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Round 1: 1 Space Marine vs 1 Storm Trooper (Star Wars)

Round 2: 10 Space Marines vs 100 Storm Troopers

Round 3: 1 Space Marine Terminator vs 10 Emperor's Guard

Round 4: 1 Space Marine Chapter including vehicles vs Stormtrooper Regiment (2500 Stormtroopers plus vehicles)

This is what rounds 1-4 were.

And no, it wasn't meant to be some sort of escalation/first contact thing. It was just what happens if these situations occur in a vacuum.

And no, the Empire was most definitely defeated. They didn't go away, but they were soundly defeated. The Rebellion/New Republic managed to take control of most of the inner systems after the battle of Endor and the war between them and the remaining Empire continued for a while till the Empire sued for peace. In the current timeframe the Empire and Republic have both created shadow organizations to wage proxy war(First Order and the Resistance). The First Order is NOT the Galactic Empire, the Resistance is NOT the Republic.

Spoilered for speculation: Force Awakens



On a side note: The Empire was aware that the Rebel fleet was massing near Sullust in preparation to attack the Death Star II. They could have obliterated the Rebels at that point, except for the Emperor's hubris.

 Grey Templar wrote:

And no, the Empire was most definitely defeated. They didn't go away, but they were soundly defeated. The Rebellion/New Republic managed to take control of most of the inner systems after the battle of Endor and the war between them and the remaining Empire continued for a while till the Empire sued for peace. In the current timeframe the Empire and Republic have both created shadow organizations to wage proxy war(First Order and the Resistance). The First Order is NOT the Galactic Empire, the Resistance is NOT the Republic.

The only thing the rebels managed to do was not get wiped out, and in the process, kill the individual who had a hard-on for Luke Skywalker. The Rebellion was never taken seriously as an organization that had to be destroyed at all costs. They were only ever a side project. The empire had thousands of systems to worry about, hence the construction of multiple deathstars and superlaser-equipped SSDs. They were so "soundly defeated" that 30 years later, they are still causing grief.

It's like saying the Ultramarines "soundly defeated" the Tyranids after destroying hive fleet kraken. No, they defeated some tyranids, secured a local area against them, didn't even do it all by themselves, and lost no few of their own forces doing it.

 Matthew wrote:
Round 1: 1 Space Marine vs 1 Storm Trooper (Star Wars)

Round 2: 10 Space Marines vs 100 Storm Troopers

Round 3: 1 Space Marine Terminator vs 10 Emperor's Guard

Round 4: 1 Space Marine Chapter including vehicles vs Stormtrooper Regiment (2500 Stormtroopers plus vehicles)
Round 5: All resources from the Imperium (1 million Space Marines, billions of Guardsmen, and so on) vs all soldiers and military units portrayed in the Star Wars movies (Stormtroopers, Clones, Rebels, and so on)

Location: The Hoth system.

GO!

Apart from round 5, yes Imperium wins every time.
But on round 5 I don't think so. People say Sith are equivalent to Psykers, but they are not. A single Psyker never blew up a star system, unless you count Tzeentch.
Sith have been said able too do this in SW fluff using the Force.
Also, all of the Space Marines would be unable to fight a Sith Lord to begin with because he could induce the Horror Force power.
Plus the Death Star.
So yeah I'm giving round 5 to the Empire for the Death Star, Vader and Sidious.

@Chaos Spawn: Considering that the expanded universe is no longer considered canon, I think that uber-jedi/sith powers are to be discounted.

 keezus wrote:
@Chaos Spawn: Considering that the expanded universe is no longer considered canon, I think that uber-jedi/sith powers are to be discounted.

Since certain of the uber-Sith/Jedi are mentioned in the still-canon films, I don't think that's the case.

Exhibit A: Darth Plaguesis.

 Psienesis wrote:
Since certain of the uber-Sith/Jedi are mentioned in the still-canon films, I don't think that's the case.

Exhibit A: Darth Plaguesis.

Mentioned: Yes.
Feats exhibited: No.

There is nothing in present canon to support Palpatine's claims. Also, Palpatine is also not the most reliable narrator.

 keezus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
Since certain of the uber-Sith/Jedi are mentioned in the still-canon films, I don't think that's the case.

Exhibit A: Darth Plaguesis.

Mentioned: Yes.
Feats exhibited: No.

There is nothing in present canon to support Palpatine's claims. Also, Palpatine is also not the most reliable narrator.

The virgin birth of Anakin Skywalker begs to differ.

Palpatine implies that Plageius could create life. However, we don't know if he actually had a hand in Anakins conception, or if Palpatine was saying something to turn Anakin.

 Chaos Spawn wrote:

 Matthew wrote:
Round 1: 1 Space Marine vs 1 Storm Trooper (Star Wars)

Round 2: 10 Space Marines vs 100 Storm Troopers

Round 3: 1 Space Marine Terminator vs 10 Emperor's Guard

Round 4: 1 Space Marine Chapter including vehicles vs Stormtrooper Regiment (2500 Stormtroopers plus vehicles)
Round 5: All resources from the Imperium (1 million Space Marines, billions of Guardsmen, and so on) vs all soldiers and military units portrayed in the Star Wars movies (Stormtroopers, Clones, Rebels, and so on)

Location: The Hoth system.

GO!

Also, all of the Space Marines would be unable to fight a Sith Lord to begin with because he could induce the Horror Force power.

For starters, Space Marines wouldn't need to be close to a Sith Lord for the opportunity kill him, but even if they were and a Sith tried using Horror, many Space Marines would be able to withstand this because of strength of will and fearlessness. Also, things like Skitarii and Battle Servitors would be completely unaffected by Force powers that affect the mind!

