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Granted, advanced tech allows for much of the roles that real-life navy ships and serve to be consolidated or superseded altogether, but surely there are situations where water-bound ships and other constructs would be useful, even preferable? I know that airships fulfill some of the roles that real-life naval vessels do and the organizational structure for a true "navy" does not exist, but still:

- In particular, I would imagine water-worlds and possibly lower-tech worlds would make use of navy cruisers and such, as it would simply not be feasible to rely only on land-bound solutions for mobile heavy-ordnance, refueling, restocking, static defense, etc.
- I gather that orbiting space vessels do the above tasks and do them much, much better, but I can't imagine generals opting to eliminate a layer of military tactics like that(imagine if Imperial forces no longer securely held suborbital space)
- There's the issue of undersea warfare--if the military of a vital Imperial world were to encounter some undersea-dwelling threat, without such things, they would not effectively be able to take the fight to the enemy.

I bring this up because the only fiction I've read that even mentions such things are Ravenor Rogue(undersea vessel, but non-military, IIRC).

I don't see why advanced technology would eliminate ships and not eliminate infantry, tanks and planes.

Imagine a world where chaos cultists are using a variety of fast motorboats to do piracy against imperial trade routes.

The imperial authorities need to patrol the pirate infested waters or convoy the merchant ships.

Airships are useless because they are too slow and vulnerable to AA fire.

What's needed is some fast corvette and frigate type ships which can carry helicopters, enough guns to beat a big motorboat and have the endurance to remain on station for weeks.

Off of the top of my head I can recall an Ork Submarine, in Apoc.

As far as Naval ships for the Imperium I would think that some worlds would still have them for combat, especially if they are low tech worlds that have countries engaged in combat with one another.

Civil worlds are set in a ~20th Century setting, so they'd be alot like Earth between the early 1900's to the near future.

I would imagine that if the Governor decided to leave his world to it's own politics and just make sure it remains faithful to the Imperium, then yes, there might be seaborne fleets for wars between nations.

Well if a planet has been taken over im sure there would be some sea battles, quite advanced sea battles though, with lasers and super-hyper-mega frazzalators and things-with-green-skin-seeking missiles.

But if a planet is invaded i think there would be spme space battles first rather than the inhabitants wait to start war at sea.

It wouldnt be as frequent as it is now, or was, but I'm quite sure there would be some naval battles.

It would be a nice idea... but I prefer Battlefleet Gothic.

Naval warfare is really only useful for fighting against other continents on the same planet - strictly civil war only.

An invading attacker can attack from orbit directly to the areas he wants. If you have a strong navy then he can simply leave costal objectives till last and deal with you later.

I don't see what utility a naval force will have against an outside (not from your planet) attacker. Neither do I see why an outside attacker would want to import naval forces.

Scott-S6 wrote:Naval warfare is really only useful for fighting against other continents on the same planet - strictly civil war only.

An invading attacker can attack from orbit directly to the areas he wants. If you have a strong navy then he can simply leave costal objectives till last and deal with you later.

I don't see what utility a naval force will have against an outside (not from your planet) attacker. Neither do I see why an outside attacker would want to import naval forces.

The point would be for mobile "bases", so that their forces don't have to depend on land-based strongholds, although I don't see a realistic way of transporting such things planetside.

Slightly off-topic: this gives me an idea of SM chapter who specializes in extremely hazardous environments, with suits capable of withstanding extreme pressure and allow for "swimming", and Assault Marines with "multi-enviornment" jump-packs(even underwater).

In the HH Novel "Fulgrim", the EC find a bunch of underwater cities on Laer after capturing the floating ones, and their campaign success requires them to capture these cities through traditional methods.

So a Chapter devoted to fighting underwater warfare (possibly against the Nicassar?) is possible.

Scott-S6 wrote:Naval warfare is really only useful for fighting against other continents on the same planet - strictly civil war only.

An invading attacker can attack from orbit directly to the areas he wants. If you have a strong navy then he can simply leave costal objectives till last and deal with you later.

I don't see what utility a naval force will have against an outside (not from your planet) attacker. Neither do I see why an outside attacker would want to import naval forces.

This is very true.

A lot of attackers don't attack from outside.

Chaos works by subverting the population.

Orks work by growing from spores in remote areas, so do Nids.

Eldar invade by webway gate which is already hidden on the surface.

Necrons come from under the surface.

Plus normal civil war.

When you think about it, only Tau would have to invade from space, and they are negligible on a galactic scale.

