What modern weapons could kill a Space Marine?

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**Gorskar.da.Lost**

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:This is an exercise in futility, a marine is a powerful super science enchaned solider with bionics, redundant implants and stupid super armor. They exist in space and are able to eat a bit of flesh and get a whole bunch of information about a person and his skills... all this equates into a simple "duh, you could kill a space marine with a over-the top super structure destroying weapon.... so why is the marine facing those odds? Why is it that this guy who is bigger, stronger, tougher, more technologically and tactically advanced than us (lets not even throw in wisdom of centuries of combat). that he would ever find himself in that position?

Personally I think if you start comparing this sort of thing then you need to think about what the marine would do as a counter-measure? You say a tank cannon? I say he dodges the first blast by swiftly dodging and absorbing the explosion with his armor before pulling a pin on a krak gernade killing everyone inside and using the wreckage as cover to track and kill it's spotters for him. You say motors for long range fighting? I say jammed radio signals and improved stealth and gorilla tactics all the while waiting out till a change of the guard just to move during that time due to his heightened sleep depredation methods.

You say chopper? I say bolter fire being superior to most anti-vehicle weapons. You say gernade launcher? I say he grabs your frag round and crushes it in his hand as it explodes for the lawls. To the people who say las fire kills marines... in theory you are correct because you play the board game, however in the fluff it is so amazingly rare for a marine to die in such a fashion normally in the fluff he would lob a flash bang into the unit and walk out killing everyone but the sergeant so he could account for his squads actions at chainsword point.

All and all i understand the point was "just to see" but some people here sound smuggly confident they could kill the marine easily when i am thinking "most countries in the world want the weapons we are talking about there to use against us or someone else... what makes you think they would readily endanger these things to fight 1 man? or for that matter who hear knows a marine dumb enough to charge a base alone when he could review all avenues to avoid damage."

It's a wash, the mighty predator was beaten by a humble log ... so could a marine if it was unlucky enough. In order to kill that marine you need to remember he will elude gunfire and damage if you want him to be a proper marine and not a dude standing there to die.

Except that wasn't the question asked.
What was asked was "What modern weapons could kill a Space Marine?" and the answer to that question is, most of them, if not all of them.
The likelihood of it working is not important to answering the question.

**Dribble Joy**

Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:I say bolter fire being superior to most anti-vehicle weapons. You say gernade launcher? I say he grabs your frag round and crushes it in his hand as it explodes for the lawls.

And this children, is why Matt Ward should not be allowed to write fluff.
He is poisoning your minds.

A marine is more resistant to pain, doesn't suffer shock much, has slightly thicker bone and tends not to bleed out, but that doesn't make them much harder to damage than a regular human. They are still squishy lumps of flesh.

**Gorskar.da.Lost**

Dribble Joy wrote:
Big Mek Wurrzog wrote:I say bolter fire being superior to most anti-vehicle weapons. You say gernade launcher? I say he grabs your frag round and crushes it in his hand as it explodes for the lawls.

And this children, is why Matt Ward should not be allowed to write fluff.
He is poisoning your minds

A marine is more resistant to pain, doesn't suffer shock much, has slightly thicker bone and tends not to bleed out, but that doesn't make them much harder to damage than a regular human. They are still squishy lumps of flesh.

And if he actually does grab a grenade, he's going to be fighting the rest of the battle with only one hand.

**redkommando**

I bet the Space Marine wouldn't really car that much if he lost his. He can fire his bolter one handed. He wouldn't die from blood loss or shock, he would just be very pissed of

**Gorskar.da.Lost**

redkommando wrote:I bet the Space Marine wouldn't really car that much if he lost his. He can fire his bolter one handed. He wouldn't die from blood loss or shock, he would just be very pissed of

He wouldn't, no, but it would still put him at a disadvantage; sure, he can fire his bolter one-handed, but not as effectively, and he would have problems in other ways too.