There are psychic powers in 40k which directly mimic Horror. Normal humans can resist both variants in either universe. Given the indoctrination that Marines undergo they are fairly likely to be unaffected by either, being super humans.

And They Shall Know No Fear!

The things that would horrify a Space Marine aren't the same as what normal people would find horrifying. The thing is that their indoctrination actually makes them more susceptible to certain kinds of manipulation. Say for example that you try to plant the idea in their minds that their battle brothers have turned to heresy. A marine would ignore that initially, because that idea is extremely unlikely... But the problem is, due to their training, they know it isn't completely impossible... So they step up their vigilance. Trouble is, that as their paranoia ratchets upwards, they'll begin to perceive the similar paranoia of their battle brothers as hiding their guilt. With such misgivings, they would never share their fears with their brethren... who knows how deep the heresy runs! Once the first bolter shot is fired... (not necessarily even started by a Marine) It's only a matter of time before it is brother vs brother, or straight up Inquisitorial review, or even exterminatus. Even if the Inquisition finds no heresy... the fact that such a breakdown could occur in the Astartes needs to be swept under the rug.

The IoM is its own worst enemy. It doesn't take much of nudge to bring down that mountain of superstition and mistrust.

It's all a matter of numbers.

For every squad of storm troopers, the Imperium can drop a million imperial guard on them. The empire can blow planets up? The Imperium can shift a planet off its axis by piling on enough dead bodies on it.

It's the same reason that space marines would lose a war against imperial guard: because they'd be outnumbered like, 1 space marine to 1 million Guard.

@keezus - that's why you have commissars and inquisitors. To shoot all the people who stray too far (that is, 0.01 micron) from the Emperor's path. Where one falls, a legion rises to fill his shoes. Damn humans breed like rabbits 38,000 years from now, and they're harder to wipe out than cockroaches!

 Matthew wrote:
Round 1: 1 Space Marine vs 1 Storm Trooper (Star Wars)

Round 2: 10 Space Marines vs 100 Storm Troopers

Round 3: 1 Space Marine Terminator vs 10 Emperor's Guard

Round 4: 1 Space Marine Chapter including vehicles vs Stormtrooper Regiment (2500 Stormtroopers plus vehicles)

Round 5: All resources from the Imperium (1 million Space Marines, billions of Guardsmen, and so on) vs all soldiers and military units portrayed in the Star Wars movies (Stormtroopers, Clones, Rebels, and so on)

Location: The Hoth system.

GO!

Putting in my two cents...

ROUND 1!

It would go to the SM.

Giving the ST every benefit possible, such as...
(1) assuming their armor is not flimsy, but a product of advanced futuristic armor design and technology,
(2) their training is on par with IG/AM storm troopers (better than standard troops, which the Galactic Empire did have),
(3) negating the "Stormtroopers can't hit anything" rule from the movies,

In the end what you have is an equal to an IG/AM stormtrooper with a hotshot lasgun (blaster rifle). The SM beats the ST in every category, having better armor, better physique and physical traits, arguably better weaponry (boltguns still fire miniature explosive rounds!), better training (SMs are usually from world's where they have fought to survive their entire lives, and that's before they are trained, both before and after SM enhancement, in a training regimen that is far superior than that of any normal humans), and arguably better gear.

Truthfully, a clone trooper would stand a better chance or last longer, and that's only because clones were trained at birth (though technically they were also modified to be less independent and worked better when working together), but it would still go to the SM.

Winner: Space Marine.

ROUND 2!

Potentially the same result as Round 1, as quality often trumps quantity.

HOWEVER, numbers CAN count for something, as is often the case when a bunch of weak IG/AM guys with flashlights decide to gang up on a more powerful enemy and light them up. There have been several eye-witnessed accounts of IG lighting up a Greater Daemon of Korne with flashlights, and winning, and this is often done with base troop platoon squads, not stormtroopers. "Death by a thousand cuts", and other such historical quotes on tactics and strategy could easily come into play here. By the rules, both stand good chance depending n how they are used. By the fluff, it would probably go to SMs, because they would probably have the superior tactics (other things about them are superior, yes, but their tactics are what would win the day here).

Winner: Space Marines.

ROUND 3!

This one is, honestly, up for debate and depends on the situation.

If this fight happens in an open space, no cover whatsoever, just a straight up fight, then the Terminator probably has it. They would mow down the Imperial Royal Guardsmen with the standard storm bolter before they go close. If any Royal Guards did get close, they would be agile and fast enough to dodge the close attacks of the Terminator (because something that big will be slow, clumsy and difficult to maneuver in tight quarters and CQB, despite what the fluff might say).

In CQB, the Royal Guardsmen with their superior training to stormtroopers and armed with blasters and force pikes and/or vibroblades (which may be able to count as power weapons, meant to be more powerful than standard melee weapons, but not quite as good as lightsabers/force weapons), a Royal Guard in CQB with a terminator "might" be able to take out a terminator, as long as they use their superior speed and mobility to avoid the terminator's power fist.

So, at range, not much of a contest, but in close, the Royal Guard stands a decent chance as the fight comes down to speed and agility VS durability. If it came down to stamina, which one would wear out first, the terminator would win.

However, what if this fight did not happen out in the open? Imperial Royal Guardsmen are the cream of the crop, not stupid, and fight tactically, and are more unified in combat, much like SMs. If faced by a terminator, they would more than likely draw the terminator into a combat area more in favor for the Royal Guardsmen, and the terminator may more than likely be too proud to turn down such a challenge. In this fight, Royal Guards would have the advantage, making use of all available cover and superior group tactics against a single terminator. The Royal Guardsmen also would not be above sacrificing their own members (by their own choice because they love their Emprah too!) to defeat an enemy, especially if their own Emperor is threatened.