Ronin-Sage wrote:

Scott-S6 wrote:Naval warfare is really only useful for fighting against other continents on the same planet - strictly civil war only.

An invading attacker can attack from orbit directly to the areas he wants. If you have a strong navy then he can simply leave costal objectives till last and deal with you later.

I don't see what utility a naval force will have against an outside (not from your planet) attacker. Neither do I see why an outside attacker would want to import naval forces.

The point would be for mobile "bases", so that their forces don't have to depend on land-based strongholds, although I don't see a realistic way of transporting such things planetside.

Slightly off-topic: this gives me an idea of SM chapter who specializes in extremely hazardous environments, with suits capable of withstanding extreme pressure and allow for "swimming", and Assault Marines with "multi-enviornment" jump-packs(even underwater).

Marine suits already can withstand extreme pressures...and if need be, they can just operate in Land Raiders. They're supposed to be able to withstand ridiculous pressures, and have been mentioned as being used in undersea conflict.

Planetstrike talks about a campaign the Space Wolves executed on a Tau held world where 90% of the conflict was on the seafloor, with Tau deploying from Mantas along the seabed and extreme amounts of Crisis Suits and the Wolves deploying from lowflying Thunderhawks and just sinking to the seabed to open up a can of whoopin'.

If I remember myself correctly, the novel Emperor's Mercy involved wet-navy ships doing blockades and land bombardments.

I guess that would be somewhat present.

Terra (Earth) IS 70% covered in water.

But most of the stuff in 40k is stuff on land because that's where all the major stronholds, etc. are. Through the Dark Age of Technology, some technology, military tactics, and other things that we consider "modern" in the 21st century is now forgotten in the 41st millenium (due to constant and never-ending wars), so maybe they are back to only defending things with castles and strongholds. But yes, naval combat COULD conceivably happen.

In 40k, isn't Terra just one massive city? I remember reading something about the bombardments from the Heresy cracking the crust of the planet and that Terra does nothing but import all the things that we currently produce(food, clean water, etc).

ZacktheChaosChild wrote:Terra (Earth) IS 70% covered in water.

No, because Terra is 100% covered in Hive City.

In the 40K Universe, Terra is just one big city. It's oceans and any real natural land formations (Save for the Himalayas) have long since disappeared.

metallifan wrote:
No, because Terra is 100% covered in Hive City.

In the 40K Universe, Terra is just one big city. It's oceans and any real natural land formations (Save for the Himalayas) have long since disappeared.

Kind of makes Earth Day and the whole Green movement seem pointless.

The Green movement is actually doing quite well throughout the galaxy.

Ba-dum-tish!

Play him off Charlie!

I've read of Terra's oceans having "boiled away ages ago", but no idea what that really means(environmental impact form uber-terraforming, maybe?).

There's an appoc datasheet for an orky submarine, and there are references to Armageddon having some kind of ocean. I'd assume though that 'Naval Warfare' would be pretty limited in 40K, most of the fights are on land, as the objectives are on land, only time ships would really come into play is if (and only if) you were going to assault a port.

Or if an Objective was underwater. But then the imperium would just get rid of the ocean somhow.

They don't need to.

SM Drop Pods, Thunderhawks, etc all have the capability to deliver shock troops right to the objective.

The only real way to justify a wet navy is saying that it's somehow related to the Imperial Guard, and that's even stretching it considering they'd probably just use their dropships as transports to a DZ and unload specialists in pressurized gear.

Or say screw it, and wait for the Marines or bomb the place from low orbit.

It's about much more than just delivering troops to an objective. Real-life navy carriers are used as mobile refueling, restocking, etc. stations; other ship classes are capable of serving as mobile deliverers of heavy ordnance.

It's also about keeping sea lanes open.

Why bother keeping the sea lanes open when the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy have huge drogues that can be used as aerial platforms for resupply/refueling?

I don't see the Imperium as bringing along ships to a battle very often.

However, it would be stupid for forces on the planet itself not to have any navy.

That's kind of the point.

You won't really see Naval Warfare on a tabletop scale, I don't think, because of the fact that it would require it to be representing local forces. The PDF of an aquatic world might have PBRs, cruisers, etc.

But in the end, the PDF almost always gets stomped and the Guard/Marines have to come in--and the minute they do, the war alters dramatically.

Poor PDF.

PDF--

We wear the saran wrap and flashlight so that others may live.

They're the Imperium's grots.