**tsz52**

BeRzErKeR wrote:
tsz52 wrote:

This would only work if SMs were made up of radically different materials than regular organic stuff. I always took it that their organs were made of organic stuff but beefed up a bit with redundancy and so on, but I am by no means an expert on Astartes. If their organs and bones aren't held together by carbon nanoweave sheaths or whatever then you're looking at the same effects happening as happens to regular humies but moreso (assuming a wave strong enough to overcome the extra absorption afforded by the extra volume and density).

The extra density provides a more efficient medium for the wave to pass through, to more effectively reach the less elastic and/or more vulnerable bits that will fail under pressure from that wave (liver, brain, central nervous system, vessels that can burst, skeleton which can shatter or at least spall). Again, he'd be better off filling that increased volume with less dense and more elastic organs with a lot more ability to move as gross structures to absorb the momentum, with as empty as possible cavities insulating the major bits and bobs.

Likewise with his armour.

But yeah, as you say, there is a cross-over point where increased density ceases to be an advantage and becomes a liability with a given force hitting it, with given materials - we don't have any of those crunchy numbers and facts. All I'm saying is that you can't claim the increased density as a definite boon, since it might be the exact opposite sometimes.

Also don't forget that you don't need to kill him outright, since however tough he is, inside he is still a meatbag; hit him with enough force close up enough to drop him for a few seconds, his central nervous system and hearts momentarily stunned, and then you can hit him square on with your mortars or whatnot since he isn't going anywhere.

Mmm. . . see, here's the thing. There's a point at which extra density is more valuable than extra flexibility.

For instance; get a two-inch-thick sheet of rubber and drape it over yourself. Set off a grenade on the other side. Now you're dead or at least badly injured, right? Partially from the shrapnel, but even if none of the shrapnel takes you out, the overpressure is still going to hurt, maybe burst your eardrums and pop veins in your eyes, under your fingernails, etc.

Get a two-inch-thick molded steel dish (large enough to cover your whole body) and hide underneath it. Set off a grenade just outside it. Not only are you totally protected from the shrapnel, but the pressure isn't as great, either.

That's because rigid materials like steel transmit less of a shockwave. When the shockwave hits, a dense, rigid material like steel flexes less; there's simply a lot more material in a certain thickness of steel than there is in the same thickness of rubber, and as a consequence a lot more of the kinetic energy of the shockwave is expended in making it move. All that energy which goes into overcoming the mass of the steel is gone, and can't hurt whatever (or whoever) is behind it; the person wearing a suit of rigid steel plate armor only gets what's left over. Furthermore, this effect is greatly increased if you've got multiple layers attached to each other, since EVERY layer absorbs some of the energy, and forces it to transfer repeatedly between the steel and whatever you have between the layers. That bleeds even more energy away.

A Space Marine is wearing, conservatively, a couple inches of layered metal and ceramic over his vital organs, though the helmet is probably thinner. On top of that, his physical makeup is also significantly heavier than a human body is, with a higher proportion of thick but compressible muscle fiber and hardened, interlocking bone to vulnerable, squishy organ-meat. In order to hurt him the shockwave first must pass through the armor itself, expending a lot of energy in forcing the various layers of ceramite and adamantine to flex against each other in order to transmit the energy; it then has to move through several layers of muscle fiber, and finally pass through his bones, in order to reach the organs. It's got a longer distance to travel, with less-vulnerable material to move through, before it can ever reach the places where it might do serious damage.

With all that taken together, I'm quite confident that a Space Marine would be massively resistant to overpressure, much more so than any normal human is.

See I'd say 'There's a point [at *struck out, however you do that...*] below which extra density is more valuable than extra flexibility.'

Don't forget quilted armour with hard plates on top in your millenia of armour (that being essentially what we have now, for that reason - and this is how various 40k personal armours have been described, so I'm already allowing for this).

Think of when HESH rounds were all the rage; they were defeated not by adding extra density to the armour, but by reducing the (overall) density of the armour - add less-dense inner layers to better attenuate the compression wave.

