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Unless of course you decide to create a nice new battleship class which has a large amount of auxiliary gravity generators specfically to allow the thing to land on a planet. Infinite universes with magic technology are a wonderful thing

heh new battleship? the things they can't hardly craft anymore and with long lost dark age tech? The Admech would swamp such a ship and it about be far to valuable to ever allow near a world anyhow

So it was an ancient design recently found as part of Space Hulk Harbinger of Pigeons and refitted

That would never, ever be risked by putting such a large, ill replaceable craft in a sitting duck position upon the ground. And if it was that was asumming such an ancient hull, with little understood tech could lift back off and would not fail during landing.

I would say no, if such a thing did exists it would never be risked on something like a needless landing.

so here is another question for ya, if an asteroid 6 miles wide changed all of earth.... wouldn't a few crashing capital ships wreck some planets?

all in size and how dense the ships are, but yeah your are looking at some issues.

We clearly need to define the word "landing". If it leaves a crater then its not landing, its crashing. Unless your talking about Orks, in which case its difficult to tell if the crater was part of the plan.

There is mention that there was once the technology which allowed a ship to land on a planet's surface. Some Chaos Ships have this technology(one reason the Ad Mech tries to capture Chaos Vessels)

Modern 40k ships cannot land.


Space Marine Strike Cruisers are sometimes seen to come into really low orbit within the atmosphere and kinda fly by slowely. Not really landing as such but pretty close.

And then there are cases of ships crash landing and surviving enough to be able to leave after some repairs, of course the planet kinda got fethed up.



The biggest reason they don't do it is because it causes massive seismic activity on the planet and damages the ship. They can survive the crash but why do it deliberatly?

Not if it plans on going back into space lol.
They'd also "land" with the force of a nuclear warhead going off lol.

SM strike cruisers are both kinda on the small side and designed for those low passes. They however do not land or have the capability to leave orbit if they get to low and slow...that is called crashing

iGuy91 wrote:Not if it plans on going back into space lol.
They'd also "land" with the force of a nuclear warhead going off lol.

The key word being "after" some repairs

Its happened in BL books before. They crash a ship and are able to leave once some extensive repairs are completed(a couple weeks)

A lot of odd and contradictory things happen in BL books. I would take that account with a grain of salt

Engine of War wrote:Can a Large Spacecraft land in a controled manner?

Yes. Once.

Such large spacecrafts use orbital space platforms to dock and smaller ones to ferry men and supplies.

Simply put no. The physics of it are impossible, imagine the Empire State, horizontal in mid air, thats how big a small Capital ship would be. Now imagine the immense gravitational pull on the ship, even if the engines could miraculously push the ship up, the rest of the ship being pulled down by gravity. It would at the very least snap in half, at the worst crumple like a tin can. Without attempting to regain orbit, the ship would just crash into the ground causing devastation to planet and ship alike. Also think about it, ships thrusters are on the back of the ship, no facing downward, so the ship would have to gain a huge amount of leverage to face the right direction to take off in the first place. The titanic is a wonderful example of what happens when something that large is tilted at an upward angle, it snapped like a twig. I know 40k doesnt always equal real physics but the majority of BL writers seem to agree with this theory.

Are we only talking about IOM ships? Something tells me other races are able to.

I believe the crimson fists main fortress on their homeworld is a landed space ship.


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KorPhaeron77 wrote:Simply put no. The physics of it are impossible, imagine the Empire State, horizontal in mid air, thats how big a small Capital ship would be. Now imagine the immense gravitational pull on the ship, even if the engines could miraculously push the ship up, the rest of the ship being pulled down by gravity. It would at the very least snap in half, at the worst crumple like a tin can. Without attempting to regain orbit, the ship would just crash into the ground causing devastation to planet and ship alike. Also think about it, ships thrusters are on the back of the ship, no facing downward, so the ship would have to gain a huge amount of leverage to face the right direction to take off in the first place. The titanic is a wonderful example of what happens when something that large is tilted at an upward angle, it snapped like a twig. I know 40k doesnt always equal real physics but the majority of BL writers seem to agree with this theory.

now imagine that giant ship traveling zillions of miles per hour thru the warp lol

The 2nd Badab book has a piece where the mantis warriors bury 2 cobra class destroyers in a desert to ambush some dark eldar in orbit, so it would seem possible for the smallest ships at least.

KorPhaeron77 wrote:Simply put no. The physics of it are impossible, imagine the Empire State, horizontal in mid air, thats how big a torpedo would be.

Fixed for you.

Capital ships are between 6-7.5km in length depending on the class.

Kind of on topic: Aren't Titans lowered to a planet surface via ships? If so, those ships would have to be pretty big right? Smaller than the ships we're talking about?

