of the earth.

They may have bigger bombs or bigger planets or whatever in the future, but the point of this post is that its a hell of a lot harder to 'glass a planet' or purge a planet of enemies than one might think. It won't work for the same reason no amount of artillery could win WW1 on its own without the foot sloggers to back it up (and believe me, they tried to do this)

Besides, it'd leave the place radioactive if it was a nuclear weapon, and that invites heretical things like mutation-- to say nothing of the fact taht it'd be hard to make the planet productive afterwards even in the event of a non-NBC weapon!

Better to sacrifice half a billion guardsmen and take the planet with relatively little harm done to its ecosystem and industrial base, than to just destroy the planet's surface.

Why is melee combat so popular? Because Rogue Trader was originally adapted from Warhammer fantasy. The two were so similar that vehicles had toughness stats, wounds, and armor saves.

Why is melee combat so popular in 40k....cause everyone wants to be like BROCK!

That and possibly because it was popular in DUNE, which they may have slightly.......... heavily borrowed from.

You are essentially asking "why does this make sense" with something that you should just be accepting as fact inside of a fiction. Pick a reason why it works and stop bothering your head with it.

Edit.. nvm I just realized that is what this forum is for.. maybe I should go somewhere else.

 Dakkamite wrote:
Earth has 153,295,000 square km of land.

The B53 nuclear bomb, the largest the USA ever built, has a blast radius of 2,580 km square. You'd have to drop over 59,000 of those to affect every part of the earth.

They may have bigger bombs or bigger planets or whatever in the future, but the point of this post is that its a hell of a lot harder to 'glass a planet' or purge a planet of enemies than one might think. It won't work for the same reason no amount of artillery could win WW1 on its own without the foot sloggers to back it up (and believe me, they tried to do this)

Nuclear weapons are conventional arms to the Imperium. When they want to "glass a planet" they use torpedoes that detonate the planet's core and cause it to, literally, shatter. Or one that turns all organic matter into hydrogen gas, which causes the atmosphere to ignite.

True. As stated by Psienesis, eliminating a planet forever for the Imperium involves a single, or at the most a modest handful, of warheads.

 Psienesis wrote:
Nuclear weapons are conventional arms to the Imperium.

Nah. Nukes aren't regularly used on planets that they actually want to save. Too much pollution from the fallout, reduces the value of the planet too much.

They have cleaner weapons with more effectiveness.

 Melissia wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Nuclear weapons are conventional arms to the Imperium.

Nah. Nukes aren't regularly used on planets that they actually want to save. Too much pollution from the fallout, reduces the value of the planet too much.

They have cleaner weapons with more effectiveness.

And as far as I know, they also have forbidden the use of Nukes.

 Melissia wrote:
They have cleaner weapons with more effectiveness.

Got any examples of such weapons? Weapons that don't just outright destroy the planet, I mean. Something on a similar scale to a nuclear bomb. This is something that I've been needing to look into.

 calgar 2.5 wrote:
And as far as I know, they also have forbidden the use of Nukes.

Must have been after Krieg's incident, then.

They have torpedos that have that effect. Arguably, an orbital lance battery would as well.

Lance batteries can go into the neighborhood of teraton level energy, Cyclonic torpedoes in the Exa or low Zettaton territory.

To get a nuke anywhere near that powerful you'd basically need a multi-million ton bomb.

Pretty sure most of the ship-to-ship torpedoes that are used in Naval engagements are nuclear, if they aren't of some other stated payload (plasma, boarding, etc.). They'd almost have to be, what with armor plating on a battleship being meters thick of plasma-forged admantium and other space-magic materials and the like. Conventional explosives, even delivered by a thirty-meter-long, ten-meter-wide torpedo just isn't going to cut it.

I am surprised how involved the discussion is over the OP's original question. I have read quite a few good points, nice thread.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I am surprised how involved the discussion is over the OP's original question. I have read quite a few good points, nice thread.