Here's a model for you in return: A very large warhead is set off a meter away from a warship. There is no shrapnel nor other physical products, so the destructive effect is entirely due to the medium in between ship and warhead conducting the compression wave from the explosion. In decreasing order of density of medium:-

Water: Breaks keel, sinks ship (how modern heavy torpedoes work);

Air: Compresses well enough to form a superficially damaging over-pressure (lots of buckling on the super structure and ship is mission-killed though her vital innards are mostly fine and she can be repaired);

Vacuum: Zilch, zero effect.

* * *

That's the principle I'm talking about, when dealing with human-sized, fleshy targets and large/close-by explosions; the cross-over point at which increased density is increased liability (but below this you're correct).

**BeRzErKeR**

tsz52 wrote:

See I'd say 'There's a point [at *struck out, however you do that...*] below which extra density is more valuable than extra flexibility.'

Don't forget quilted armour with hard plates on top in your millenia of armour (that being essentially what we have now, for that reason - and this is how various 40k personal armours have been described, so I'm already allowing for this).

Think of when HESH rounds were all the rage; they were defeated not by adding extra density to the armour, but by reducing the (overall) density of the armour - add less-dense inner layers to better attenuate the compression wave.

Here's a model for you in return: A very large warhead is set off a meter away from a warship. There is no shrapnel nor other physical products, so the destructive effect is entirely due to the medium in between ship and warhead conducting the compression wave from the explosion. In decreasing order of density of medium:-

Water: Breaks keel, sinks ship (how modern heavy torpedoes work);

Air: Compresses well enough to form a superficially damaging over-pressure (lots of buckling on the super structure and ship is mission-killed though her vital innards are mostly fine and she can be repaired);

Vacuum: Zilch, zero effect.

* * *

That's the principle I'm talking about, when dealing with human-sized, fleshy targets and large/close-by explosions; the cross-over point at which increased density is increased liability (but below this you're correct).

Ah, I see where the disconnect is.

Adding MORE layers of more flexible material, in conjunction with hard material, can be productive. What is not productive is replacing hard material with an equal thickness of soft material, for exactly the reasons we've been talking about. If I had to choose between a quilted arming jacket and a solid steel breastplate of equal thickness I would take the breastplate every time, regardless of what I anticipated being slammed into my torso; but given the option, I would rather take both than either.

Yes, a thicker transmission medium means more of the total energy is transmitted for a given amount of the medium. But an airburst shell does a much, much better job putting down infantry than one that explodes underground at the same distance away, because even leaving aside fragmentation, the shockwave simply will not travel very far through solid earth. The heavy, dense material soaks up the energy in fairly short order compared to the air; there is so much more material which the force of the explosion needs to move in order to propagate that it bleeds away rapidly.

**Brother Coa**

It's funny that everybody is debating about killing a Marine on range and totally forgetting that they have Assault marines that would rip us apart in melee.

Ok, with what weapon could we oppose him in melee? Electrified Katana?

**BaronIveagh**

Here's the real problem: we're comparing real world weapons to 40k. If SM are governed by the same laws that govern reality, they'd die from their own bio-enhancment.

Pulling out my supposedly canon 40k RPG rules from FFG...

An assault rifle has an outside chance of killing a space marine. .50 anti-materiel rifle or even the old Browning HMG will almost certainly do the job as long as he's not in Terminator armor. Termies will require either a large amount of explosive, or a shaped charge, or anti-tank ord. The concussive force of a sufficiently powerful explosion (something that seems to not exist in 40k) would break bones and liquify internal organs, despite the armor.

Further, you don't have to fully pen the target for spalling to kill the occupant.

Edit: as far as other SM toys: Jump packs exist in few enough numbers that outside of certain tactical situations, they're almost useless.

Land Raiders: Same way they beat tanks that couldn't be penned back in WWII. Drop enough explosives on them, and the crew dies anyway. Wreck the tracks and call in an airstrike. After all, only early patters can elevate enough to hit targets above the horizon.

Thawks: easily out maneuvered by F-22 raptor. Thawks are designed for anti-ground and star-ship operations, and can be damaged with a krack missile.

Preds: current MBts would have a hard time with them, however, they'd die fast to infantry in close terrain and close air support.

Dreads: slow and slab sided, mbts would make quick work of them, but in theory even a stryker or a ATX-13/90 could kill one.

