Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Snarky wrote:I think you completely missed my point Kan, I'm saying that Void Shields are not the end all point of defense, and even the toughest Imperial Fortresses have been described as been breachable. My comparison to Cadia was probably a bad example, since the entire planet is just one big strongpoint.

And you missed my point entirely as well.

Void Shields and fortifications aren't the "end all be all" defense, which is why I said that 40k is an example of a setting where defenses are completely eclipsed by the offensive measures.

The entire reason the Imperium or any race in 40k, where you can devastate fortifications from orbit and cleanse entire worlds, have fortifications and shields and any number of defensive measures is so that you can force the enemy to expend resources in a conventional ground war and keep them centered on attacking one specific area while you come to grips with them.

Also it doesn't matter if the Void Shield is a sphere and slips underground as well as above, you can simply walk through it. This is represented many times in the fluff (read IA5 and 6) and in game rules (you can slip under a titan's void shield to melta/punch it to death). This is exactly what they did in IA5, they went under the Void Shields and started pummeling the fortress. To say that Void Shields are the only key principle to fortress design is clearly wrong.

You're clearly not seeing the same Void Shield descriptions I've seen, but okay.

We are referring to the things that can slice clean through tanks and infantry when they go active, yes?

To say that I'm arguing that void shields are the "key principle to fortress design" is missing my point entirely. Fortresses aren't simply in 40k to be huge walls. They're usually built around important installations, such as surface-to-orbital defensive batteries or critical power stations.
Things invaders would need to take from the ground for a successful invasion, rather than blasting them from orbit.

you know you can simply walk through the void shield right.

its not like a starwars energy shield which will zap you real bad if you walk through it.

its only objects that are moving at a fast rate that get transferred into the warp.


this is represented by void shields only protecting against shots fired from more then 12" away.

There's no indication that that's the case; the 12" bit of the titans void shields would more suggest that there's clearance over the ground than that one can walk through it. Ships certainly can't land on a platform shielded by one, despite moving extremely slowly on the approach, and if it could be bypassed by slow objects there'd be "parachute" artillery rounds or some such, specifically for getting through void shields.

Grey Templar wrote:you know you can simply walk through the void shield right.

its not like a starwars energy shield which will zap you real bad if you walk through it.

Didn't the droids walk straight through the shields?

its only objects that are moving at a fast rate that get transferred into the warp.


this is represented by void shields only protecting against shots fired from more then 12" away.

I'm pretty sure you're talking about Eldar holofields.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:There's no indication that that's the case; the 12" bit of the titans void shields would more suggest that there's clearance over the ground than that one can walk through it. Ships certainly can't land on a platform shielded by one, despite moving extremely slowly on the approach, and if it could be bypassed by slow objects there'd be "parachute" artillery rounds or some such, specifically for getting through void shields.

Exactly, if there was specific 'anti-void sheild' weaponry, the first place we'd see it would be in the Navy battles.*

*I'm unsure if boarding craft or teleportation attacks can still get through void shields.

Void shields don't protect against shots from more then 12" away either.


and yeah, the droids walked right through, but you can't fly a starfighter through a ships shields.

Grey Templar wrote:Void shields don't protect against shots from more then 12" away either.

Which, if the shields work in an Umbrella/Cocoon amethod, makes sense.

and yeah, the droids walked right through, but you can't fly a starfighter through a ships shields.

Yeah, but you said anyone who tries to get through gets badly burnt. I can't remember that occuring in Star Wars.

well, those were Gungan shields.


they possably work on a different principal.

Eldar D-cannon weapons (especially Titan class ones) IGNORE void shields (they open up a warp hole inside the field).

The cobra's cannon is specifically noted to do this (and I believe so is the Phantom's version).

When the Imperium first encountered Tau fleets (Star of Damocles and Rogue Star) their ships couldn't stop the battleship-sized railguns. They went straight through the void shields and tore ships to shreds. They were forced to reconfigure shields (primarily designed to counter energy weapons, torpedos and nova shells notwithstanding) to stand up to the hyper-velocity slugs.

Which suggests that shields are optimised against a particular sort of weapon.

