IG Firebase: Minimum artillery pieces.

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**Lone Cat**

Kanluwen wrote:To continually compare the Guard to modern forces is silly.

Guard fortifications commonly will start off as 'temporary', but be built up and up and up until they eventually become the basis of a permanent fortification.

Modern forces and their fortifications are to be temporary, for the most part.

then they are more like 18th century-20th century european armies then.

most of the fortress built by that time (usually ones in the North America) started out as a blockhouse with an enclosure.

if you're trying to say that IGs became settlers once they won the campaign. what about those in Armageddon? i've heard that Cadians left the planet and fight elsewhere. just like Marines do.

**Melissia**

Armageddon was already settled.

**Lone Cat**

i'm referring to the third war of armageddon, ones that ends in stalemate but Ghazgull escaped, (while Commissar Yarrick took command of a Black Templars warband and began a hot pursuit).

**Melissia**

So was I.

**Kanluwen**

Lone Cat wrote:
Kanluwen wrote:To continually compare the Guard to modern forces is silly.

Guard fortifications commonly will start off as 'temporary', but be built up and up and up until they eventually become the basis of a permanent fortification.

Modern forces and their fortifications are to be temporary, for the most part.

then they are more like 18th century-20th century european armies then.

most of the fortress built by that time (usually ones in the North America) started out as a blockhouse with an enclosure.

if you're trying to say that IGs became settlers once they won the campaign. what about those in Armageddon? i've heard that Cadians left the planet and fight elsewhere. just like Marines do.

You've misunderstood, yet again.

The Guard do not necessarily "settle" the planet.

But those fortifications that they had would have been in place originally for a reason. Usually due to the strategic importance of an area.

Those temporary fortifications are then expanded into permanent fortifications--usually due to the strategic importance of that area.

**Grey Templar**

Psienesis wrote:Speaking of orbital bombardment, it's really only good against a select few types of targets. The first being cities which are a) large, b) easy to target and c) almost entirely incapable of moving (Hive Ambulon doesn't count). The second type of target it's really good against are forests, trees, small hills, shallow lakes and other terrain features... mostly because they don't move and don't generally feature armor. The third type of target an orbital bombardment is good against is a large concentration of bivouacked soldiers that is unaware of the risk of orbital bombardment. These, like other targets, also tend not to move.

Outside of these situations? Orbital strikes simply cannot react fast enough, with enough precision, to be useful. One might call for fire support from a FSB when fighting a platoon or company of enemy troops... but one is not going to call for orbital fire support when the enemy is only 200 meters away, as you are likely to be incinerated as well.... or perhaps instead of.

There are many situations in BL books where Orbital Bombardments have reacted fairly quickly.

Gaunts Ghosts

Spoiler:

The Bombardment took all of a couple of minutes to call down too.

The longest part about orbital bombardments is getting ships into position. once they are in geosync orbit over the general area you can call down bombardments pretty quickly.

**Kanluwen**

Normally bombardments aren't conducted that close to friendlies.

Normally that kind of situation is handled by close air support.

Normally being the keyword there.

It's also worth noting that the Ghosts were operating as part of a spearhead within a city, which means that artillery support may have been "disallowed" because of its imprecise nature, even with a spotter walking the rounds on target.

And again it's also worth noting that the Captain of the ship that conducted the strike only tasked a single battery to fire, and remarked upon how if his XO hadn't said that he trusted Corbec's judgement that it wouldn't have been done.

**Grey Templar**

Yes, but it still shows that Orbital Bombardments can be conducted fairly precisely. and sometimes a single battery is all you need

**Kanluwen**

Except that's not really a bombardment when it's a single gun firing a single shot.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also worth noting that it was a single battery of the smallest weapons this escort frigate had.

Anything more would have been deemed "wasteful".

**Grey Templar**

Kanluwen wrote:Except that's not really a bombardment when it's a single gun firing a single shot.

Even if its a REALLY big gun

**Kanluwen**

Exactly!

That's an "orbital strike", not an "orbital bombardment".

Come on Grey, use the right lexicon of imaginary things!

**Grey Templar**

Dammit, I am a results orientated person.

Bombardments leave big holes in the ground, Strikes leave big holes in the ground. seems similer enough to me

**Kanluwen**

Bombardments leave big holes in a lot more ground.

Strikes leave a big hole in the ground.

**Grey Templar**

Po-TAH-to, Po-TA-to

**Kanluwen**

Po-TAH-to, KABOOM.

**Brotherjulian**

I had the old imperial firebase, still have some pieces of it around probably. It was all printed card and Necromunda bulkheads, and if you notice contained no guns but a landing pad.

**Lone Cat**

and does it comes with the rules?

i think the 'firebase' is designed to use with a battery of 3 Basilisks, which first appeared by then i think.

and are you sure that the plastic bulkheads/scaffoldings are now OOP too? didn't GW made it an exclusive scenery set? (and let Imperial Gothic buildings replace it)