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Is there naval warfare as we know it today in the 41st millennium? I've heard of things like Ork Submersibles and the amphibious nature of Chimera's, but as far as I can tell, naval craft are only used to transport troops.

Thunderwolves like chasing Tau in the deep-sea. Check your local Space Wolves Codex if you want to know more. Wet-Dog jokes at your own discretion.

Space superiority pretty much obsoletes naval power. The main point of a naval presence is to have mobile force projection HQs, and starships serve much the same purpose without being tied to a given world. Whichever side can achieve space superiority in an engagement will have all the benefits of naval superiority, as well as the ability to easily detect and neutralize enemy naval power.

Submarines would be one type of seapower with relevance, but only if enemy detection is poor enough that they can fulfill their role as stealth combatants. Apart from that, transport of ground forces to objectives is pretty much the only reason to use seagoing vessels.

Sea power would still be viable for planet who's atmosphere is too violent or has strange anamolies that does not allow for safe flying. In one of the Cain short stories they are patrolling a jungle island chain on a naval patrol craft.

Yeah, it just hasn't been represented on the tabletop. Flesh and Iron (I think that's what it was called) had an Imperial naval fleet with aircraft carriers, PT boats, and so on. It was Vietnam in space.

The problem there is probably that the vast majority of planets in any given galaxy actually do not have water.
And even if they did, you have you raise the question of how do you transport one naval fleet from one planet to another, and what purpose would it serve?
Well, the obvious answer to how you transport a naval fleet between planets would be starship travel, and there's your answer to the second question.

Bludbaff wrote:Space superiority pretty much obsoletes naval power.

My opinion as well. Any seafaring vessel such as some huge ass battleship on the sea can be taken out from space or simply by an air raid. Even today we see aircraft carriers and missiles basically having replaced the need for conventional artillery and thus "classic" warships - sea battles no longer duking it out on 1-2 kilometers distance, it's about each side launching their small craft to deal with the other. Which is something that can be done from space just as well. Even the Elysians, hailing from a world covered largely by water, solved this issue not by building ships but simply placing all their infantry on flyers.
So, in my personal opinion, seafaring ships might be possible (though unlikely) for a world's PDF, but the Imperial Navy sure wouldn't waste valuable cargo space to drop battleships on a planet to do something that can be accomplished by a flight of Marauder bombers or (in cases where small craft couldn't be used) a simple lance strike just as well.

The only usage of ships in fluff I am aware of was in the 3rd Armageddon War, where the Orks built a fleet of submersibles to smuggle infantry into a Hive. Given how surprised the Imperials were and that aside from these waters the entire planet was heavily militarized in preparation for defense I took that as exemplary.

Still, as with almost all fluff of 40k, it's a question that everyone has to answer for him- or herself!

Naval power, and naval warfare, probably exists on worlds that have bodies of water large enough to support it, and old enough to have needed to build boats (rather than replace them, or skip them entirely, with aircraft) and of a political situation that may lead to inter-Hive/nation-state combat.

They're probably not going to schlepp a boat from Planet A to Planet B on the other side of the galaxy in order to drop it into the local ocean to shoot some fools. If they find they need watercraft there, the Mechanicus has massive manufactorum-starships that are perfectly capable of building an aircraft carrier onboard and then dropping it into the ocean from orbit.

Zweischneid wrote:Thunderwolves like chasing Tau in the deep-sea. Check your local Space Wolves Codex if you want to know more. Wet-Dog jokes at your own discretion.

Or alternatively wet leopard.

Psienesis wrote:and old enough to have needed to build boats (rather than replace them, or skip them entirely, with aircraft)

That's a good point, I forgot how much Imperial worlds can differ in terms of technology availability.

Age of Sails naval combat, hoo!

Lynata wrote:

Psienesis wrote:and old enough to have needed to build boats (rather than replace them, or skip them entirely, with aircraft)

That's a good point, I forgot how much Imperial worlds can differ in terms of technology availability.

Age of Sails naval combat, hoo!

Some worlds you might even have Trireme/Bireme vessels, or Cogs, or, as you put, vessels akin to the 'Age of Sail'. Personally I'd love to think more along the lines of Dreadnaughts to WWII vessels, large calibre guns grouped in turrets on grey vessels, churning their way through the water firing their shells over massive distances.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:Trireme/Bireme vessels

And now you had me imagine a 200 meter "Quadreme" with a steel-plated deck and a lascannon turret, manned by mutant slaves and indentured workers ...