And lets not forget that all Stormtroopers have a Thermal Detonator as standard equipment for each trooper, technocally equal to a melta bomb, and the Royal Guardsmen would have this too, as well as "other hidden weapons". With their superior tactics, chosen battle area, superior numbers, and THIS WEAPON, the Royals Guardsmen would beat a single terminator, probably sacrificing their own members to draw the terminator's attention to make an opening in its defence, or walk up to it and JIHAD bomb it outright (though Royal Guardsmen are also good enough, that they could easily sneak up, dodge melee combat, slap the bomb on the terminator, and get away before it blows up).

Winner: Star Wars Imperial Royal Guardsmen.

NOTE!: Some Royal Guardsmen were also trained in the Force and were at varying levels of power. Even light Force abilities would vastly turn the tide in this fight.

ROUND 4!

Same result as Round 2.

While the numbers are much more numerous, with much more resources and vehicles, it comes back down to quality VS quantity, with the SMs having superior tactics, as well as the ability to outlast the Stormtrooper regiment. This fight would come down to which is better at playing the long game. SMs, while ideal for lightning strikes, are no strangers to full blown campaigns of war, where their lightning tactics STILL work in their favor. The STs would face mounting losses, as well as eventual loss of morale and any and every kind of fatigue one can imagine.

On the flip side, SMs have actually been designed, enhanced and trained to be resistant, if not outright immune, to all of these. An SMs long lifespan also gives them an experience and patience that STs lack, and makes SMs perfect for approaching such a campaign already being several moves ahead of the enemy and having planned that enemy's defeat from the very beginning of the campaign.

Winner: Space Marines.

ROUND 5!

Wow. Everything Imperium VS EVERYTHING in Star Wars? All stormtroopers, clone troopers, droid army, rebel alliance, and even Jedi and Sith? (I'm throwing Jedi/Sith in there, because even though they are not military, they're needed to counter psykers, magic, warp stuff, etc).

The best way to approach this is to break it down into categories, and judge which one is superior in that category, then add it all up, and see who wins.

(1) Who has the most manpower?

The Imperium of Man. Here's why...

Where the Galactic Empire has a vast amount of troops, they DO NOT have the manpower to maintain a presence on every inhabitable world in the galaxy. Instead, they maintain a permanent presence on key locations with garrisons and such, and have fleets of ships that patrol and travel the vastness of the (known regions) of the galaxy. The Empire has power wherever these ships, like Star Destroyers, happen to be roaming, and in theory this power is everywhere, but in reality that power receeds and does not exist when those ships leave that are of space. The Galactic Empire, while they do enact a draft on certain world's, this draft is not galaxy wide, again referring to the previously mentioned statement about the Empire's power and presence. Even with the military might of the clones, rebels and droids, they would not have the manpower to match the widespread galactic presence and power of the Imperium of Man.

On the flip side, the Imperium of Man DOES maintain some form of presence on every inhabitable world that they are aware of, including a military presence at least in the form of an armed local militia or planetary defense force. The Imperium also maintains a constant draft across the galaxy, which while it takes different forms, every world of the Imperium does supply troops to the Imperium's military.

Also, the Star Wars militaries exist in a political system that can still operate somewhat efficiently and has yet to grow too big to be bogged down by it's own weight. The Imperium of Man has so much military might and manpower, so many inhabited worlds, so large and wide of a presence in their galaxxy, that the Imperium's government is bogged down and slowed by it's own shear weight. While slower than Star Wars' Republic(s)/Empire, they DO have superior manpower!

Winner: Imperium of Man.

(2) Who has the more efficient infrastructure and logistics?

Star Wars, for all the same reasons previously mentioned.

This would allow the combined military of Star Wars to better deploy, retreat, redeploy, distribute and redistribute supplies and weapons, as well as keep better logistics of records and numbers for commanding officers to make accurate decisions in the use of their forces.

Winner: Star Wars.

(3) Who has the superior firepower?

Just about all troops in Star Wars have blaster weapons, which could be seen as equal to lasguns and other las weapons in the IG/AM. Star Wars does have other kinds of weapons, but the blaster is their go-to weapon, and is the standard.

The Imperium, however, while they do use las weapons equal to blasters, they have more of these. Also, while this is the standard weapon of the IG/AM, it is not the standard weapon of the other militant branches of the Imperium, these branches having more powerful weapons, such as the bolt gun (which shoots shells that are like grenades going off with every hit), as well as many others. The Imperium's arsenal also has much more variety, which would allow them to have potentially better weapon options for specific combat situations. The Imperium's variety of weapons also gives way to much more powerful weapons. While Star Wars has blasters and lasers of varying scale, as well as a few types of missiles, they have very little variety, leading to a set power level, with their more powerful weapons being very rare at best (Death Star?). Whereas the Imperium has a variety of weapons that far surpass blasters, lasers and missiles, and tend to be quite nastier when doing damage (melta/plasma to the face!).

Winner: Imperium of Man.

(4) Who has the better Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)?

Star Wars has the Death Star, a moon-sized battle station armed with many ships, soldiers, weapons, and most important of all, the Axis Superlaser that can destroy an entire planet in one shot. This station is also mobile and can travel around the galaxy, and used to inspire fear in the galactic population to better control them (since they lack that manpower mentioned earlier).

In the Imperium, wiping out entire planets and their population is not a rare and scary event meant to inspire fear, but a common practice performed by the IF/AM, SMs, Inquisition, and other militant branches of the Imperium. Instead of this being horrid and unmentionable, they call it "Exterminatus" as a standard order given by higher ranking officers and inquisitors. The Imperium does not commit Exterminatus to inspire fear among the galactic population and force them in line; they perform Exterminatus because they don't like you, the way you look, talk, use the bathroom, or any other excuse they can come up with on a whim, whenever it suits them.