The mechanicum seems to "cheat" a bit when deploying Titans ( using antigrav tech that is..).

The question is:
- can space craft land?
The answer:
- some can.

Generally most of the transports will be able to land ( civilian craft, munitorum craft, IN troop carriers, etc ) because there isn't an orbital dock everywhere they go. Military vessels won't have to land as they may use their own "shuttles" to ferry the few down who have to get to the surface.

You are all making the assumption the planet this ship would be landing on has an atmosphere, if it didnt and with some proper engineering it should be fine. But as its already been stated most capital style ships are purely meant to stay in space, and smaller more purpose built ships can serve the duty of landing.

Kroot Warspheres can land.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warsphere

The warsphere is both designed to land and is spherical. something like a cruiser would take massive hull damage as its own weight pushed down onto a structure not designed for that.


Look guys the viper is the smallest IoM warship I can find, its 950 or so meters. so stuff like titan landers are smaller then that. I think the Tau may have landable ships, I can't see any Eldra craft as being able to land, with under-hull sails and all.

Brother Thomas wrote:I believe the crimson fists main fortress on their homeworld is a landed space ship.

*Was

Daft (rhetorical) question but what about the Emperors battle ship which lands on the ground in Mechanicum? which is described as a city in space presumably far larger than the average destroyer and cruiser, page 16-20 (also make note of the mention of stabilises to keep it from collapsing in on its self)

please note im not ignorant on the loss of technology over the next 10,000 years, its just a point that proves such gigantic one-off vessels can actually land, especially with some consideration (and possible retrofitting after).

dreadfury101 wrote:so here is another question for ya, if an asteroid 6 miles wide changed all of earth.... wouldn't a few crashing capital ships wreck some planets?

No, because we have to look at the terminal velocity. A capital ships that is free falling down to a planet will not be at the same speed as it was for example, cruising in space.

LunaHound wrote:

dreadfury101 wrote:so here is another question for ya, if an asteroid 6 miles wide changed all of earth.... wouldn't a few crashing capital ships wreck some planets?

No, because we have to look at the terminal velocity. A capital ships that is free falling down to a planet will not be at the same speed as it was for example, cruising in space.

It may not necessarily be free falling...


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Clumpski wrote:Daft (rhetorical) question but what about the Emperors battle ship which lands on the ground in Mechanicum? which is described as a city in space presumably far larger than the average destroyer and cruiser, page 16-20 (also make note of the mention of stabilises to keep it from collapsing in on its self)

please note im not ignorant on the loss of technology over the next 10,000 years, its just a point that proves such gigantic one-off vessels can actually land, especially with some consideration (and possible retrofitting after).

I did think about this actually...
It would need to be helped back into orbit i would think...

Only light spacecraft.

The massive imperial guard landers are small space ships in their own right, as are mantas.

purplefood wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

dreadfury101 wrote:so here is another question for ya, if an asteroid 6 miles wide changed all of earth.... wouldn't a few crashing capital ships wreck some planets?

No, because we have to look at the terminal velocity. A capital ships that is free falling down to a planet will not be at the same speed as it was for example, cruising in space.

It may not necessarily be free falling...

Well sure, I just dont often see ships ramming a planet, here is why.

Look at it this way

An asteroid that wrecked earth that was 6 miles large, that measurement is for the core. Or, the piece that made it down through the atmosphere.
For all we know it could be 100 miles large.

Yet, unlike such debris, a space ship has no such core. When it falls to pieces, it will fall into pieces. The impact will not be anywhere the same as a space debris.

LunaHound wrote:

purplefood wrote:

LunaHound wrote:

dreadfury101 wrote:so here is another question for ya, if an asteroid 6 miles wide changed all of earth.... wouldn't a few crashing capital ships wreck some planets?

No, because we have to look at the terminal velocity. A capital ships that is free falling down to a planet will not be at the same speed as it was for example, cruising in space.

It may not necessarily be free falling...

Well sure, I just dont often see ships ramming a planet, here is why.

Look at it this way

An asteroid that wrecked earth that was 6 miles large, that measurement is for the core. Or, the piece that made it down through the atmosphere.
For all we know it could be 100 miles large.

Yet, unlike such debris, a space ship has no such core. When it falls to pieces, it will fall into pieces. The impact will not be anywhere the same as a space debris.

It may not be moving directly downwards though...
Theoretically if you had good enough heat shields or just shielding then you could just shoot around inside the atmosphere until you had decreased in both speed and altitude enough to make a 'controlled' landing or at least one that didn't cause as much damage...
Though if a ship was going to ram a planet i'd imagine its extensive shielding and armour plate would go someway to helping it stay together...
It won't be the same,no where near the same, as a random meteor but it could still do a significant amount of damage to whatever it hit...