**Gorskar.da.Lost**

Brother Coa wrote:It's funny that everybody is debating about killing a Marine on range and totally forgetting that they have Assault marines that would rip us apart in melee.

Ok, with what weapon could we oppose him in melee? Electrified Katana?

I assumed we were just taking the standard Tactical Marine and dropping him into a modern-day environment.
In answer to your question, though, if a guardsman can kill a marine with a bayonet (which they can, though rare) so can a modern soldier.

**Melissia**

Brother Coa wrote:It's funny that everybody is debating about killing a Marine on range and totally forgetting that they have Assault marines that would rip us apart in melee.

Ok, with what weapon could we oppose him in melee? Electrified Katana?

A gun of some sort.

**BaronIveagh**

Melissia wrote:
Brother Coa wrote:It's funny that everybody is debating about killing a Marine on range and totally forgetting that they have Assault marines that would rip us apart in melee.

Ok, with what weapon could we oppose him in melee? Electrified Katana?
A gun of some sort.

.50 AE might work if you shot them in the joints or other 'soft' parts of the armor. Remember, folks, SM armor is actually very poorly designed from a combat point of view. This is why they need so much Plot Armor.

**tsz52**

Melissia wrote:
Brother Coa wrote:It's funny that everybody is debating about killing a Marine on range and totally forgetting that they have Assault marines that would rip us apart in melee.

Ok, with what weapon could we oppose him in melee? Electrified Katana?
A gun of some sort.

QFT. Again, if we have time to prepare our forces (rather than SMs just appearing in our reality from nowhere) then give folks PDWs with something like CBJ's 6.5 mm ball ammo (6.5 mm plastic sabot with 4mm tungsten penetrator at the best part of 1000 m/s from a ~30 cm barrel - your Uzi can now shoot through a steel armoured personel carrier up close).

Give him a face full of that as he closes.

If there're loads of AMs about then bring back the pike (using modern materials); two 'man' teams of pike'man' and PDW shooter.

* * *

BeRzErKeR: I don't think that there's a disconnect so much, but that we're dealing with generalisations that are sometimes true, sometimes not, depending upon stuff that we don't have numbers and facts for - it's a case by case basis thing. But yeah, take as given that I'm not advocating rigid either/or, but best qualities of both (that being the point to using composites).

All I'm saying is that 'more dense = always better' is manifestly not true: my above model shows that with proper design 1mm of vacuum (can't get less dense than that) is better than 6" of steel. Against blast waves, HESH or HEAT, an inch of exactly nothing is better than an inch or more of steel. If mass limits are the primary driver (rather than thickness limits) then adding more thickness of less dense (to some layers of dense) pulls even further ahead.

So you'd be better off using some of the given armour thickness to have a cage that diverts the wave around his body, with shock-absorbing plates with enough room to move as gross objects, with layers to break the wave up and get it to interfere with itself, with as-not-dense-as-possible attenuation layers (vacuum bubbles in a gel, say), than you would using that thickness to add more ceramite (and you're now way ahead in mass-efficiency too).

You'd apply the same approach to his internal layout, if possible - elastic nanoweave sacs holding each of his components together with insulating vacuum-gel packs (or whatever) around the major bits and bobs - rather than filling that space with tightly packed slabs of beef.

I didn't want to say it but 'In a storm, bend like the sapling' and all that.

**im2randomghgh**

King Pariah wrote:Actually a combo of dense and flexible is best. You need the hard to prevent penetration, not shock absorption. The more flexible material absorbs and dissipates the shock. If it was just a concussive grenade with no shrapnel, I'd take the rubber, with shrapnel I'd take a steel exterior with rubber behind it. Millenia of armor has shown the combo is best, never just a steel shell, that's a terrible idea. You get a bell like affect that way which is extremely dangerous to the body.

Space marines have a ~mesh layer under their armour for just that scenario.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Let's build stuff out of carbon nanotubes and aerogel and hit them with it!

**BaronIveagh**

im2randomghgh wrote:
Space marines have a ~mesh layer under their armour for just that scenario.

Where?