Where Star Wars must house this kind of power in a moon-sized battle station, the Imperium has weapons of this magnitude in their larger capital class ships. These weapons come in varieties of power and effect, from being able to scour all life from the surface of a planet, to destroying the planet outright and obliterating it.

Star Wars would be shocked and horrified as the Imperium would be using Exterminatus on them en masse until they surrender, and the Star Wars galaxy probably wouldn't have enough manpower, ships and firepower to resist and repress the Exterminatus firepower of the Imperium fleet.

Meanwhile, the Death Star would be assaulted by at minimum a few squads, or maximum a company, or space marines, who would push their way through the battle station until they either take control of it, or destroy it from within to deny a superweapon from the united Star Wars forces.

Winner: Imperium of Man.

(5) Who has the better starships?

Starfighters would be similar in power. But the Imperium has much bigger capital class ships, able to carry more starfighters, many other smaller ships, a wider variety of weapons, as well as more powerful weapons than the Star Wars turbolaser (see WMDs, above), a well as arguably thicker hulls, better shields (void shields) and overall better durability.

Where a Star Destroyer may be able to devastate the surface of a planet with its turbolasers and missiles, over an extended period of time, capital ships of the Imperium have specific weapons that can achieve the same results rather instantly with one shot.

Where Star Wars has super class ships, like super star destroyers of various types, these are always rare and unique and take a long time to build over many years. The Imperium has entire fleets of vessels this size, spread across the galaxy, armed to the teeth.

Winner: Imperium of Man.

(6) Who has the better Faster Than Light (FTL) travel?

Star Wars has the Hyperdrive, which allows FTL flight across the galaxy, and who's only flaw is when improper calculations can lead to traveling too close to the gravity well of a stellar objects (or interdiction fields), which can knock a ship out of Hyperspace or destroy it outright (but this is a rare occurrence, and hyperdrive space travel is quite common and has led to a galactic culture that uses hyperdrives to get around as commonly as a person taking a drive or hopping a bus to go from one city to another.

The Imperium uses the "Warp Drive"(?), which allows it to access the dimension of the Warp for FTL flight. This can allow FTL flight across the whole of the galaxy, but can arguably take a bit longer to get around. Also, navigating the Warp depends on having a psychic Navigator on board, a mutation of humanity created for this specific purpose, and that the Navigator vcan detect the galactic level psychic light/presence of The Emperor on the Golden Throne, who is kept alive only by that Golden Throne, has been kept "alive" in this state for 10,000 years, has led to humanity becoming utterly dependent on this light to navigate by across the galaxy. If this light ever goes out (and it will eventually), humanity would no longer have a way to navigate the Warp, their ONLY means of traveling FTL, and humanity would effectively be stranded on whatever world's they find themselves on if/when that happens, and thereby making humanity vulnerable to the other numerable threats in their galaxy, many of which destroy/devour entire worlds of which they would never be able to escape.

This is not to mention the general threats of traversing the Warp, where demonic monstrosities await the chance to invade the hull of ships and devour the flesh and souls of their crew and passengers. This is a constant threat when entering the Warp, held back only by Void Shields, which are known to fail from time to time. Though these shields can be brought back up in an instant, that brief moment could be enough to lead to the slaughter of the entire crew of the ship.

Winner: Star Wars.

(7) Who has the better quality troops?

The Imperium, because of Space Marines, for all the obvious reasons, and probably a few others not so obvious. The Imperium also has more of these elite supersoldiers than Star Wars has of their elite troops.

Winner: Imperium.

(8) Who has the better "Powered" troops?

Star Wars has Jedi and Sith who use The Force for a variety of effects. The Force is usually a more subtle power, with effects in combat that can enhance the user's physical abilities and combat prowess. In the films, The Force can be used to project lightning at an enemy, though the Expanded Universe implies other uses in combat, but the majority of these effects are still more subtle than overt. Jedi/Sith are also armed with lightsabers, which may equal an Imperium's psyker force weapon in damage.

The Imperium has SM Librarians and sanctioned Psykers of various types. These psykers draw their power from the Warp which is chaos and unreality itself. When the Warp is drawn on for combat, it's effects are almost always much more overt, powerful and destructive than any Force ability shown in the films, and most Force abilities depicted in the Expanded Universe (most, not all). Also, while psyker powers can often mimic the abilities of The Force, and the more common psykers should be a match for Jedi and Sith, psykers in the Imperium are known to gain vast amounts of power that can arguably surpass the power of The Force in raw destructive power. Psykers also have a wider variety of gear and weapons to use, where Jedi and Sith often do not. Psyker's powers also have a very dangerous quality in that, as they tap into the Warp, there is always the chance that they will lose control, being possessed by a daemon or die in an explosion of Warp energy that would no doubt affect the surrounding area and possibly take their enemy (Jedi/Sith) with them in death.

Alsso, as grimdark as the Imperium is, every psyker should be assumed to be with the Dark Side, and potentially able to give the Sith lessons in what true evil really is.

Winner: Imperium of Man.

(9) Who has the better tactics and is more lethal?

The Imperium of Man. The Imperium's tactics and lethality are much more brutal than the worst that Star Wars has to offer, even making the Sith look good by comparison. And in the Imperium and the grimdark universe of 40k, THIS is considered the good guys!

Winner: Imperium of Man.

(10) Who is more advanced technologically?

Debatable. While Star Wars is steadily advancing their technology (though slowly, as it is happening over a vast galactic scale), the Imperium has actually forgotten more technology than Star Wars will probably ever know. Much of this tech is remembered and maintained by the Adeptus Mechanicus, including yet MORE devastating superweapons, both for the battlefield on a planet, and in space against planets, and even stars.

Where Star Wars has a set standard on technology, the Imperium has a wider variety of tech, which would allow them to do much more with it in battle.

