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I would capture the first space wolf I see.. Give him a bath,haircut, and a clean shave. Let him go so he can report to his commanders what those darn Americans will do to them if they get captured.

 Vaktathi wrote:
This is a rather awkward question.

Really, 40k is a Fantasy universe with a Scifi skin, and when compared to actual, real armies, they just don't really work.

Modern armies have weapons that would put the capabilities of the Eldar to shame. A modern MBT can move at highway speeds over rough ground and hit another target moving at highway speeds over 2000m away with something like a 90-95% accuracy rate, with shells that can penetrate up to a full meter of steel armor in some cases. Artillery can be fired from 40km away from multiple batteries and all land at the same time within 5m of the target. A modern army will have zero problems fighting at night, sometimes even performing better at night. Aircraft can engage each other from nearly 200km distant without ever seeing their target.

If you took something like NATO and pitted it against a 40k faction (unless you're talking something like a Tyranid invastion so massive where they just have such vast numbers that the entire biosphere is overrun and destroyed), the real world military would emerge victorious rather easily. On the table, they'd play much more like Eldar speed, stats, and firepower with IG numbers and heavy armor, almost everything having a "no-LoS-needed" capability, and with Networked Markerlights on damn near everything.

 Sigvatr wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:


For that matter, we'd likely do the same to a Marine chapter.

Modern military has zero chances against power armor. While there certainly are weapons that can penetrate it, they aren't mass-produced and unavailable for the general army.

/e: Actually, they would easily kill Space Wolves. No helmets isn't as cool as you'd think.

Power armor can and has been shown to be able to be defeated by 20th century style weaponry such as small arms and things like Mortars in GW published fluff, even if they're highly resistant to it. In no depiction is something like Power Armor invulnerable to anti-tank weapons, heavy artillery, crew served heavy weapons, etc. Against top-tier 21st century armies,Space Marines wouldn't do very well at all. Sure, they're impressive infantry, but ultimately they're still infantry, and absurdly few in number to boot.

 Psienesis wrote:
All of the above have the ability to destroy us from orbit. We have no technologies to counter that. We lose.

And yet such is rarely used in the 40k universe. Besides, it's not like Earth doesn't have several thousand nuclear armed missiles capable of striking into orbit.

I'd say Chaos would destroy most liberal democracies in short order. By the time we get hit by a black crusade, half the planet has already given into the dark gods and the Chaos space marines and traitor guardsmen can land in areas devoured by warp storms while a large fraction of the military has forsaken our governments and joined the dark gods while Daemons constantly spew forth and lay waste to everything they see and constantly spread forth the inexorable corruption. Only the most hardnosed of authoritarian states would mobilize to stop the cults from becoming the most popular religion in their borders and thus start causing an explosion of daemons and defections to Chaos. (This would mean Earth's last hope would be nations like North Korea or Saudi Arabia while countries like Sweden and America would be swimming with Daemons and warp rifts)

Also, Earth's nuclear arsenal is incapable of reliably hitting a moving spaceship; or penetrating the void shields of something rated to withstand multiple teratons worth of energy from other space ships.

@Vaktathi

I do understand your point and that's true, 40k is nothing as a true military wargame. It has its uncoherencies and its specificities but it defines warfare in the 41st millenium. If GW says Titans are awesome, well, they are. And if GW says it takes 8000 tanks to beat a Titan Traitor Legion, well, it does. Long story short, there is no such thing as "it falls flat when forced into reality" because what reality are talking about? Yours?

You want to transpose 40k combat practices IRL and evaluate them against our NATO doctrines and standards. This is just using a 3k paradigm to traduce what you think you understand in 40k. That's why I was emphasizing on the "military system"; LR may be worst than Leclerc MBT but they are hundreds of thousands (quality comparisons is another overdiscussed debate) and there's a combat doctrine which make them work just like an unstoppable hammer. This is reality in 40k. This is what make the enemies of the Emperor die. You may argue that armoured operations of such scale are unrealistic (logistics, communications, coordination, whatever) but it's not the point we making here, we're discussing whether or not modern armies could beat the IG. Obviously, for strategic reasons, the answer is not.

I also think your greatly underestimate the quality of 40k weapon systems. To answer your question about tanks : Hammerheads, Falcon Tanks, Wave Serpents, Predators Annihilator, Land Raiders, Vanquishers and so on.
No matter they match M1 Abrams speed & precision or not, they are sufficiently effective in their operational system to crush anything we would send to them.

