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I believe there's a story in the Third Edition codex about them on a moon shooting at renegades.

Des702 wrote:
I believe there's a story in the Third Edition codex about them on a moon shooting at renegades.

Yep, 30 marines with bolters assault a moon base held by rebels after landing by thunder hawk. It is a cool non hyperbole short story that displays perfectly what marines are designed to do.

Yeah, power armour is definitely capable of operating in void environments, and has been designed to be able to. As pointed out, the void capabilities can be improved, but the basic suit is still a fabulous void-fighting apparatus.

One of the chief selling points of MkII power armour is that it was completely environmentally sealed, and capable of operating in space. This capability was used initially to capture the void habitats of the outer Solar system in the very earliest days of the Great Crusade.

The ball vents on the power pack are actually vector thrusters, that provide manouevrability and stability in zero G environments- every Marine has a little jetpack. This allows them rudimentary void travel if they need to leave the surface of a ship/are blasted off. The Anvillus pattern power packs (as modelled by Chaos Marines) were originally a HH-era prototype that gave increased manouevrability at the cost of reduced rad shielding to the Marine.

Marines can survive in the void for fairly extended times, at least on the timescale of days, so long as they have suit integrity. They can go into the susan-membrane mode to reduce oxygen needs to a minimum, and basically just slowly freeze in place.

Jump pack assault Marines are also used to board enemy ships without using transports, so clearly jump packs have some ability to function in space. That suggests they have a dual motor with some kind of rocket, not just jets. In the battle of Phall, there were several boarding attempts that were initiated by assault companies blasting across the void.

Obviously Terminator armour is superb in void environments, being heavily sealed and capable of teleporting directly into the enemy vessel, as well as having the weaponry to prise open bulkheads and the like. They lack the thruster capabilities of power armour though.

The vast majority of Space Marine attack craft are also void-capable, and can be used as boarding craft and void gunships. The Space Marine arsenal also contains a great array of vehicles for specialist purposes, especially the oldest Chapters. Assault claws, boarding torpedoes, assault rams, Thunderhawks and other similar transports, fighters like the Xiphon and so on.

Space Marines are essentially the Imperium's premier void fighters, and have more capability in prosecuting void combat* than any other force, maybe excepting specialist Mechanicus units. I suppose they ain't called Space Marines for nothing!

*Not including ship-to-ship combat. After the Heresy, the Adeptus Astartes was supposed to have their fleet neutured into being almost exclusively intended for planetary assaults. However, in practice Marine ships are still effective void combatants, if somewhat limited in role, and many void-based Chapters maintain naval capabilities somewhat beyond the supposed limitations. Nothing like the free reign they got in the Great Crusade though.

I'm just going to throw it out there, if not mentioned before, but one of the Marine's implants is the Multi-Lung, which can breathe in water just fine. So potentially they might not even need to be sealed, just the internals waterproofed.

Might have some problems underwater with firing bolt weapons though. Mass reactive shells fired into a mass of water... just how sensitive are they?

Going through it probably not too hard, seal it up tight and walk along the bottom using auto senses to guide as needed, but actual combat? May be a bit more tricky.

 Kcalehc wrote:
Might have some problems underwater with firing bolt weapons though. Mass reactive shells fired into a mass of water... just how sensitive are they?

Going through it probably not too hard, seal it up tight and walk along the bottom using auto senses to guide as needed, but actual combat? May be a bit more tricky.

I wouldn't be surprised if the fuzing adjusted automatically on contact with water, or if they could adjust the fuzing from their HUD, so as to change the sensitivity in different mediums and against different opponents. At the very least, the Techmarines should be able to do this prior to an expected deployment into water.

Imperial stuff is generally shown to be incredibly adaptable- auto-adapting bolter fuzes for water seems reasonable.