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I think people are underestimating the power of a lasgun. Lexicanum states "The lasgun uses the same basic technology and operates along the same lines as other las weapons, emitting a beam of focused light. The high amount of energy in the beam causes the immediate surface area of a target to be vaporized in a small explosion"
The rest of the article is here
Now imagine modern soldiers facing fully/semi automatic weapons capable of vaporising parts of their bodies and setting fire to them too. Flak armour appears to be capable of defending from these blasts (I think?), but even if it isn't the modern troops are pinned down by far superior weapons fire and are probably not feeling too happy either.

The roleplaying books do go into a bit more information. The point remains that Guardsmen still have: better armor, better guns, better training than the average human army today. In an one squad on squad firefight, it'd be closer maybe...

But once the scale goes up, and the IG gets to bring its ull power to the table, the battle for modern militaries goes straight down hill.

ChrisWWII wrote:The roleplaying books do go into a bit more information. The point remains that Guardsmen still have: better armor, better guns, better training than the average human army today. In an one squad on squad firefight, it'd be closer maybe...

But once the scale goes up, and the IG gets to bring its ull power to the table, the battle for modern militaries goes straight down hill.

More like straight down a bottomless chasm if you ask me.

BEcause imperial guard are so reliant on orders, then it depends whether the 100 guardsmen includes any officers. If it does, then to think of it in gaming terms, the officers would orders these 2 combined squads of guardsmen to FRF!SRF! It also begs the question, do the guardsmen or modern soldiers have any special weapons? If each squad of 10 guardsmen has a flamer and a heavy bolter, it would make a big difference. The same applies to thhe modern soldiers

I'd rather have one heavy bolter than a heavy machine gun. Imperial Guard are not completely reliant on orders, remember rule != fluff, and we're talking fluff here. The orders help them out, but they're not required for anything. The IG could still kick ass and take names if their officers were dead.

Remember, IG are trained so that when lacking orders, they're to assume they've been ordered to advance. And they will keep advancing, past casualties modern forces would consider horrendous.

I like that this thread is still going and finally with some more valid points. Thanks people

ChrisWWII wrote:I'd rather have one heavy bolter than a heavy machine gun. Imperial Guard are not completely reliant on orders, remember rule != fluff, and we're talking fluff here. The orders help them out, but they're not required for anything. The IG could still kick ass and take names if their officers were dead.

Remember, IG are trained so that when lacking orders, they're to assume they've been ordered to advance. And they will keep advancing, past casualties modern forces would consider horrendous.

Basically, the Imperial Guard is, if their officers are dead, supposed to take initiative anyway, not retreat.

Cadian Kasrkin vs British SAS
Stormtroopers vs Green Berets
Valhallan Conscripts vs Patriotic Soviet Conscripts from WW2

A selection of truly epic confrontations.

ChrisWWII wrote:I'd rather have one heavy bolter than a heavy machine gun.

No, I think I'd rather have one of these:


4 .50cal M2 Brownings attached together.

I'm sure it still counts as a machine gun.

Lord of Timbraxia wrote:Cadian Kasrkin vs British SAS
Stormtroopers vs Green Berets
Valhallan Conscripts vs Patriotic Soviet Conscripts from WW2

A selection of truly epic confrontations.

Love it ha ha ha

-snip-

L_Dawg wrote:

ChrisWWII wrote:I'd rather have one heavy bolter than a heavy machine gun.

No, I think I'd rather have one of these:


4 .50cal M2 Brownings attached together.

I'm sure it still counts as a machine gun.

If we're gonna start bringing out big machineguns, I'd rather have one of these.

Now that's beyond the realm of machine guns since they usually strap planes to them to increase mobility.

Melissia wrote:If we're gonna start bringing out big machineguns, I'd rather have one of these.

I'm not sure how effective a VW bug would be against big machineguns.

No, the bug is the ammunition.

Ah, the GAU-8, the gun so big they don't mount it on a plane, they mount the plane to it.

As to the quad .50, I'll take this please.



ANd I can't one up the GAU with machine guns...so I'll cheat a little.

Yes. In Soviet Russia, gun is mounted to plane. In United States, plane is mounted to gun!

ChrisWWII wrote:Ah, the GAU-8, the gun so big they don't mount it on a plane, they mount the plane to it.

As to the quad .50, I'll take this please.



ANd I can't one up the GAU with machine guns...so I'll cheat a little.

Forgot about the Hydra. I'm sure it's safe to assume the quad .50 would still have a higher rate of fire so it'll chew through infantry better.

But the quad .50 isn't an anti-infantry weapon. .50 cal is overkill for infantry, you shoot .50s at material targets. The quad .50 you posted looks to be an AA position.