Regarding superheavies and stuff like this, it just the same reasoning; Nazi Germany did not have the industrial and technological know-how to build Baneblade. The Imperium has, and if GW says they can be built, sustained and deployed with awesome results on the battlefield, well, I guess we'd better never come accross them.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
@Vaktathi

I do understand your point and that's true, 40k is nothing as a true military wargame. It has its uncoherencies and its specificities but it defines warfare in the 41st millenium. If GW says Titans are awesome, well, they are. And if GW says it takes 8000 tanks to beat a Titan Traitor Legion, well, it does. Long story short, there is no such thing as "it falls flat when forced into reality" because what reality are talking about? Yours?

My ultimate point is that comparing these things to any real world equivalents works only because of what precisely you already stated "just because GW said so". If you actually look at the weapons involved both in real life and in the 40k universe, the capabilities of real world forces, and posted stats and capabilities from GW and FW, it you start comparing it to the real world, the 40k universe falls apart very quickly.

Much the same as with Space Marines, there's simply not enough to be relevant on a galactic scale and taking casualties that resemble anything non-central characters take would have rendered them all extinct thousands of years before the 41st millenium. This stuff all works "just because", and cannot really be compared to the real world as such.

You want to transpose 40k combat practices IRL and evaluate them against our NATO doctrines and standards. This is just using a 3k paradigm to traduce what you think you understand in 40k. That's why I was emphasizing on the "military system"; LR may be worst than Leclerc MBT but they are hundreds of thousands (quality comparisons is another overdiscussed debate) and there's a combat doctrine which make them work just like an unstoppable hammer.

And there's hundreds of thousands of tanks on earth that could merely match something like an LRBT even if it's not as advanced as top end NATO armor. Hell, there's 100,000 T55's alone rolling around. What scale of engagement are we talking about as well? Are we assuming a thousands of Imperial Guard regiments are being deployed, or a single Space Marine Chapter?

I mean, you can always make the quantity over quality argument, but we have to establish that we're talking about that sort of scale to begin with.

This is reality in 40k. This is what make the enemies of the Emperor die. You may argue that armoured operations of such scale are unrealistic (logistics, communications, coordination, whatever) but it's not the point we making here, we're discussing whether or not modern armies could beat the IG. Obviously, for strategic reasons, the answer is not.

If you want to resort to the full might of the Imperium or the like, sure, and I mentioned as much in a previous post (though used Tyranids as an example), but then that's just a matter of scale rather than a comparison of forces or capabilities and at that point anything can be explained away. If we're talking something on the scale of most of the factions in question however, such as Eldar, Space Marines, and the like, things would be very different.

I also think your greatly underestimate the quality of 40k weapon systems. To answer your question about tanks : Hammerheads, Falcon Tanks, Wave Serpents, Predators Annihilator, Land Raiders, Vanquishers and so on.

We actually have some hard stats on some of these vehicles. Predators can be harmed by 40k weapons which are no different than WW2 counterparts (anti-tank grenades, autocannons, etc). Likewise, FW has posted speed and armor values for many of these vehicles in Imperial Armour, and most cannot attain the same speeds as modern MBT's and have nothing near the armor. Using weapons that have real world equivalents in 40k that have been shown in both fluff and game to be capable of engaging a Predator (again, things like anti-tank grenades, autocannons, etc), coupled with FW's posted values for armor, a Predator would be equivalent to a mid 40's-early 60's tank in terms of armor protection effectiveness.

Something like a Leman Russ has a problem simply structurally. It's a cartoony steam punk tank based on early WW2 design principles. With the position of the turret hatch on a Leman Russ, it'd be impossible to use because the tank's gun breach would be taking up the entire space beneath it (and, amusingly enough, the one cutaway we've got of a Leman Russ from FW shows exactly this...) and there's no room for two other critical crew members to boot (gunner and loader). The tank just physically does not work. Also, much like something like a Land Raider, the thing has no suspension (and a Land Raider could very easily get stuck on even a parking lot speed bump with its almost complete lack of ground clearance)

Meanwhile, we've got something like a Falcon or Hammerhead, that have very large, open and exposed unarmored engine parts on the front of the vehicle that would be rather easy for real world tank crews to hit and defeat the armor entirely.

No matter they match M1 Abrams speed & precision or not, they are sufficiently effective in their operational system to crush anything we would send to them.