Back to real work inspirations...

yeh. I'm not quite a fan of energy shield thing. although I personally did play Final Liberation long time ago. also the main focus of this thread is the fortification designs, materials, permanency, construction, and to some extent, the weapons systems.

Does imperial nobility (local rulers, excutives, General Staffs, Lord Governers, Knights, warlords, tycoons, politicians, and all other big guys) live inside the battle-worthy fortified resident like medieval lords live in castle? if so,
- supposed that all of them have void shields. do they still use curtain walls or there a ring of star-shaped outer earthworks surrounding the structure?
- how big does such structures usually be? and the surface:underground portions please. (in case of non-hiveworld fortified residences)
- How do they look like from the outside? do they looks closer to FORTRESS, PALACE, or MONASTERY?
- Are there any office buildings for them built into each of those resident? or are they required to work along with other administrative dudes on each planet/locale?

nobility tend to live in country estates.

these usually have perimiter defense turrets and walls, but no Void shields.


they are similer in description to modern day safe houses(extrapolated to a large complex over several acres)



Government buildings usually are built to a defensive plan. most vital areas are underground, with armories, bunkers around the perimiter... they usually have voids too although their primary purpose is to protect against Orbital Bombardment.


Permanant fortifications are usually underground.



the Eisinhorn and Ravenor omnibuses have examples of the fortified manor in them.

"Nightbringer" and "Courage and Honor" have examples of permanant defensive structures.

1. and also does those modern Safehouse a REAL reborn of medieval castle? if you refer a safehouse to Saddam Hussein and Gaddhafi 's "bombproof palace" ... where American cruise missles weren't quite effective against those (which it might be concluded that those houses are also classify as fortress). and the term "Castle" refers to medieval definition (being both military complex ,political residence and.. to some extent, seats of power. in one!) and not the Victorian ones (not a battle worthy structure).

2. Which design philosophy does "military" fortress takes? if you say that those forts were mainly built underground. where only the access, turrets, gun pits, and gatehouses are all the only surface-visible components.
2.1 Lord Palmerston's follies: a new type of fortress built in responses to percussion explosive shells and artillery rifling. Under those two technologies. how did Starfort became "obsolette" (by Brits point of view, but those renaissance-style fortress still being built even as late as 1890-1900.... many American Civil War fortifications were built as Star fort regardless of the two fearsome technologies.)

The so-called Palmerston's follies were officially called "Polygonal Fort" OR "Flankless Fort". it is said that this style of fortress was the first ones to be built underground in order to reduce (or neutralize) its sillhouettes to the attacker (and .. to deny/reduce the shell's effects). the long range artillery were placed on the gun pits instead of casemates (for various reasons, the most valid was the minus of casemate mountings). another feature was the use of deep (and dry!) ditch serving as its walls (TWO IN ONE!) acting as pitfalls to attackers, but instead of deploying spikes or voracious carnivores (in case of wet ditches, which called Moat, and the carnivores were usually crocks, but i'm not sure if piranhas were ever released into a moat) at its bottom. the death traps were a small bunker mounted at each corners, and its firing line goes along the ditch but not above. these lil bunkers are called Caponiers.



Personally I don't believe that these caponiers really work against storming attackers. although it can be upgraded with machineguns, the attacker can still scale it using boarding planks and at the worst case. the boarding plank can be deployed on top of the caponier itself! who will be foolish enough to drop into the deep ditch? the heighs alone may kill the storming attackers without any 'siege equipment' (a climbing rope, ladder, or sort of). And with the advent of the early armored vehicles, those ditch bunkers will surely be busted should those vehicle falls into a ditch (and the crew has some balls.). Caponiers only have anti-crowd capability (in case of a cannon-mounted caponier, a solid slug cannonball may wreck the fort should it fired from that position while grapeshots don't). if a leman russ or (especially) a Dreadnought managed to get through the defensive turrets on the roof and falling into the ditch. caponiers won't stand a chance against those machines.



Verdun fortresses were built in that style.

2.2 Maginot and Siegfried line. this was a series of bunkers and turrets (in addition to other deterrents) linked together with a system with the deep underground tunnels. a network of narrow-gauge railroads were laid there, acting as an express to the defending men and supplies, the whole structures were made of ferrocrete, only its entrances were on the surface. everything else. including living quarters, were all deep underground.