Even if you do turn it on infantry, how can you get a higher rate of fire than this?

They did turn it on infantry back in WWII IIRC from a book. Apparently, they trained it on German snipers firing from a tree and tore down the tree from the trunk with the snipers.

And the 4 M2s fired 30 or so rounds a second I think.

That was an off incident and not standard procedure. In fact it shows how overkill the .50 cal is for infantry.

It says on wikipedia that its use against infantry increased in the latter stage of the war. The Germans used a quad 20mm against infantry too like in Saving Private Ryan.

Honestly our military would lose bad in a 100 man vs. 100 man battle. A hundred man unit in Imperial guard is not even a single full troop choice. (They range from 117 to 147 at max size depending on if you fill out the conscripts unit to 50 man or not. And not including commissars and the like.)

First the point on the lasgun and flak armor they have vs. our standard gear has already been made to give them an advantage... but lets look at the composition of a standard troop choice for IG that would be 100 men, that does not know what it would be facing. (Note I am not including conscripts)

Platoon command squad: (6 avoided heavy weapon to give them surgical strike tactics for command)
1 platoon commander with boltgun
1 commissar with boltgun
1 guardsman with heavy flamer
2 guardsman with sniper rifles
1 guardsman with meltagun

2 infantry squads: (11 man each)
1 sergeant w/plasma pistol
1 commissar w/bolt pistol and power weapon
6 guardsmen with lasguns
1 guardsman with flamer
1 heavy weapons team (2 man) with missile launcher

2 infantry squads: (10 man each)
1 sergeant w/either bolt pistol
6 guardsmen with lasguns
1 guardsman with sniper rifle
1 heavy weapons team (2 man) with heavy bolter

1 infantry squad: (10 man)
1 sergeant w/bolt pistol
6 guardsmen with lasguns
1 guardsman with meltagun
1 heavy weapons team (2 man) with autocannon

special weapons squad 1: (6 man)
3 guardsmen with lasguns
2 guardsmen with sniper rifles
1 guardsman with meltagun

special weapons squad 2: (6 man)
3 guardsmen with lasguns
2 guardsmen with flamers
1 guardsman with gernade launcher

2 heavy weapon squads: (6 man total each)
3 heavy weapons teams with heavy bolters

2 heavy weapon squads: (6 man total each)
3 heavy weapons teams with autocannons

1 heavy weapon squad: (6 man total)
3 heavy weapons teams with lascannons

That is a standard 100 man platoon (designed for an unknown enemy pressence, so they have weapons for antitank as well as anti-infantry.)

you are looking at the following firepower:
9 leader with special pistols/boltguns
1 guardsman with heavy flamer
3 guardsman with meltagun
4 guardsman with flamer
6 guardsman with sniper rifle
1 guardsman with gernade launcher
8 heavy weapons teams with heavy bolters
7 heavy weapons teams with autocannons
3 heavy weapons teams with lascannons
2 heavy weapons teams with missile launcher

that is some scary weaponry to face in addition to all the lasgun fire that is not only vaporizing your friends body parts but setting them on fire.

So yeah the IG have the advantage.

I feel that people are forgetting another important fact:

The cost of training, supplying, and maintaining all of these troops. It costs around $25,000 to put an American soldier through the US Army's bootcamp, counting food, ammunition, weapons, lodging, and training used all throughout the experience.

Additionally, the US government would be spending thousands of dollars to equip these soldiers, and feed them while they're out in the field, and then on top of all that, add the pay that each soldier is bringing home.

Modern day soldiers are expensive.

Meanwhile, for $25, you can get ten guardsmen complete with any weapon their little hearts could desire, armour, and leadership. Not including shipping.

Okay, here we go. I hate for my first post to be like this, but I really don't think everyone understands the true scale of Warhammer 40k here. If there are heavy weapons involved in a 100 vs 100 battle then the IG win hands down. A single heavy bolter, firing extremely fast 1.00 caliber highly explosive rounds would send any of our soldier fleeing for their goddamn lives.

Also the IG flak armor is made from materials we could not dream of.

"A flak vest consists of a skeleton of lightweight, flexible metal. This skeleton is then wrapped in multiple layers of a high-tensile fabric that is the main protective component of the armour. After multiple layers of fabric are affixed to the skeleton,the vest is given its toughened outer shell."