When we're looking at something steam-powered, how about some of those old Monitors/Ironclads? Their semi-unique shape makes them look rather cool, I think!

I think they still use those... they strap a warp-coil on the stern and bolt a Gellar Field generator upfront and launch that baby into space.

Surely most planets in 40K only have one government (e.g. an Imperial colony world or something) so there is no need to maintain expensive navies, to deal with what? Invasions come from space and I doubt many races bother to bring along aircraft carriers. Also I supsect that aircraft have such long ranges that there is no need for mobile force projection platforms. Can see the need for boats in limited cirumstances but there's no need for boomers or battleships as far as I see it.

There are as many types of governments of single worlds/systems in the Imperium as there are individual worlds in it. If we look to the Gaunt's Ghosts series, for example, Verghast had two Hives that, historically, waged war on one another, and then on.... eh, forget the name, Planet WWI with the guys riding ostrich cavalry... we have several nations, each with independent heads-of-state... who've waged war on one another for thousands of years (just like Europe).

Friends and I were discussing possablilities of naval warefare recently. We came up with pretty much the same conclusion: starships carrying mass aircraft would destroy everything,and the boats dont have a way of getting across a galaxy, let alone planet fast enough.

However, a naval expansion would be cool.

AND, as mentioned before, what if a planet has an atmosphere not suitable for flying? Boats/ subs would come in handy then.

Other option, say a peticular planet is low on troops because the main army is off in a distant galaxy kkickin ass, and their homeworld is invaded...homeworld boats get to dust off their cannons, the enemy wont be searching the water for threats, its the last place theyed expect 10 lascannons and defence lasers to be placed...

Not on the tabletop "yet" yet being the key word.... soon we will have ships we could use.... or by them in card form and chuck em on some 3d display and fight them that way

ImpGuardPanzies wrote:Other option, say a peticular planet is low on troops because the main army is off in a distant galaxy kkickin ass, and their homeworld is invaded...homeworld boats get to dust off their cannons, the enemy wont be searching the water for threats, its the last place theyed expect 10 lascannons and defence lasers to be placed...

Lascannons are a bit small, I think, and wouldn't do enough damage to harm a battleship. Even Earthshakers would be a bit small for anything beyond a Destroyer (DD) or Destroyer Escort (DE) or Light Cruiser (CL). Perhaps as secondary batteries on Heavy & Battle Cruisers or Battleships - HMS Hood started the war with 15" cannon & the Nelson class mounted 16" cannon - ships carried large calibre cannon and in 40k terms a lascannon would be too small, do too little damage & have too short a range*. Also the percussion of cannon is awe-inspiring - would you replace this with las-weapons?;



*The German 11" (28cm) L/54.5 guns on the Gneisenau had a maximum range of 30,000 yards. When HMS Rodney closed on the Bismark to fire salvos into her before her crew scuttled the hull, he opened up at what was considered point blank for her 16" guns - 3,000 yards.

Well thank you, I learned something about battleships, and am now going to read up on some fluff. Its a shame Battleships like this arnt really used of produced anymore, war is becoming airborne and missle like. Drone controlled.

ImpGuardPanzies wrote:Well thank you, I learned something about battleships, and am now going to read up on some fluff. Its a shame Battleships like this arnt really used of produced anymore, war is becoming airborne and missle like. Drone controlled.

If you want to really learn more about battleships and why they are no longer used then read about the Yamato, biggest battleship ever built (80,000+ tonnes). Built in secret over many years, so secret that hardly anyone had oversight of the plans, people on the project did individual bits. Cost goodness knows how much. 18" guns. Potentially the most powerful warship ever afloat. Never hit anything with its guns and was sent to the bottom by a swarm of US warplanes which together totalled a fraction of its cost. It was awesome but obsolete when it rolled off the slipway. US only maintained battleships til the 90s because their air superiority and better missile and anti-missile systems meant it was unlikely to get hit by enemy aircraft. Swap aircraft for spacecarft and you will see the 40K issue!

The only use for ships in 40k (apart from PDF/less advanced planets/ocean worlds) could be as mobile missile, artillery or aircraft platforms: massive submersible crafts, obviously using some sort of stealth tecnology to block orbital detection, jumping out of the water, delivering their cargo and quickly submersing again and moving away to avoid retaliation. It just could work (it would be a bit risky to use in an aircraft carrier capability, though, as it would be dead in the water for a longer time during landing/takeoff operations and would need to remain afloat or set some sort of rendesvouz point to pick up returning aircrafts).
In the only other 40k novel in which I remember seafaring war vessels (except for some kind of PDF submersible in one of the Deathwatch FFG books), the already mentioned Flesh and Iron by Henry Zou, massive imperial war vessels with a transport capability of several IG regiments,

Isengard wrote:If you want to really learn more about battleships and why they are no longer used then read about the Yamato, biggest battleship ever built (80,000+ tonnes). Built in secret over many years, so secret that hardly anyone had oversight of the plans, people on the project did individual bits. Cost goodness knows how much. 18" guns. Potentially the most powerful warship ever afloat.