Only within the realm of a fantasy setting.

Regarding superheavies and stuff like this, it just the same reasoning; Nazi Germany did not have the industrial and technological know-how to build Baneblade. The Imperium has, and if GW says they can be built, sustained and deployed with awesome results on the battlefield, well, I guess we'd better never come accross them.

The Nazi's did make absolutely gigantic war machines. Cannons like Dora and the like. The problem isn't building them, it's the logistical support trail requires absurd over-investment and that they have tremendous difficulty moving from place to place (oh man, there's a river in the way and we're too heavy to use any bridge...), and they're simply so big that they're very easily spotted and very easily engaged with very heavy weapons like aircraft dropped munitions and heavy artillery before they can get anywhere, and are hard to miss to boot. Same reason the Battleship went out of style, smaller craft like airplanes and submarines were all capable of carrying munitions that could destroy them well before a Battleship could bring its big guns to bear against anything.

 Kain wrote:

I'd say Chaos would destroy most liberal democracies in short order. By the time we get hit by a black crusade, half the planet has already given into the dark gods and the Chaos space marines and traitor guardsmen can land in areas devoured by warp storms while a large fraction of the military has forsaken our governments and joined the dark gods while Daemons constantly spew forth and lay waste to everything they see and constantly spread forth the inexorable corruption. Only the most hardnosed of authoritarian states would mobilize to stop the cults from becoming the most popular religion in their borders and thus start causing an explosion of daemons and defections to Chaos. (This would mean Earth's last hope would be nations like North Korea or Saudi Arabia while countries like Sweden and America would be swimming with Daemons and warp rifts)

Also, Earth's nuclear arsenal is incapable of reliably hitting a moving spaceship; or penetrating the void shields of something rated to withstand multiple teratons worth of energy from other space ships.

Something like Chaos likely would stand the best chance, simply because it's not fighting directly militarily, but essentially "infecting" the population and destroying the social and economic functioning of civilization, causing it to collapse.

The reason you don't hear about orbital bombardment much is because it makes for a very, very short story:

The End of Dabbabon VII wrote:

The Imperial World of Dabbabon VII had declared itself separate from the Imperium, refused to pay its tithe, and had killed the Administratum officials that had come to collect it. A week later, Battlegroup XIX of Battlefleet Scarus arrived, lead by the venerable Vindicator of Faith, an Armageddon-class battlecruiser, escorted by three Dauntless-class Light Cruisers, the Hysperon, the Sword of Vengeance and the Dybel's Fury. As Dabbabon was not a naval shipyard, it had only a single Overseer-class space station, primarily for long-range auspex, control of in-system traffic and token defense. Nine hours after the battlegroup arrived in-system, the space station was a smoldering ruin, and the battlegroup took up positions in orbit, commencing forthwith its bombardment of Dabbabon's cities and military structures with lance batters and macrocannons.

Forty-eight hours later, the world was afire, its cities smoking craters and its population fled to the wastelands or dead. Satisfied that the message had been delivered, Lord Captain Rasme Garvin of the Vindicator of Faith gave the order for the battlegroup to break orbit and return to its usual patrol route. A coded dispatch to the Inquisitorial Conclave of the sub-sector's capital informed them that the task was complete.

The end.

Orks. All they need to do is to point their guns at the horde and fire away.

 Kain wrote:
What the quote didn't mention is how much of the world's defenses would be crippled and sabotaged by genestealer cultist infiltration. Everything from strategic arsenals, to the generalship to our very political, religious, cultural, and scientific circles. You'd see things like the American senate enacting ordinances to cripple America's military years before the invasion begins before leading millions into digestion pools to die while the few remaining nuclear subs, silos, and bombers to survive the gutting of the armed forces are taken out by sudden mutiny and men in economically high places taking the steps needed to crash the economy into deep recessions and depressions. Many countries would collapse into civil war at the behest of the cult as it spreads all across the world; crawling its way up the ladder of command while modern society; not being built with the expectation of literal mind control and genetic subversion, ambles along largely unaware of the rot building within. By the time the hive fleet arrives, the world is a genestealer corrupted shell of its former self as the cult welcomes the end of the world in open arms and arises all at once to pave the way for the swarm.

so....what you're saying is that here in the U.S., The senate and Obama are actually genestealers.

Totally makes sense now.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Modern military would wipe it's ass with Sisters of Battle in a ground war.