3. Apart from the Space Marines, At which strengh level of IG troops can be garrisoned at maximum? is it a compulsory that the barracks building of any IG regiment (such as Cadian) is located underground. in case of Palmerston's fortresses. Barracks were surface structures.

and does so Imperial armoured vehicles? (including the big bad Baneblades, Leviathan, and C.I.)

Lone Cat wrote:

image courtesy of www.warphead.de

what is the name of a big cannon mounted on the center? if the four smaller ones mounted on each corner of the Keep are the famed Earthshakers. and do you really think that this design can still be effective? if the star-shaped rampart is designed to maximize cannon shots and deny attacker a cover.

It could be a bit.. The design enables to fire at everything around. But still, there are orbital weapons..
...and there is an Ultramarine flag.

The Verdun fortresses were very successful in resisting attack. They were laid out with interlocking fields of artillery fire so that it was impossible to approach any one of them without being taken under fire by a number of guns as well as local machine guns.

They also proved very resistant to the German artillery fire.

caponiers are actually quite effective.


those ditches in the picture you have there are actually about 20 feet high.


yeah, you can scale them with ladders, but, with modern firearms, leaving cover to carry something like that is just suicide.


they are also effective in that you actually can't see the fortification untill you are literally right on top of it.

you could be walking through the woods at a brisk pace and literally fall over a 20 foot cliff.


from 20 feet away the ditch is almost invisible.

I've never been anywhere in Britain or eastern france before so I can't proof the efficiency of such designs.

if you say that Palmerston forts are completely not visible on the ground. (and can only be seen via the aviation, which just appeared few years later ) then you can say that the advancing attacker can only see the ditches when they marched into its edges. if you say that the ditches are 20 feet (3 meters and several more centies.... the Metric system is an official measurements here in Thailand) heights (but you didn't say its width) then this thing may also work against tanks as well if judging by WW1 weaponry. but what about in the 41st millenium warfare? those caponiers were still ineffective against light walkers like Dreadnoughts and "heavy" sentinels armed with antitank weapons. If those walkers were quite resisting small arms fire. then should such vehicle survives the descent. then caponiers (which usually not equipped with Antitank weapons) are nothing to them.

I'm not sure if caponiers thing still remain in use during the second world war? i'm not sure if Atlantic wall has ones? but since i've played Medal of Honour: Allied Assault. during Normandy landings mission, if a player survives the hail of MG42 shots and get close enough. there were a ditch where it has an access to the cliff bunker above. the ditch itself also has its own defensive systems similar to the late 19th century caponiers.

the ditches could range from 10-30 feet wide so would provide excellent killing fields against infantry.


thats also wide enough so that Tanks can't cross them, with the possable exception of Baneblades(assuming the weight didn't just flatten everything)


walkers could get down into the ditch, but Walkers arn't as heavily armored as other vehicles. infantry portable weapons are easily capable of damaging them. and the Walkers still can't get up verticle slopes.

Caponiers were usually dug all the way around a position that was to be defended(usually a town or city) and were only crossed by drawbridges. easily raised or destroyed.

the individual bunkers had doors to the outside, but those would only be usable by infantry(and naturally would have to be blown open)

owww. that's how the Imperial fortress should be. limiting the usefulness of armoured vehicles, denying infantry assaults, and nullifying WMD effects with void shields (oops ... again meow)

now. continue on rooftop guns, which class of the artillery pieces does each fortress have? how big should those cannon be? and does earthshaker sufficient for each, if so, how many of the earthshaker gunpits should each fortress have at least?