Star Wars tech has a certain degree of durability and even has energy shields. However, the Imperium's technology seems to be built for even more durability and sturdiness, much of their more impressive tech being centuries to millennia old, as well as energy shileds, from personal to capital ship scale, that are meant to be resistant to weapons much more powerful than those used in Star Wars.

The Imperium also has a wide variety of tech meant for use in conjunction with psyker abilities. Star Wars has shown a few examples of tech in relation to The Force, but the integration is far less pronounced.

Winner: Imperium of Man.

Up to now, Imperium 8, Star Wars 2.

Actually the Exterminatus is not a standard order. A simple imperial general or even a space marine chapter master lacks such authorization. An exterminatus can only be declared by the Inquisition or the High Lords of Terra, and only in dire cases; ie Demonic incursions, mass heresy, and ork/tyranid infestation. In other words, when they are losing hard, and there is no chance of retaking that world.

The IoM does blow up more planets than the GE, and they do have more of the means to do so, but they aren't as flippant about it as you make it out to be.

Its more "feth this, feth you, this is bs! *flips the table and fires a doomsday device" than "they looked at me funny *fires a doomsday device*"

The exaggeration was on purpose.

 hellstormer1 wrote:


(4) Who has the better Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs)?
(5) Who has the better starships?

I'm just going to ignore all the parts about ground troops, as it has already been stated many times that without winning the space theatre, the side on the ground gets an automatic loss. The major issue that I have with 40k feats is how inconsistent the writers are. Those arguing for the strength of the Imperium's space fleet always boils down to two main factors:

1. Ridiculous numbers of ships
2. Exterminatus Level Weaponry

Let's look at the assertion that a IoM capital ship can one shot the surface of a planet. I'm going to be conservative and say that you're only removing say... North America, and only down 100m. Vaporization energy for that amount of planet crust requires energy output of 17-34 petatons. Well... that certainly is a hefty number. Certainly, nothing in Star Wars can tank that kind of firepower. Begs the question, if the IoM (and by extension, the forces of Chaos) have this level of firepower, why aren't they trotting it out every battle, one-shotting each other. The usual response is VOID SHIELDS. This raises a whole other conundrum, that if Void Shielding is strong enough to tank a shot of that level, why the hell do ships have regular weapons batteries? Even if the disparity in firepower level is say... 1000x (down to the low gigatons, which is still plenty to destroy the surface of a planet)... the batteries would be so weak against shields to be practically useless, and conversely, if the shields are OK vs batteries, something 10 000x more powerful is going to one-shot whatever ship you bring.

Andrew C already noted earlier in this thread that the old Space Hulk rulebook indicated that exterminatus level warheads are 6 gigatons in power - this would be consistent with cratering energy for a planet. If that is correct for an exterminatus level weapon: this suggests that regular ship firepower is quite a bit lower by magnitude of possibly up to 1000x less - anything lower - say in the 10x range suggests that you could easily conduct a slower, less thorough exterminatus with your conventional arms. IMHO, this is unlikely, as you wouldn't need =I= approval to scour with your regular guns, nor would trotting out an exterminatus weapon be such a great deal if it wasn't a great deal more powerful than your regular weapons. KEEP IN MIND, 40K... MANY SHIPS BATTERIES ARE PROJECTILE GUNS! The literature states that the guns "accelerate fusion warheads to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light"... however at 0.5C and a 1 ton warhead, this ends up meaning that your regular cannon is as strong as your exterminatus weapon... which comes back to the assumed yield being nonsense... (I would theorize that appreciable fraction represents maybe 1%C? That's still plenty fast, and gives a yield of 2MT which is more consistent with my next point...

Since 40k canon acknowledges Orks as being a legitimate threat, and indigenous Ork ship weapons basically fire chunks of asteroid at their opponents - AND Ork ships CAN damage IoM ships with their weapons... one might note that Void Shielding CAN NOT be that great, and by extension, IoM weapons aren't as insane as the narrators in various 40k fiction make them out to be, more likely being in the high KT (100x) to /low (1x) MT range (especially since lobbing rocks at your opponents WORKS... i.e. point defense can't destroy them all!!!). This suggests that firepower-wise, ships in Star Wars and in the IoM MAY BE ON SIMILAR FOOTING, and the Death Star is magnitudes of power greater than anything the IoM has at their disposal.

Apart from a Nova Cannon, the blast radius of which is measured in AU, that would probably be accurate.

I just wanted to extend the INCONSISTENCY of 40k logic.

1. A space marine in power armor armed with a powerfist can punch a tank to death. Ergo, a powerfist punch = tank round.

2. A normal joe punches at ~300J.
2b. A M829 kicks out around 51.87 MJ
2c. The difference in power is 172911x

3. Even if we assume that a Space Marine in base form is 100x stronger than a human (unlikely, based on the limits of physiology), and power armor augments them by a further 100x (also unlikely, since the power armor is a sheath, which bonds to the space marine's black carapace - again, limits of physiology)... the Space Marine's punch is still ends up being less than 2/3 as strong as the tank round.

This leads us to the conclusion that maybe tank armor isn't so good in the 41st millenium. My favourite example guys, the Orks beat tanks using improvised mines and panzerfausts, and can also punch tanks to death if wearing a power klaw IN BASE FORM (non-mega armored form)... so... eh... you'll have to draw your own conclusions here.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Psienesis wrote:
Apart from a Nova Cannon, the blast radius of which is measured in AU, that would probably be accurate.

The IoM has quite a large number of these as its standard armament on quite a number of battlecruiser and cruiser patterns... one might think that given their "exceptional" power, they'd be slaughtering the gak out of their opposition via one-shots. This is the only thing that bothers me about ascribing any super-high yield to a commonly fielded gun.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Second thought; If the blast radius is in AU... why don't they just use the novacannon for exterminatus... it would easily melt all the surface structures off the side of the planet it was aimed at.