For that matter, we'd likely do the same to a Marine chapter.

you're assuming our weapons could penatrate marine armor.

bad assumption to make

BrianDavion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Modern military would wipe it's ass with Sisters of Battle in a ground war.

For that matter, we'd likely do the same to a Marine chapter.

you're assuming our weapons could penatrate marine armor.

bad assumption to make

Not an unreasonable assumption. Even if for some reason, handwavium prevents our weapons from penetrating it.... we can still kill the marine inside the armour. High explosive detonations would create spalling inside the armour which would kill the marine and even if again, handwavium protects the armour from spalling effects.. the concussive forces would liquify the marine inside of his armour.

It would not matter whom we would fight. The outcome would be the same in all cases:
We would be completely massacred without even putting up a bit of a fight, against most not even killing a single enemy.
Most factions would just nuke us from orbit, except for Tyranids, Orks and maybe Chaos, who would come down to have some fun. Against the Tyranids we could only put up the weakest of resistance. On the 40k scale tech level we are barely above a feudal world, and the Tyranids have stripped worlds 100 times more advanced than us of all live without even really trying.
The same goes for the Orks, our basic weapons would not even be able to hurt them, let alone the CSM, which would be like facing an army of highly elusive MBTs with agility and reflexes far better than that of an infantryman. Only anti-tank weapons could hurt a CSM, but they are too fast to be hit by an RPG or the like.
And than there is of course also the morale that would completely be gone when facing enemies such as Chaos or Tyranids.
The best enemy would probably be the Harlequins, as there might not be enough of them to completely destroy us.

 Psienesis wrote:
The reason you don't hear about orbital bombardment much is because it makes for a very, very short story:

The End of Dabbabon VII wrote:

The Imperial World of Dabbabon VII had declared itself separate from the Imperium, refused to pay its tithe, and had killed the Administratum officials that had come to collect it. A week later, Battlegroup XIX of Battlefleet Scarus arrived, lead by the venerable Vindicator of Faith, an Armageddon-class battlecruiser, escorted by three Dauntless-class Light Cruisers, the Hysperon, the Sword of Vengeance and the Dybel's Fury. As Dabbabon was not a naval shipyard, it had only a single Overseer-class space station, primarily for long-range auspex, control of in-system traffic and token defense. Nine hours after the battlegroup arrived in-system, the space station was a smoldering ruin, and the battlegroup took up positions in orbit, commencing forthwith its bombardment of Dabbabon's cities and military structures with lance batters and macrocannons.

Forty-eight hours later, the world was afire, its cities smoking craters and its population fled to the wastelands or dead. Satisfied that the message had been delivered, Lord Captain Rasme Garvin of the Vindicator of Faith gave the order for the battlegroup to break orbit and return to its usual patrol route. A coded dispatch to the Inquisitorial Conclave of the sub-sector's capital informed them that the task was complete.

The end.

It is important to bear in mind here that in the 40K paradigm space power is not the be all and end all of warfare.

In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.


From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/200108202...FG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

So in that above scenario, the leader of that patrol group risks being executed after his cruisers sustain disproportionate damage attempting to bombard defended cities that return fire with ground to orbit weaponry. Assuming he doesn't get executed for losing ships or taking crippling damage, the leader of that group also risks being executed for knocking out the economic potential of the world for decades or centuries to come, and creating a drain on the rest of the sector.

There is a reason Exterminatus and bombardment is not used as a first line response to every little rebellion or invasion. The reason is that land and infrastructure is expensive in both cost and time to build, whereas human life is cheap in 40K.

Of course all of this might not be moot anyway. After all...Earth could be a lost world in the Imperium and the Space Marines just haven't come back yet.

 Khonsu wrote:
I like how you guys treat Astartes as if they're just going to stand around and let themselves be butchered, If you actually think a Space Marine would let himself get into a position of extreme disadvantage against us like that you have no Idea what Space Marines are.

BS.

Your average Space Marines are, by nature and by training, pure shock and awe troops. Sure, they may have been trained extensively in stealth warfare as young men, but Power Armor is far too loud and bulky to allow for such operations.

Harlequins are the nicest thing to fight, followed by Craftworld Eldar. it's not a question of "winning"; both of these forces (Harlequins especially) are likely to appear only to kill a handful of people before disappearing again, their "invasion" lasting maybe half an hour. We'd never know what the aliens were or why they killed those people, but that is preferable to the alternative.