I'm not sure if there's any possibility to emulate ditches and caponier defensive systems in 40k gaming? since caponier guns have a very limited elevations, its line of fire only sweep through the ditches and not above.

outer defenses would probably be limited to Tarantula turret mounted weapons(dual lascannons and quad auto-cannons) and hard mounted Multi-lasers and Heavy Bolters. these may or may not be operated by a Machine Spirit or a Servitor.

there would then be Earthshaker batteries inside the 1st wall. how many is entirely dependent on the size of the fortress. probably batteries of 3-5 guns for every kilometer or so.


the largest weapons are Macro-cannons. essentially massive versions of Auto-cannons. they fire explosive rounds. due to their size, they are almost exclusivly used in static defenses and as the primary broadside armaments on Starships.

ok. for a size of 1 Infantry company with a full strenghs using the formations below (well the maximum strengh one Infantry company may have)
- a command platoon, consists of 1 command section (with a full attaches of a commissar, a priest, and a psyker), and 5 support sections.
- 6 line infantry platoons.
- each platoon consists of one command section and five line infantry section.
- each platoon also included 1 Armoured Fists section.

How big could the fortress housing this formation be?

Fortresses aren't built to house formations, so it's a moot point.

Then you can say that it could be in any size and has no regard to the maximum manpower strengh..

and in vice versa. for each IG regiment to have its permanent "office" in their homeworld. how do their main base look like? If it's not any kind of a strong fortification. is it a "weak" wire- enclosed areas with towers on each corners and few dug-in pillboxes and earthworks like what modern armies (especially the US Army) do today?

i'm on the stage of designing the main HQ scenery for my IG formation.

Each IG regiment does not have a "permanent office in their homeworld".

They pretty much never see their homeworld after they deploy. It's why the Tanith were considered 'lucky'. They couldn't get homesick, because they had no home to go back to.

However, the defensive fortifications we've had described vary wildly in depiction.

Cadia has massive fortress-cities, with a labyrinthian design and avenues wide enough for superheavy vehicles and Titans to use and employ as ambush points.

if anything, fortifications will be made to house PDF formations.


fortresses are also typically made to house many times the number of troops that can effectivly man the walls. this allows for a sizable garrison to replace casualities as well as large stores of food.



Medieval castles could hold hundreds, sometimes thousands, of men, but could be effectivly manned by as little as a dozen men.


there was one story of a castle in palastine during one of the crusades that was surrounded by many thousand turks(somewhere between 10-50,000 IIRC)

there were about a dozen men inside.


they held off the Turks for 6 months before a relief force came and broke the seige.

Kanluwen wrote:Each IG regiment does not have a "permanent office in their homeworld".

They pretty much never see their homeworld after they deploy.

However, the defensive fortifications we've had described vary wildly in depiction.

Cadia has massive fortress-cities, with a labyrinthian design and avenues wide enough for superheavy vehicles and Titans to use and employ as ambush points.

Even if they win the campaign? is there any instance that none of them returned to their homeworld. except Harazahn (KIA in Medusa 4), Tanith (Chaos got their homeworld!), DKoK (unknown regiment, later became Baran Siegemasters) and any instances that the veteran come back home? (and later trained their men).

Steel Legion fought their wars at home (and so does Cadian) but they were called IG and not PDF (do they?)

Could anyone here compare the effectiveness and survivability of gun pits and tank turret- mounted bunker (FW have both products) please?


^ Russian gun pits built during 70s, based on a painful lesson learned at Sebastopol during the second World War, on the use of casemate.


^ PzKfw 4 D turret mounted on a concrete bunker, overwatching Omaha beach. I'm not sure of this one is also called Casemate?

Lone Cat wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Each IG regiment does not have a "permanent office in their homeworld".

They pretty much never see their homeworld after they deploy.

However, the defensive fortifications we've had described vary wildly in depiction.

Cadia has massive fortress-cities, with a labyrinthian design and avenues wide enough for superheavy vehicles and Titans to use and employ as ambush points.

Even if they win the campaign? is there any instance that none of them returned to their homeworld. except Harazahn (KIA in Medusa 4), Tanith (Chaos got their homeworld!), DKoK (unknown regiment, later became Baran Siegemasters) and any instances that the veteran come back home? (and later trained their men).

Steel Legion fought their wars at home (and so does Cadian) but they were called IG and not PDF (do they?)

Cadia is a completely different story to anything else we've got in the 40kverse right now. They have no 'PDF' in the general sense, with the closest analogue being the Cadian Interior Guard.