Nova Cannons aren't *that* common, considering that they basically build the cannon, and then build a ship around it. There's also not that many cruiser-class (minimum tonnage needed to carry it) vessels in the Imperium, as we demonstrated earlier ITT.

With regards to the Powerfist/Powerklaw... the math you put there is way off, because you're forgetting that it's the powerfield of the powerfist that's doing most of the work. That energy field destroys matter on a molecular level. Touch p-fist to tank, tank gets a fist-sized hole in it. You don't need much actual force behind the swing to effectively employ power weapons.

 Psienesis wrote:
Nova Cannons aren't *that* common, considering that they basically build the cannon, and then build a ship around it. There's also not that many cruiser-class (minimum tonnage needed to carry it) vessels in the Imperium, as we demonstrated earlier ITT.

"The Nova Cannon is one of the most exceptionally powerful weapons employed by the military forces of the Imperium of Man. Mounted below the heavily armoured prows of Imperial Navy Cruisers and Battleships, Nova Cannons have few equals in terms of their range or destructive power. Very few weapons are capable of creating a blast effect that can encompass multiple Warp-capable starships. These rare and massive weapons are distinguished by that capacity. "

"The Mars-class Battlecruiser is a powerful starship of the Imperial Navy and a very common and respected sight across Imperial space. It represents the apex of human engineering in space combat and it is a truly multi-role vessel capable of engaging and defeating a large variety of threats to Imperial dominance in the Milky Way Galaxy... ...The Mars-class is well armed and equipped for its multiple roles and it mounts a Nova Cannon, a lance battery, fighter/bomber launch bays and multiple other point defense weapons batteries. "

Not *that* common = *pretty* common? To differentiate from not *ubiquitous* or *always present*? YMMV.

As the Novacannon is super common we have two scenarios. Either, it's not really orders of magnitude more powerful than the IoM weapons, and properly shielded ships CAN survive a shot from it, thus explaining why the Imperium is gripped in a grim darkness that knows only war, instead of an endless cavalcade of victories... or the Empire is doomed since the IoM has a Novacannon in every garage. (Mars Class was in the BFG starter IIRC... so pretty common... i.e. in every Imperial fleet... multiples even..!)

The novacannon vs weapon batteries. Both descriptions claim that the projectiles are accelerated to a proportion near light speed (novacannon, almost light speed, and weapon batteries a "appreciable fraction of lightspeed". At that level of speed, the tonnage of the shot is almost irrelevant (we're talking insiginficant % yield difference between 1 projectile and on that's 1000 times larger mass due to the kinetic power that is imparted from the speed.

 Psienesis wrote:
With regards to the Powerfist/Powerklaw... the math you put there is way off, because you're forgetting that it's the powerfield of the powerfist that's doing most of the work. That energy field destroys matter on a molecular level. Touch p-fist to tank, tank gets a fist-sized hole in it. You don't need much actual force behind the swing to effectively employ power weapons.

If the powerfield is doing all the work like you suggest - it shouldn't matter what the strength of the wielder is, nor should it matter if it is a fist or a sword. The obvious response would be that it depends on the size of the field, and the powerplant feeding it. This makes no sense at all, considering that one would expect terminator powerfists to be more powerful, and power weapons/fists powered off power armor to be of similar strength. That is NOT how the use / effect is described in the background fiction though. I don't have any issues with the fluff "claiming" certain power levels - the issue is that the fluff is very inconsistent...

Its not that a powerfist has equal punch to a battlecannon. Its that it can target weak spots that a ranged weapon couldn't normally hit, thus it has a similar effect.

If the powerfield is doing all the work like you suggest - it shouldn't matter what the strength of the wielder is, nor should it matter if it is a fist or a sword. The obvious response would be that it depends on the size of the field, and the powerplant feeding it. This makes no sense at all, considering that one would expect terminator powerfists to be more powerful, and power weapons/fists powered off power armor to be of similar strength. That is NOT how the use / effect is described in the background fiction though. I don't have any issues with the fluff "claiming" certain power levels - the issue is that the fluff is very inconsistent...

Considering Gaunt fethed up a Dreadnought in close-quarters combat with his powersword... the strength of the wielder doesn't actually matter so much, no. Gaunt's a tall dude, athletic, too, but he's no Space Marine. It is quite possible, however, that a bigger power-plant can provide a bigger matter-destroying energy field, but I'm not certain if anything exists to provide that explanation.

Not *that* common = *pretty* common? To differentiate from not *ubiquitous* or *always present*?

Lexicanum wrote: Battlefleet:

A Battlefleet comprises the vessels responsible for protecting a sector of the Imperium. A battlefleet is commanded by a Lord Admiral and is the largest operational naval organisation, usually consisting of between 50 and 75 ships of varying size.

So in the entire Imperium, assuming every Sector Battlefleet has nothing but Mars-Class Cruisers and larger vessels, and that all of them are equipped with Nova Cannons, we're seeing a few thousand, in total, at the absolute outside. There's almost as many Marines in a Space Marine Chapter as there are Nova Cannons in the entire galaxy.

So, yeah, they're pretty fething rare.

 Psienesis wrote:
So in the entire Imperium, assuming every Sector Battlefleet has nothing but Mars-Class Cruisers and larger vessels, and that all of them are equipped with Nova Cannons, we're seeing a few thousand, in total, at the absolute outside. There's almost as many Marines in a Space Marine Chapter as there are Nova Cannons in the entire galaxy.

So, yeah, they're pretty fething rare.