While this sounds weak against guns that can tear someone in half remember that our body armor for our soldiers nowadays is simply a metal plate wrapped in kevlar. Surely the metal and high tensile fabric the IG are wearing is 1000X stronger than our primitive materials. I mean they've had like what 38 thousand years of warfare and exploration/scientific discovery to come up with better materials. I'm sure it could stop hundreds of our tiny bullets coming from our m16's. Each of these Imperial Guard soldiers goes through training WAY harder than what our soldiers get. Read some of the lore, these aren't conscripts. They get trained for months and months, and go through intense physical and mental conditioning. Also they come from a world and life MUCH harder than ours. They live in a brutal dictatorship bordering on tyrannical. Working off the backs of the lower class. These lower class who join the Imperial Guard to escape that life are extremely strong, tough, and more religiously fanatic than anyone on our planet. They have been dogmatically phsycoconditioned to have complete faith in the Emperor and grew up in an oppressive society completely supporting this viewpoint.

Next, Lore on the lasguns states a single lasgun shot can punch through 3 feet of concrete... a 5.56mm or 7.62mm bullet would ricochet off without even denting it. Their weapons are more effective, their ammunition lighter, the lasgun is much more reliable. Then you move on to heavy weapons and it's a complete slaughter.

Now some of you have been talking about tank specifications. But no one is really taking into account that the Leman Russ battle tanks are not made of steel, they are made of ceramite and admantium! The front armor of a Leman Russ tank is "14" in the game, and the front armor of a Land Raider is also "14". In the lore, and the game, and pretty much everything that has to do with warhammer 40k nothing touches the landraider. Missiles bounce harmlessly from it, even lascannon shots are 90% of the time deflected from it's hull. It is wide enough to cover two full highway lanes, and it's length is massive. Now back to a Leman Russ tank, even if only it's front armor is 14, take it's size and compare it to a landraider, now realize how large the bore of the barrel of the battle cannon is. It would literally shred any sort of american tank, from any angle. Including in this it's advanced autotargeters, its auspex (A scanner with an effectiveness beyond any radar technology we have) and dare I say it, the hint of a machine spirit, would eat our tanks for breakfast.


Now finally from a leadership/psychology/tactics perspective. The Imperial Guard Infantry fight in a basic squad/platoon structure. Everyone thinks the Imperial Guard are a one trick pony, simply clogging the enemies treads with their organs and rushing troops around. Reading the lore they actually have brilliant military commanders and officers leading them. Officers trained for months (some may even say years depending on rank) on the art of war. Information on war that has been gleaned from forty thousand years of warfare and strife. Sure we see terrible tactics at a squad based level, but if you see the big picture Imperial Commanders are tactical genius's. And I believe the experienced commanders would not be stupid enough to use the tactics that are so commonplace in million man battles against horrific monstrosities against us. I believe they'd be intelligent enough to realize what advantages they have over us. (Everything. Weapons, vehicles, transportation, logistics, morale.) And use them to defeat us easily.

Lastily I'd just like to throw in a quick word about fear and morale. The Imperial Guard face horrible things and accept horrendous casualties as commonplace.

If an American soldier is wounded, his friends will crowd around him, trying to treat the wound, drag him back to a better position, the officers would call for a medivac and dedicate resources to trying to save that man. The Imperial Guard would just rip his identification tags from his neck and keep going. If someone even stopped for a second to say goodbye to their friend the Commissars would threaten them to keep fighting.

Well that's it. And just for fun I think I'm going to make up a roughly general idea of what an American soldiers statistics would be in the Warhammer 40k game

WS: 2 BS: 3 S: 2 T: 2 W: 1 I: 3 A: 1 LD: 5 SV: 6+

M16 Range: 24'' S: 2 AP: - Type: Rapid Fire


Sorry if I came off as rude, I'm tired and I had a lot to cover.

I'd like to point out that the officers and commissars would probably be the first people to get killed on an Imperial side, seeing as though they stand out so much.

comparing the modern military to a sci fi table top board game is a complete utter waste of time imo.

L_Dawg wrote:I'd like to point out that the officers and commissars would probably be the first people to get killed on an Imperial side, seeing as though they stand out so much.

This was pointed out, and out answer is still: so what? Imperial Guardsmen won't stop if their Commissar is killed (depending on who the Commissar is, they may even be joyful). The point is though that even if their officers are dead, Imperial Guardsmen will keep advancing until told otherwise by the proper authority.

Smitty0305 wrote:comparing the modern military to a sci fi table top board game is a complete utter waste of time imo.

I'm bored and this is an amusing discussion. The thread title is very clear as to what we're talking about, if you think it's a waste of time, why are you reading it?

Smitty0305 wrote:comparing the modern military to a sci fi table top board game is a complete utter waste of time imo.

Why do people bother posting stuff like this?
Would it not be easier to just ignore this thread?

dudeeaterkiller wrote:Next, Lore on the lasguns states a single lasgun shot can punch through 3 feet of concrete...

"Cover saves? What cover saves? I have my trusty lasgun..."

"Damn that hedge is tough!"