The Cadian Interior Guard is, in fact, a series of fully vetted Guard regiments that have fought elsewhere and essentially gotten an 'honor guard' position of staying on the homeworld. There's some conjecture that you can work from that basically states that the Interior Guard regiments tend to be made up with a higher instance of females than males.
The majority of the Cadian forces that 'fight their wars at home' are recalled from elsewhere when the rumblings and signs of a big push by Chaos are seen.

Steel Legion I'm kind of meh about. It's likely that the forces involved were recalled from fighting elsewhere to secure a strategic planet.

Could anyone here compare the effectiveness and survivability of gun pits and tank turret- mounted bunker (FW have both products) please?


^ Russian gun pits built during 70s, based on a painful lesson learned at Sebastopol during the second World War, on the use of casemate.


^ PzKfw 4 D turret mounted on a concrete bunker, overwatching Omaha beach. I'm not sure of this one is also called Casemate?

FW has one gun pit, the Tarantula Sentry Gun(incidentally: it's a gorgeous piece. Full of little details, like the metal sidings of the gun pit, the control wire going to a buried generator, etc).

If I had to compare the effectiveness and survivability of the two...
I'd say the gun pit has more going for it. However, that's simply because the guns that the Imperium would put in pits like that are automated and serve as a 'first line of defense'.

The larger turrets, like the heavy bolter/battle cannon ones actually are manned and they have a subterranean section for the crew.

It's a bit amusing how 40k fortresses are more comparable to 17th century defenses as opposed to what you see in the 19th and 20th, which emphasized low-profiles and bunkers over giant imposing structures with high walls and what not.

Snarky wrote:I think you completely missed my point Kan, I'm saying that Void Shields are not the end all point of defense, and even the toughest Imperial Fortresses have been described as been breachable. My comparison to Cadia was probably a bad example, since the entire planet is just one big strongpoint.

Also it doesn't matter if the Void Shield is a sphere and slips underground as well as above, you can simply walk through it. This is represented many times in the fluff (read IA5 and 6) and in game rules (you can slip under a titan's void shield to melta/punch it to death). This is exactly what they did in IA5, they went under the Void Shields and started pummeling the fortress. To say that Void Shields are the only key principle to fortress design is clearly wrong.

But that means void shields are still effective, even if your attacker can walk through them. What do you think is happening to that enemy when they are approaching the field or even more so when they're setting up IN it? Do you think they're being ignored? No, every mid range weapon and forward defenders are zeroing in on them. And since the invading enemy unit is IN the void shield...they aren't getting anything in terms of supporting or suppressing fire.

Lone Cat wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Each IG regiment does not have a "permanent office in their homeworld".

They pretty much never see their homeworld after they deploy.

However, the defensive fortifications we've had described vary wildly in depiction.

Cadia has massive fortress-cities, with a labyrinthian design and avenues wide enough for superheavy vehicles and Titans to use and employ as ambush points.

Even if they win the campaign? is there any instance that none of them returned to their homeworld. except Harazahn (KIA in Medusa 4), Tanith (Chaos got their homeworld!), DKoK (unknown regiment, later became Baran Siegemasters) and any instances that the veteran come back home? (and later trained their men).

Steel Legion fought their wars at home (and so does Cadian) but they were called IG and not PDF (do they?)

Could anyone here compare the effectiveness and survivability of gun pits and tank turret- mounted bunker (FW have both products) please?


^ Russian gun pits built during 70s, based on a painful lesson learned at Sebastopol during the second World War, on the use of casemate.


^ PzKfw 4 D turret mounted on a concrete bunker, overwatching Omaha beach. I'm not sure of this one is also called Casemate?

a Gunpit has the advantage in that it usually can hold a larger gun while Tankturret emplacements are basically limited to what Tank guns you have at your disposal. which may or may not be sutible for a static defense(typically you want a long range weapon)

however, the Gunpit does expose the crew to fire more then the Tank turret does. Airburst fragmentation can rip a gunpit to shreds while not even bothering the Tankturret.


a Gunpit can also be used to protect a mobile gun. you simply wheel a field gun into the emplacement and bam, instant strongpoint. you can also abandon the position and take the gun with you. a Tank turret is pretty much immobile.