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So,tell me,besides the purging of krieg,have there been ANY use of nuclear/atomic weaponry by the imperium or any others?

why choose hamburger when you can have steak?

EXTERMINATUS!!!!!

Aren't nuclear warheads used in regular torpedoes as well?

Actually, if you read Mechanicus, you find out that Nukes are illegal. Somehow.

They can virus bomb planets, but not nuke the gak out of each other. Weird, huh?

Oh look.

This thread again.

As has been stated multiple times:

Nuclear weapons are not used by the Imperium, as a whole or really ever.

Why? Radioactive fallout can render areas completely uninhabitable afterwards and have adverse effects on the planet/ecosystem you use them on.

Viral weapons burn themselves out in a year or so, and leave nothing behind--making them a far better option for when you have to positively, absolutely kill everything.

I seem to recall a comic strip of Servants of the Imperium where a nuclear torpedo is used. As well nuclear fallout seems to be an issue on a few worlds, so I can only assume some kind of nuclear device was detinated.

@Allaros When you want simple. I can make a cheeseburger in a matter of minutes, but a proper medium rare steak trimmed properly with a garlic rub takes longer. I think the same thing occurs with nuke versus virus bomb/orbital bombardlement/Chuck Noris in a boarding torpedo.

I get the feeling "Servants of the Imperium" isn't actually an official GW publication, thus: not canon.

Well, they use plasma weaponry which technically relies on Nuclear Fusion to get the job done.
But fission weapons? Probably not. They'd be outdated in a universe of sun-guns and engineered life-eater viruses.

Nukes serve a very important role in the Empire of Mankind! As has been stated before when the author cannot fill in the blank with any high-tech mumbo jumbo he uses a Nuke!

ComputerGeek01 wrote:Nukes serve a very important role in the Empire of Mankind! As has been stated before when the author cannot fill in the blank with any high-tech mumbo jumbo he uses a Nuke!

You win dumbest statement of the thread.

Nuclear weapons haven't actually been mentioned as being used by the Imperium, outside of the Krieg atomic cleansing.

That's one instance. Any other instance of usage has been of traitor planetary governments/Chaos Astartes.

Biggest instance of that I can think of is in "Necropolis", where upon overrunning one of the Hive Cities planetside, Chaos corrupted civilians cause a nuclear overload.

Kanluwen wrote:

ComputerGeek01 wrote:Nukes serve a very important role in the Empire of Mankind! As has been stated before when the author cannot fill in the blank with any high-tech mumbo jumbo he uses a Nuke!

You win dumbest statement of the thread.

Nuclear weapons haven't actually been mentioned as being used by the Imperium, outside of the Krieg atomic cleansing.

That's one instance. Any other instance of usage has been of traitor planetary governments/Chaos Astartes.

Biggest instance of that I can think of is in "Necropolis", where upon overrunning one of the Hive Cities planetside, Chaos corrupted civilians cause a nuclear overload.

There is also a bit int he IG codex where some Vostroyan, the brave moustache touting heros that they are, were fighting some 'nids and started to run out of ammo so they opened the gates and detonated the 'Nucleonic reactors' destroying 85% of the horde and the rest starved to death.

What is this? You're standing up for the authors now? I can't even troll people who aren't here?

Even in a serious context my statement holds true. When you have rebelious leaders how much cooler would it be for them to use some high-tech laser, alien tech or chaos powers? But no, they just say "Nuke it" and continue with the story.

I guess in a stupid way I was trying to point out how boring nuclear weapons are when you have so much more lore to pull ideas from.

No enough with the name calling you baby! :p

ComputerGeek01 wrote:What is this? You're standing up for the authors now? I can't even troll people who aren't here?

Even in a serious context my statement holds true. When you have rebelious leaders how much cooler would it be for them to use some high-tech laser, alien tech or chaos powers? But no, they just say "Nuke it" and continue with the story.

I guess in a stupid way I was trying to point out how boring nuclear weapons are when you have so much more lore to pull ideas from.

No enough with the name calling you baby! :p

To be fair to the authors (Which ones there are so many?)
They don't use the 'nuke it' option a lot.
Though if i'm honest it's what i would do and if that didn't work do it again.

purplefood wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:

ComputerGeek01 wrote:Nukes serve a very important role in the Empire of Mankind! As has been stated before when the author cannot fill in the blank with any high-tech mumbo jumbo he uses a Nuke!