Looks more like a modern tank composite in cross section. Similar to chobham maybe?

**Norn King**

Nuke 'em.

**Gorskar.da.Lost**

Norn King wrote:Nuke 'em.

Too extreme.
I restate; if there's a chance a guardsman can bayonet a marine to death, then so can a modern trooper.
Doesn't matter if it's unlikely; fact is, it's still got a chance of working and therefore fulfils the criteria of the thread's question.

**WARHAMMER40KWARGAMES**

I think a Airborne assualt would catch them off guard. as they land and disembark there drop pods looking for the us then a laser guided hellfire barrage from 2 miles away thanks to the apache followed up by a-10 strafing runs and missles then probably a wave of blackhawks infront of chinooks.

**BaronIveagh**

WARHAMMER40KWARGAMES wrote:I think a Airborne assualt would catch them off guard. as they land and disembark there drop pods looking for the us then a laser guided hellfire barrage from 2 miles away thanks to the apache followed up by a-10 strafing runs and missles then probably a wave of blackhawks infront of chinooks.

As I said earlier, 'close air support'. Since by the time the troops get there to mop up, you're going to need buckets.

**daveNYC**

redkommando wrote:I bet the Space Marine wouldn't really car that much if he lost his. He can fire his bolter one handed. He wouldn't die from blood loss or shock, he would just be very pissed of

He can, but poorly. Very poorly. Not to mention that reloading becomes a tad more difficult.

**Golden Sabre**

This is still going? Wow.

I will say this once.
Your friendly neighborhood policeman can completely and utterly annihilate a space marine if he gets lucky.

Space Marines are frequently killed by 5.56mm BRASS rounds. Every single weapon in our current arsenal could kill a marine with relative ease.

**Connor MacLeod**

*sigh* shot placement matters. You can kill a Space Marine with a pointy wooden stick (well okay a spear) if you aim for the right area and you hit him just right or hard enough. It even happened in First HEretic. But that doesn't mean it would always happen. Same with gunfire of any kind.

**rockerbikie**

Toast36 wrote:Nuke em!

You beat me to it.

**Safor**

Brother Coa wrote:
Ok, with what weapon could we oppose him in melee? Electrified Katana?

Close combat bazooka.

Now we have to remember that different laws of physics apply in the 40k universe and ours. So this question is relevant only in the case of some sort of an dimension shift.
When it would be up to the author.

Remeber that WWI tanks can be made into swiss cheese with assault rifles of the 21:st century. So its likely that future assault weapons will make our current tanks into swiss cheese.
And the SM armor is what? over 10,000 years in the future?

So the SM armor might withstand weapons that penetrate over 2000mm of steel in our universe while orks can chop them up with primitive axes in the 40k universe.

Or their armor becomes heavy and slow in our dimensions, its up to you for the story is not tied into reality or logic.

**TheRobotLol**

Nuke dat sphess mahren!

Don't cross the 21st century, fool!

We will destroy yo!

**King Pariah**

This thread back up? Sigh... Anything that exerts enough G-forces would be enough, their size and mass is their downfall here (if in out dimension).

**TheRobotLol**

King Pariah wrote:This thread back up? Sigh... Anything that exerts enough G-forces would be enough, their size and mass is their downfall here (if in out dimension).

As apposed to the 453534TH dimension?

**King Pariah**

TheRobotLol wrote:
King Pariah wrote:This thread back up? Sigh... Anything that exerts enough G-forces would be enough, their size and mass is their downfall here (if in out dimension).

As apposed to the 453534TH dimension?

As opposed to whatever dimension they happen to be in where the laws of physics are all skewed.

**TheRobotLol**

King Pariah wrote:
TheRobotLol wrote:
King Pariah wrote:This thread back up? Sigh... Anything that exerts enough G-forces would be enough, their size and mass is their downfall here (if in out dimension).

As apposed to the 453534TH dimension?

As opposed to whatever dimension they happen to be in where the laws of physics are all skewed.

Soooo... the 453534TH dimension, as I said above?

**TheAngrySquig**

Im gonna go ahead and say being sat on by an eighteen wheeler