Unless a Craftworld were to claim Earth as one of their lost Maiden Worlds, in which case they may decide to remove the trespassers by force.

Thing is you are thinking of this in ground war terms only. As long as spacecraft aren't in the equation, the United States alone has enough superior aircraft from the 70s that'd wipe the floor with anything the Imperium by itself can offer.

For example to translate into 40K a old fighter like say the F-14 Tomcat, you are looking at a 11/11/10 flyer, with up to 10 S8 Sparrow missiles able to fire up to 6 at 6 different targets while MOVING FLAT OUT. And BS in the 4-5 range just to be fair.

Or an A-10 Warthog, that's a 13/13/12 at minimum, with at least a punisher equivalent gun probably with 2d6 armor pen on each shot, Plus 11 hardpoints for rocket pods, bombs, laser guided missiles, etc. And can fire it while flat outing.

Tau might be the only ones that could hit them in an air battle.

Biggest problems a modern military would have is dealing with daemons, psychic powers, and the higher end defensive abilities like void shields.

Even in a ground battle the MBT of the US army the M1A1 Abrams is a Fast version of a Predator with a gun that's probably S7, Ap3 2d6 armor pen.

Real life physic kicks in, everything from 40k stops working, anything SM simply dies because of the completely wrong biology, so do 'Nids. Earth force bayonet the survivors and dance on their graves. Then we go back to punching eachother in the face with bullets.

Feral Orks, it'd be fun for the MRAs to fight something their own size.

@Vaktathi

the capabilities of real world forces, and posted stats and capabilities from GW and FW

I am convinced that raw arms system capabilities have a limited influence over the final outcome of a war. A Predator may be inferior according to IA, but the way it is used by a SM chapter will probably overwhelm our militaries. I mean, when an armoured batallion can be dropped by a thunderhawk anywhere on the battlefield while drop pods are crushing everything around, your technology will be out of topic. It’s always the same song

Hell, there's 100,000 T55's alone rolling around. What scale of engagement are we talking about as well? Are we assuming a thousands of Imperial Guard regiments are being deployed, or a single Space Marine Chapter?

You’re talking about scale, but you just can’t imagine a war against the Imperium without taking this in account. War is not just “my tanks have AV13 and a 50km/h speed, yours AV11and 25km/h. You loose”. Comparing a LR and a M1 and saying “we beat them because our tank is better” has strictly no sense, it’s just out of context. Go tell to Model and Von Paulus how having better tanks is the key to win a full scale war. Joukov and consorts will probably laugh at this (not only because their T-34 were inferior but because their understanding of strategic and operational stages were also way better than their German counterparts’). Plus SM chapter never operate alone, they will always be backed by IG attrition forces.

I mean, you can always make the quantity over quality argument, but we have to establish that we're talking about that sort of scale to begin with.

You have to make this argument to be relevant in a situation of full scale war. Anyway, the US military is suffering from a technological fetichism in general, and ironically, it does not help it to win modern wars. I’m starting to think you may not be far from this kind of mindset.

If you want to resort to the full might of the Imperium or the like, sure, and I mentioned as much in a previous post (though used Tyranids as an example), but then that's just a matter of scale rather than a comparison of forces or capabilities and at that point anything can be explained away

And that’s why it’s a superior way to evaluate things. In social science, a theory replace another one when it is able to explain a greater number of cases.

We actually have some hard stats on some of these vehicles. Predators can be harmed by 40k weapons which are no different than WW2 counterparts (anti-tank grenades, autocannons, etc). Likewise, FW has posted speed and armor values for many of these vehicles in Imperial Armour, and most cannot attain the same speeds as modern MBT's and have nothing near the armor. Using weapons that have real world equivalents in 40k that have been shown in both fluff and game to be capable of engaging a Predator (again, things like anti-tank grenades, autocannons, etc), coupled with FW's posted values for armor, a Predator would be equivalent to a mid 40's-early 60's tank in terms of armor protection effectiveness.

I read IA but it’s the same arguments as above. Likewise, we have no idea of the IRL performance of an autocanon, nor of the material used to actually built Pedator armor. Perhaps it is way better than a Bradley main gun, perhaps it is supah-dupah-space metal able to withstand any attack but we’ll never know. And don’t say an AC fires at 48’’ (ridiculous range when you put it on the right scale), TT values are TT values and have nothing relevant in terms of military capabilities

Only within the realm of a fantasy setting.