You win dumbest statement of the thread.

Nuclear weapons haven't actually been mentioned as being used by the Imperium, outside of the Krieg atomic cleansing.

That's one instance. Any other instance of usage has been of traitor planetary governments/Chaos Astartes.

Biggest instance of that I can think of is in "Necropolis", where upon overrunning one of the Hive Cities planetside, Chaos corrupted civilians cause a nuclear overload.

There is also a bit int he IG codex where some Vostroyan, the brave moustache touting heros that they are, were fighting some 'nids and started to run out of ammo so they opened the gates and detonated the 'Nucleonic reactors' destroying 85% of the horde and the rest starved to death.

That's a different circumstance though. That's overloading reactors, not a nuclear weapon persay.

ComputerGeek01 wrote:Even in a serious context my statement holds true. When you have rebelious leaders how much cooler would it be for them to use some high-tech laser, alien tech or chaos powers? But no, they just say "Nuke it" and continue with the story.

I guess in a stupid way I was trying to point out how boring nuclear weapons are when you have so much more lore to pull ideas from.

See, but that's not even true. That was the point I was making.

There's one instance of the Imperium actually using nuclear weapons(overloading reactors? doesn't count), in the case of Krieg. And with the traitor/Chaos bits...there's not even that many instances of it there either.

Kanluwen wrote:Oh look.

This thread again.

As has been stated multiple times:

Nuclear weapons are not used by the Imperium, as a whole or really ever.

Why? Radioactive fallout can render areas completely uninhabitable afterwards and have adverse effects on the planet/ecosystem you use them on.

Viral weapons burn themselves out in a year or so, and leave nothing behind--making them a far better option for when you have to positively, absolutely kill everything.

My thoughts exactly. This seems to come up at least once every couple months

But yeah, read the quoted post. He knows what he's talking about.

Although...I will argue that it would be incredibly easy to manufacture nuclear weapons in the 41st millenium. There's an abundance of materials to make them, as well as million worlds to make them upon. I don't actually think it's too far off that chaos space marine s might eventually resort to using nuclear arms.

Can atomic fallout damage power armour?

Kanluwen wrote:That's a different circumstance though. That's overloading reactors, not a nuclear weapon persay.

I was wondering whether it counted or not.

Samus_aran115 wrote:
Can atomic fallout damage power armour?

Power armour's environmentally/EMP shielded from what I understand, so no. it probably couldn't damage it--or at least not for a short duration of time.

Samus_aran115 wrote:Can atomic fallout damage power armour?

Not sure about radiation but the whole EMP thing might do it. But people have said that the reason they aren't used is because EMP shielding would be common since all you need is 1 and your entire army is down.

ing Ninjas

I'd like to throw a wrench in the mix and point out that nuclear fallout only occurs if any of the fuel isn't set off. So as long as technology has advance sufficently enough to use say 95%+ of the nuclear fuel (NF) then there is no need to worry about fallout.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fallout

Also, thats not the right defence Kanuluwen for that situation not counting although I do agree with you in that it doesn't count. Despite your defence of lazy writing.

Overloading a nuclear reactor would not cause a nuclear explosion for several reasons, for proof see Chernobyl this is what the end result of that disaster was. For an acctuall detonation you need to either compress the NF to a point where the atomic bonds break down, or break the bond with a 'uranium gun' method. All of this is online in a dozen different public places to read up on.

Iirc Chernobyl almost caused a massive thermo nuclear explosion that would have wiped out almost all of Ukraine and sent a cloud of radioactive dust all over Europe and feasibly America... i think that counts as a weapon, the thermo nuclear exploson bit obviously.

Nope, sorry purplefood. Chernobyl was never going to cause a thermonuclear explosion. Nuclear POWER reactors tend to not explode with the force of a nuclear bomb. A meltdown is nothing more than the reaction chamber getting so hot that the reactor core melts its way out of the sarcophagus, colloquially known as the China Syndrome. Chernobyl is, however, a good example of fall out, as the steam explosion from the idiotic work crew TURNING OFF THE FAIL SAFE did release a huge plume of radiation.