Uh... ok. rare compared to what? Lasguns? I mean, its stated that it's a common battlecruiser pattern. That suggests that it's present in most battlefleets. Probably multiples... even if it were 20% Mars Class, that would suggest that it's going to be present in any naval engagement, multiples possibly. All I'm saying is that if the IoM is bringing Novacannon to each major engagement, and if it is a superweapon (10x?? 100x? more powerful than regular lance / weapon batteries)... they should be winning out-right correct??? With planet sized blast radius: it should be auto-killing every enemy fleet it looks at! Xenos like Orks and Tau shouldn't stand a chance against a weapon of such magnitude, and as a splash damage weapon, holofields don't do gak against that. Since this is NOT the case, the novacannon is probably no more than double the strength of all the other weapons at most.

I stand corrected on the power weapons. Clearly, since these are much more available... never mind Nova Cannons... it just means that we'll have guardsmen destroying AT-ATs with power weapons. The Empire is doomed.

 Psienesis wrote:


So in the entire Imperium, assuming every Sector Battlefleet has nothing but Mars-Class Cruisers and larger vessels, and that all of them are equipped with Nova Cannons, we're seeing a few thousand, in total, at the absolute outside. There's almost as many Marines in a Space Marine Chapter as there are Nova Cannons in the entire galaxy.

So, yeah, they're pretty fething rare.

Wrong, as I already demonstrated before. The Imperium has tens of thousands of sectors at a bare minimum, assuming they control only a tiny fraction of the galaxy.

OK gents... The IoM has innumerable Nova Cannon ships. Bearing that in mind, I'd theorize that they are more powerful than normal guns, but not substantively more, and definitely not an order of magnitude more powerful... This suggests that the Empire's fleet and the IoM can fight on relatively equal footing on a ship vs ship engagement.

Ignoring the whole ship quantity thing for a minute... In a galaxy vs galaxy engagement, I actually see the Empire having the advantage in terms of troop movements and recon. In fact - if they: Imperial Agents, ever determined the location of Holy Terra - destruction of the Astronomicon pretty much guarantees the Empire's victory.

Regarding how one would destroy the Astronomicon? The quick and dirty way would be to drop a Star Destroyer out of lightspeed inside Holy Terra's atmosphere and use it as a relavatistic kill vehicle. If they had time, fitting hyperdrives to a moon would be more of a guarantee.

How to find Holy Terra? I'm sure the Empire could win at least one minor engagement vs the IoM starfleet... especially against one of the early advance wave - and all IoM ships would contain star charts of their territory. Theoretically, they could map out the hyperspace routes using hyperdrive equipped droid ships. The Empire would have to run from battles they can't win in the mean time, but they have the empty space to do so.

I think the IoM's intelligence gathering is going to be heavily limited due to its paranoia about risking "contamination". In fact, the standard of living in the Empire is so much better than the oppressed masses in the Imperium that should this information become common knowledge - turning traitor might not be out of the question - especially if the IoM's victory is less than certain. Its not like this is without precedence as Imperial Citizens were noted to have joined the Tau Greater Good.

 keezus wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
So in the entire Imperium, assuming every Sector Battlefleet has nothing but Mars-Class Cruisers and larger vessels, and that all of them are equipped with Nova Cannons, we're seeing a few thousand, in total, at the absolute outside. There's almost as many Marines in a Space Marine Chapter as there are Nova Cannons in the entire galaxy.

So, yeah, they're pretty fething rare.

Uh... ok. rare compared to what? Lasguns? I mean, its stated that it's a common battlecruiser pattern. That suggests that it's present in most battlefleets. Probably multiples... even if it were 20% Mars Class, that would suggest that it's going to be present in any naval engagement, multiples possibly. All I'm saying is that if the IoM is bringing Novacannon to each major engagement, and if it is a superweapon (10x?? 100x? more powerful than regular lance / weapon batteries)... they should be winning out-right correct??? With planet sized blast radius: it should be auto-killing every enemy fleet it looks at! Xenos like Orks and Tau shouldn't stand a chance against a weapon of such magnitude, and as a splash damage weapon, holofields don't do gak against that. Since this is NOT the case, the novacannon is probably no more than double the strength of all the other weapons at most.

I stand corrected on the power weapons. Clearly, since these are much more available... never mind Nova Cannons... it just means that we'll have guardsmen destroying AT-ATs with power weapons. The Empire is doomed.

An AU is an "Astronomical Unit", meaning a unit 1000km across, not... planetary in size, however you arrived at that conclusion. That's not "whole fleet in size", or even remotely close, and reloading a Nova Cannon takes hours (combat turns in BFG are each thirty minutes long "in universe"). Now, if you happen to be on the ship that gets hit by a Nova Cannon, yes, you're more fethed than Fulgrim's latest toy, or if you are within 3AU of that ship, you're also basically fethed, since you're caught in the blast-radius of the cannon (though your ship may survive, just be very heavily damaged) Then again, so was everyone onboard that Mon Cal cruiser that ate the DS2's first shot... which has a much higher rate of fire than a Nova Cannon.

Then, of course, there's actually aiming the damned thing. It's a prow-pointing weapon that runs along the spine of the ship. If you're fighting, say, Eldar, you will almost never get that behemoth to come about in time before the Eldar are on your flanks and raining plasma into your eyes. Necrons are much the same story, their ships are faster and more maneuverable than anything the Imperium fields... and they regenerate... and pack even scarier firepower.

Forget what dude up there said, there's not "thousands of sectors" in the Imperium with sector fleets at full strength. Many of the Sectors the Imperium lays claim to are devoid of human presence, save for some Feral World with a Planetary Governor residing in a star fortress in orbit, or some half-forgotten Mechanicus facility orbiting a dying star for research purposes and various Inquisitorial black-ops projects. Further, the Imperium just isn't that big; it lays claim to 1 million worlds which is only 1% of all the stars in the galaxy (less any the Necrons have snuffed lately), and we know that the Imperium has *many* systems it claims with multiple worlds orbiting a single star (such as the Cadian system), and multiple multi-planet stars within single Sectors. It's also got sectors so ravaged in recent warfare that their Sector Fleets are down to a couple tug-boats, four laundry-haulers and a conscripted pleasure-yacht (again, Cadia). Feasibly, there's a couple hundred Sectors in the Imperium, with vast reaches of Wild Space between each one.