That’s enough to conclude that we’ll be crushed.

The Nazi's did make absolutely gigantic war machines. Cannons like Dora and the like. The problem isn't building them, it's the logistical support trail requires absurd over-investment and that they have tremendous difficulty moving from place to place (oh man, there's a river in the way and we're too heavy to use any bridge...), and they're simply so big that they're very easily spotted and very easily engaged with very heavy weapons like aircraft dropped munitions and heavy artillery before they can get anywhere, and are hard to miss to boot. Same reason the Battleship went out of style, smaller craft like airplanes and submarines were all capable of carrying munitions that could destroy them well before a Battleship could bring its big guns to bear against anything.

You have a point here, and I think like you because I also know my military history. But GW said they’re awesome.

Typhus zombie swarm....


Because ZOMBIES!!!

 lcmiracle wrote:
Feral Orks, it'd be fun for the MRAs to fight something their own size.

MRA?

 Bobthehero wrote:
Real life physic kicks in, everything from 40k stops working, anything SM simply dies because of the completely wrong biology, so do 'Nids. Earth force bayonet the survivors and dance on their graves. Then we go back to punching eachother in the face with bullets.

There's no point to a debate unless you allow the other side to use its powers.

It's like discussing Superman vs Gurren Lagann but saying that Spiral Power doesn't exist in DC so nyah nyah.

 Kain wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
Real life physic kicks in, everything from 40k stops working, anything SM simply dies because of the completely wrong biology, so do 'Nids. Earth force bayonet the survivors and dance on their graves. Then we go back to punching eachother in the face with bullets.

There's no point to a debate unless you allow the other side to use its powers.

It's like discussing Superman vs Gurren Lagann but saying that Spiral Power doesn't exist in DC so nyah nyah.

Exactly. It's fiction, we need to allow for what GW says should happen to happen. Even if all evidence says that Marines would be destroyed in a matter of seconds in our world, there is a reason why they still exist in 40k, so we need to use Ork logic and assume it works.

Exactly. It's fiction, we need to allow for what GW says should happen to happen. Even if all evidence says that Marines would be destroyed in a matter of seconds in our world, there is a reason why they still exist in 40k, so we need to use Ork logic and assume it works.

I could not have said better.

I really think that our best chance is fighting Tau.
I mean, orks do HUGE scale invasion, throwing rocks into the surface of the planet, reproducing by spore quickly, have nuclear and psy capacity, and above all, love to fight and won't withdraw.
Tau Empire, on the other hand, don't like to take casualities and fight almost like our armies, no huge scale invasion, no psyker, no indestructible Titan... In 40k, they win because of their tactics, which are basically modern warfare. I'm not saying they are easy o fight for our current Earth (battlesuit, technologies...) but I think it's the best scenario.
If we kill enough of them, they will withdraw, and as their main advantages are gone against us (tactics and innovation, as we aren't Imperium and we are still innovating new weapons), we have our chances.

Iracundus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
The reason you don't hear about orbital bombardment much is because it makes for a very, very short story:

The End of Dabbabon VII wrote:

The Imperial World of Dabbabon VII had declared itself separate from the Imperium, refused to pay its tithe, and had killed the Administratum officials that had come to collect it. A week later, Battlegroup XIX of Battlefleet Scarus arrived, lead by the venerable Vindicator of Faith, an Armageddon-class battlecruiser, escorted by three Dauntless-class Light Cruisers, the Hysperon, the Sword of Vengeance and the Dybel's Fury. As Dabbabon was not a naval shipyard, it had only a single Overseer-class space station, primarily for long-range auspex, control of in-system traffic and token defense. Nine hours after the battlegroup arrived in-system, the space station was a smoldering ruin, and the battlegroup took up positions in orbit, commencing forthwith its bombardment of Dabbabon's cities and military structures with lance batters and macrocannons.

Forty-eight hours later, the world was afire, its cities smoking craters and its population fled to the wastelands or dead. Satisfied that the message had been delivered, Lord Captain Rasme Garvin of the Vindicator of Faith gave the order for the battlegroup to break orbit and return to its usual patrol route. A coded dispatch to the Inquisitorial Conclave of the sub-sector's capital informed them that the task was complete.

The end.

It is important to bear in mind here that in the 40K paradigm space power is not the be all and end all of warfare.

In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.