However, honestly, the main reason nukes aren't used as widely is because the Imperium no doubt has a lot more weapons that are better at killing things than nukes. It's not so much 'cheeseburger vs steak' as you have a machine that can, in the exact same time frame, and for the exact same cost, cook you either: a) A Big Mac b) a 3 Michelin Star restaurant's finest steak. Which would you choose?

Tbh, the reason the DKoK USED nuclear weapons is probably because they were a small outnumbered force on their homeworld, forced to use ancient, obsolete weapons to win.

And for everyone's reading pleasure I provide you with Nuclear Weapons 101 , 102, and 103.

Actually the core at one point got so hot that it was about to melt through the floor and if it had hit the water underneath than bigass thermo-nuclear explosion caused by the instant transition of water to steam (BTW it's a freaking huge explosion) not only would the water beirradiated after being used to cool the reactor (Unsuccesfully) but also there was alot of it. Fortunatly they managed to drain the water before the core melted through the floor.

In purplefood's defence he is right in that is exactly what you did hear. This is a prime example of how the media sensationlizes stories that should be high-tech and only scary sounding to people who are familiar with the technology into "OMG think of the childeren we're all going to die!!!!"

The easiest way to put it is that Chernobyl was a light water reactor so the fuel it used wasn't even at critical mass :p .

bigass thermo-nuclear explosion caused by the instant transition of water to steam (BTW it's a freaking huge explosion)

No that's called superheating and I wouldn't describe it as a big explosion. You can actually do it with a cup of water in your microwave, I won't tell you how because it's a stupid thing to do but if you want there are videos on YouTube.

ChrisWWII wrote:
However, honestly, the main reason nukes aren't used as widely is because the Imperium no doubt has a lot more weapons that are better at killing things than nukes. It's not so much 'cheeseburger vs steak' as you have a machine that can, in the exact same time frame, and for the exact same cost, cook you either: a) A Big Mac b) a 3 Michelin Star restaurant's finest steak. Which would you choose?

Do I really need to explain this again?
Nukes aren't used because the Imperium wants to get the most possible out of every planet.
Rendering a place uninhabitable via nuclear weapons? Doesn't help. Terraforming and transplanting nations can't really work in that instance.

Tbh, the reason the DKoK USED nuclear weapons is probably because they were a small outnumbered force on their homeworld, forced to use ancient, obsolete weapons to win.

No. It's because atomic weapons are the ultimate form of censure, the ultimate "Screw you and your descendants; and may your punishment for treason be remembered forever."

Think of it like this:
Purging nuclear fires and the effective fact that forever will it be remembered that this was the punishment for their crimes.

shiggles.

@Kanluwen: You might be interested in the articles that ChrisWWII pointed out. Again nuclear fallout != to a big deal.

ComputerGeek01 wrote:In purplefood's defence he is right in that is exactly what you did hear. This is a prime example of how the media sensationlizes stories that should be high-tech and only scary sounding to people who are familiar with the technology into "OMG think of the childeren we're all going to die!!!!"

The easiest way to put it is that Chernobyl was a light water reactor so the fuel it used wasn't even at critical mass :p .

bigass thermo-nuclear explosion caused by the instant transition of water to steam (BTW it's a freaking huge explosion)

No that's called superheating and I wouldn't describe it as a big explosion. You can actually do it with a cup of water in your microwave, I won't tell you how because it's a stupid thing to do but if you want there are videos on YouTube.

In defence of my own ignorance all i have for this is 2 years of GCSE Physics from about 3 years ago and i'm suprised at what i can remember even if most of it is suspect.

It's no problem I was too little to know what was going on during that era so I'm always interested in hearing what people really though about things like this.

The water to steam thing is classic misinformation, it's not your fault after all it's what everybody thought at the time.

I honestly wish now that GW would write more about Nukes and kind of disprove some of the stuff that people think.

For me personally, I buy that fission weapons as we understand them aren't widely used in the Imperium...but I'm sure that in an organization that size (where whole planets of humans still fight with bows & arrows), there could still be hundreds if not thousands of worlds where nuclear weapons might reside and be used.

RT had Nukes as purchasable weapons.

That is all.