 Roberkhan wrote:

That's a fair point. However, would extended, infinite total war not force armies to revert into some more primitive, yet sustainable, warfare style? Drones, supertrained high-tech soldiers, clever missiles and jet-tanks are not cheap and easy things to create and maintain, not in big, unending masses for sure.

Spoiler:

(Spoiler incoming!)
If you have read World War Z, you will have found this interesting idea: modern armies have to reform and to revert to old-fashioned, cheaper doctrines because they have to, suddenly and unexpectedly, face an enemy (almost inexhaustable zombie hordes) way different than what they were designed to fight in the first place (other modern forces, guerrilla irregulars or Third World obsolete armies, most of the time). Fire lines, foot marches and hand to hand combat return to the battlefield. Expensive and complicated ultramodern planes, vehicles and armaments of all kind are quickly forgotten, as they kill to few zombies for what they require.

Of course, this doesn't mean that everybody needs to go Waterloo in the 41st Millenium, but leaves some decent place for regressive tactics and, ultimately, strategies. And there is also some niche there for hacking & slashing with chainsaws.

I would doubt it. Much of human history has been a perpetual state of warfare in some way, shape, or form. The Pax Romana was still a period of wars along the Roman frontiers, and the Dark and Middle Ages saw lots of conflict across the globe. Warfare adapted and advanced continuously, not regressed.

It is a popular misconception that the world went completely backwards in the 'Dark Ages'. Much was lost, but in other ways much also moved forward. Metal forging leapt forward, ship building, even construction concepts jumped ahead in various ways (crop rotation cycles changed and became more advanced, understanding of forms and architecture moved forward, etc). There was simply a lack of a firm centralizing power to allow for paved roads and thousand mile long aqueducts.

The Normans advanced cavalry warfare, fighting dicipline, the crossbow, siege weapons, and other methods of war that would be like going from a biplane to a fighter jet.

I have not read WWZ, but it wouldn't require tremendously backward thinking. Fuel Air bombs would be brilliant. Flash fry a square mile of zombies making for total and complete incineration (as in nothing but ashes left). Cluster muntions, explosive rounds, etc. Plenty of 'high tech' would work extremely well at fighting zombies without massive regression. Tactics would change, sure, but going completely primitive wouldn't be necessary.

There's an upcoming movie (edge of tomorrow) based on a brilliant book called "All you need is kill" where the best way to survive future combat is with melee weapons, as guns will eventually run out of ammo.

At some point, you just have to hit someone over the head with a hammer!

Umn... I have been in combat. I can shoot my M4 and hit a guy at 200 to 300 meters if I'm lucky, if I don't miss, if I see him in time. They will use pinning fire and sweep our flank, we might get rolled by dudes with RPG... it sucks. My FISTER can call down death on anybody within ten miles that he can visualize in his head, all he has to know is where they are at. Nomatter how good my fire support or personal weapon, it always comes down to assaulting the position or the building to take it away from the 'bad dudes.' The donkey-cave has to be merc'd, arrested or run away for the combat to stop... So even with the most advanced long range weaponry conceived by man it will always come down to the assault.

- J

Imagine that you're a Space Marine, one of the most valuable and valiant warriors in the galaxy, tasked with clearing a Space Hulk. You're teleported in, and are immediately swarmed by Genestealers, then you realise: You have no melee weapon because guns are so advanced! And then you're dead. Wrong. You have a big-ass goddamn chainsword, and you're all like: VRRRNHHHHGHHGHGHH and you kill them because you're badass. 'nuff said.

Pistols and rifles also don't parry claws and talons as well as a chainsaw can.

Because it's romantic.

Because when you are faced with enemies that are hard to kill (necrons), enemies that can warp in and out of reality (demons), and enemies who greatly outnumber you (orks and tyranids, the former of which the IoM commonly face), it's nice to be trained in the way of the pointy stick for when you inevitably run out of ammunition.

Orks and Necrons shrug off any number of small holes in their bodies, so the only way to guarantee a kill is to eviscerate them.