Last but not least? There's 50 to 75 vessels in a full-strength Sector Battlefleet of all classes of ships. So for every battleship, you've got 2 to 5 escorts, like a Sword-class Frigate, destroyers, massive troop-haulers for the ground troops (no, the IG *cannot* transport its own people from planet to planet), corvettes, so on and so forth. Let's not forget that the Mars-class battle-cruiser is among the largest of vessels the Imperium constructs, with only the Grand Cruiser and Battleship-class being larger classes of vessels (and Grand Cruisers are mostly relics at this point, the class having been phased out in favor of the battle-cruiser). So at the end of the day? Each of those Sector Battlefleets might have 5 ships that are even capable of carrying a Nova Cannon. The rest of those ships in the fleet aren't redundant, they all serve a vital role. Those smaller vessels serve as a screen and escort for the larger vessels, protecting it from enemy craft while they set up to bring the Nova Cannon (or whatever else they pack) to bear, while others are recovery vessels, supply-haulers, Mechanicus repair vessels, and so on. A capital ship without an escort or a fighter-screen is a sitting duck, just asking to get boarded and taken prize.

Though, yes, you could destroy an AT-AT with a power weapon. They're on par with a lightsaber, which we saw Luke use to carve into one in ESB. Why the hell he didn't just cut one of its feet off, I don't know, but I suppose it was more visually-interesting to climb up it and cut its belly open. For 40k, a set of Lightning Claws and a Space Marine on a bike would be all you need. Zip by, take the ankle out, maybe the other on the same side if the target presents itself, AT-AT falls over. You could attain the same results with a melta-bomb or a missile launcher firing a melta-rocket, though with such a weapon I would go for the head.

No, an AU is a clearly defined measurement of approx 150 million KM. (the distance from the sun to the earth in old money). Please stop using AU as your definition isn't everyone else's.

Re the sector fleets. That number of 50 to 75 ships only count the warp capable fighting ships, and doesn't include the non warp capable system ships. The tug boats and laundry haulers that you describe. IIRC the ratio is 1 BS to 3 Cruisers to 6 Escorts. So for a fleet of 70 ships, 28 of them are capable of carrying a nova cannon. That's 40% of the fleet.

So no, a nova cannon is not a rare artefact, but a rather common one.

Cheers

Andrew

@keezus - you are absolutely right about the inconsistency and the absurdity of scale of 40k writing. In (pseudo-)reality, like you said, if you can't win in space, the planetary battle should be meaningless.

But... this kind of goes along with the nonsensical nature of 40k writing.

There are places like Cadia, where it's mostly overrun by Chaos, but space is completely controlled by the Imperium. I mean, you'd think it'd be easy to evacuate your people (or not, there's several trillion waiting to repopulate it anyhow), burn the planet to a crisp from orbit and then fix it up after. But this doesn't happen Instead, they constantly fight on the ground.

In fact, in 40k, *most* battles should be pointless, as the space-based weapons are just far too powerful for single marines, primarchs, avatars, and all that to even matter. The whole void shield thing is also contradictory. If they're strong enough to stave off planetary bombardment by weapons potentially powerful enough to blow up, well, a planet, it should be impossible to successfully assault a fortress city with any amount of ground troops and siege robots.... RIGHT?

In terms of the AT-AT, this is one of the most ridiculous constructs ever to hit science fiction, because who in their right mind would build a weapons platform like that? You know, when you have technology to make the top platform just float (like jabba's barge), instead of being supported by spindly legs. But it doesn't matter, because they're just THAT awesome

With a lot of this stuff, it's not so much a suspension of reality that you need to enjoy it, but a suspension of logic

 Talys wrote:
@keezus - you are absolutely right about the inconsistency and the absurdity of scale of 40k writing. In (pseudo-)reality, like you said, if you can't win in space, the planetary battle should be meaningless.

But... this kind of goes along with the nonsensical nature of 40k writing.

There are places like Cadia, where it's mostly overrun by Chaos, but space is completely controlled by the Imperium. I mean, you'd think it'd be easy to evacuate your people (or not, there's several trillion waiting to repopulate it anyhow), burn the planet to a crisp from orbit and then fix it up after. But this doesn't happen Instead, they constantly fight on the ground.

In fact, in 40k, *most* battles should be pointless, as the space-based weapons are just far too powerful for single marines, primarchs, avatars, and all that to even matter. The whole void shield thing is also contradictory. If they're strong enough to stave off planetary bombardment by weapons potentially powerful enough to blow up, well, a planet, it should be impossible to successfully assault a fortress city with any amount of ground troops and siege robots.... RIGHT?

In terms of the AT-AT, this is one of the most ridiculous constructs ever to hit science fiction, because who in their right mind would build a weapons platform like that? You know, when you have technology to make the top platform just float (like jabba's barge), instead of being supported by spindly legs. But it doesn't matter, because they're just THAT awesome

With a lot of this stuff, it's not so much a suspension of reality that you need to enjoy it, but a suspension of logic

I think the reason why they don't just nuke Cadia to oblivion is because there is irreparable hardware they want to keep down there.
Probably have something to do with the Pylons.

Sort of like why they don't nuke everything in Dropzone Commander; there are things they want to keep, and nuking the site from orbit would be counterproductive.
Also, I thought they already evacuated Cadia? Isn't everyone down there meant to be a soldier?