From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/200108202...FG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

So in that above scenario, the leader of that patrol group risks being executed after his cruisers sustain disproportionate damage attempting to bombard defended cities that return fire with ground to orbit weaponry. Assuming he doesn't get executed for losing ships or taking crippling damage, the leader of that group also risks being executed for knocking out the economic potential of the world for decades or centuries to come, and creating a drain on the rest of the sector.

There is a reason Exterminatus and bombardment is not used as a first line response to every little rebellion or invasion. The reason is that land and infrastructure is expensive in both cost and time to build, whereas human life is cheap in 40K.

Since I wrote the story, the planet has no ground-based defenses against a fleet. It relied on the defenses of that space station, which are largely useless against a battlecruiser-class vessel. It has no ground lasers, no kill-sats, none of that. So the planet is pacified in a little over 2 days. Most importantly? We have none of that gak in M3. So it would take even less time.

Each race on that list could pull in soo much more numbers then what Earth has they'd be able to swarm with nothing but sticks and still eventually win by sheer overwhelming body count. Even the Eldar could pull far far far more numbers then present day Earth. But why even waste even the chance of a single life being lost to a primitive non space faring Earth? Orbital bombardment till everything is extinct and then move on. I assume the OP thinks there is something we have that they would want and wouldn't want to risk destroying it or sumfung and want to come invade with foot sloggers. I don't know, I doubt we have anything of concern that can't be found many times elsewhere in the Galaxy. Blow the planet and move on.

I like to think modern Earth could deal with any power-armoured army. I don't really agree with the idea that a squad, or even a company, of Marines can conquer a planet. Planets are big, and ours has lots of ways to destroy things. I see Marines more as shock troops. Even if each Marine is a walking tank...we have lots of ways to knock out tanks, and 1000 men is not a lot. And if a random Grot or insane cultist with an autogun can put a lucky bullet through the lens of a Marine's helmet I'm sure an A-10 Warthog (to pick an example everyone knows, military types might be able to provide more modern examples) could make a mess of power armour.

IG? We'd probably do quite well again. Most IG weapons and vehicles don't seem that far beyond 20th century technology (depends on the author as usual), and it seems a lot of regiments use the kind of tactics we stopped using around 1918. If it's a more forward thinking regiment that doesn't, for example, send huge crowds of troops forward on pain of death, it would be a closer call. Can flak armour stop a bullet?

Orks? An army that runs around in big crowds or riding ramshackle vehicles with little in the way of organisation would probably be the ideal enemy for modern forces. Even Gargants are just a very big, very slow target. Roks, however, would be a problem.

Tyranis: we could take down a Bio-Titan at least: http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/movies/a9206/we-dont-need-no-stinkin-robots-how-the-pentagon-could-destroy-all-monsters-15690927/

Of course, if any faction uses its space fleet, well, that's just cheating.

Can flak armour stop a bullet?

Yes. That's what it's designed to do. You do know that flak armor is a real thing, right?

Orks? An army that runs around in big crowds or riding ramshackle vehicles with little in the way of organisation would probably be the ideal enemy for modern forces.

Irregular forces seem to be the least-easily-defeated forces by modern militaries, looking at the past 50 years or so. Of course, Orks don't blend in to a human population at all, so there's that.

There are not enough bullets, bombs or missiles on the planet to stop a Tyranid invasion.

 Psienesis wrote:


Since I wrote the story, the planet has no ground-based defenses against a fleet. It relied on the defenses of that space station, which are largely useless against a battlecruiser-class vessel. It has no ground lasers, no kill-sats, none of that. So the planet is pacified in a little over 2 days. Most importantly? We have none of that gak in M3. So it would take even less time.

That is not pacified. That is destroying anything of value on the planet and rendering it of no gain to the Imperium. That is precisely why a ground invasion is launched in the first place, because the Imperium wants worlds and their resources, not a bombed out cinder of no value.

People get all mesmerized by bombardment or Exterminatus as if destroying a world were the sole objective, but the Imperium only uses these methods when a world is deemed lost beyond hope of recovery and there is pressing need to deny it to the enemy. Earth is neither of those for the Imperium.

BrianDavion wrote:

 BlaxicanX wrote:
Modern military would wipe it's ass with Sisters of Battle in a ground war.

For that matter, we'd likely do the same to a Marine chapter.

you're assuming our weapons could penatrate marine armor.

bad assumption to make

Fluff says otherwise. Bolter rounds are only .75 caliber; what do you think an anti-tank hellfire missile fired from a drone would to a marine?