Possibly, in terms of raw firepower, but the Bismarck had more armour and in 1940 the most powerful warship afloat was considered to be the Battlecruiser HMS Hood, even though it was laid down & built in the 1920s*. Interesting thing about the Bismarck is that it was not actually sunk by enemy fire. From searching the wreck not one shell, not even those from Rodney's powerful 16" guns firing at 3000yards, penetrated the armoured hull. It could have stayed afloat for at least another day if the crew had not scuttled it & the British had ceased fire when they did. Admittedly the upperworks were an absolute mess with the bridge & most of the upper super-structure ripped apart and set ablaze from the pounding the Royal Navy gave it. Sorry for going a bit OT, but I do enjoy discussing battleships of 1900-1945.

*Whilst the Hood was lost as it engaged Bismarck & Prinz Eugen, it had been due for a refit which would have included new batteries & an armoured deck which, if the Hood had had it when it engaged the Bismarck, that shell would most likely not have found its way into the after-magazine.

Battleships were truely amazing. Now it seems everyithng is missle based, fast aircraft that get in, pack a punch, and get out without anybody knowing its comming, rapid deployment of troops, and simple point A to point B SHNELL!! Ships in 40K would work on a world of mostly water, Enemy artillary may not be able to pin-point boats, or figure out their location. Many modern boats have anti air missles, can carry troops, a hellicopter, and have long range sonar and missle/ torpedo capabilities. Kindof a little bit of everything. I can picture a 40K ship easily accomplishing these things. Easier moreso in an exoansion or side game rather than mixed on table top, however the option and thought of it would be a nice option to have.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:

Isengard wrote:If you want to really learn more about battleships and why they are no longer used then read about the Yamato, biggest battleship ever built (80,000+ tonnes). Built in secret over many years, so secret that hardly anyone had oversight of the plans, people on the project did individual bits. Cost goodness knows how much. 18" guns. Potentially the most powerful warship ever afloat.

Possibly, in terms of raw firepower, but the Bismarck had more armour and in 1940 the most powerful warship afloat was considered to be the Battlecruiser HMS Hood, even though it was laid down & built in the 1920s*. Interesting thing about the Bismarck is that it was not actually sunk by enemy fire. From searching the wreck not one shell, not even those from Rodney's powerful 16" guns firing at 3000yards, penetrated the armoured hull. It could have stayed afloat for at least another day if the crew had not scuttled it & the British had ceased fire when they did. Admittedly the upperworks were an absolute mess with the bridge & most of the upper super-structure ripped apart and set ablaze from the pounding the Royal Navy gave it. Sorry for going a bit OT, but I do enjoy discussing battleships of 1900-1945.

*Whilst the Hood was lost as it engaged Bismarck & Prinz Eugen, it had been due for a refit which would have included new batteries & an armoured deck which, if the Hood had had it when it engaged the Bismarck, that shell would most likely not have found its way into the after-magazine.

Yamato was a very different vessel to Bismark. Bismark had more belt armour, but Yamato was far more heavily armoured on the deck and turrets. Also the scale is hard to compare as Yamato was getting on for twice the weight. Yamato basically was slightly slower and vastly bulkier to carry all the extra armour and those truly massive guns. Bismark certainly had better rangefinders and with the Japanese having no radar Yamato relied on getting fairly close and using optical detection or possibly ranging from aircraft. I used Yamato as an example because it was a giant white elephant, supposedly the apogee of battleship design but in reality a relic of a bygone era and in the age of airpower a complete waste of time. It was designed to illustrate the point that large warships are just nice targets for airpower and 40K orbital bombardment would enjoy picking them off.

Airpower did for Bismark, don't forget it was caught because it was hit in the rudder by torpedoes from, of all things, a biplane flown off a small and pretty primitive carrier. This led to her turning in a slow circle and being unable to evade the Royal Navy. True enough that they did not sink her but causing her to be unable to sail, virtually blowing all the superstructure off the deck and killing a sizeable number of the crew as good as did so. Bismark could have been left to sail round like that, it had no prospect of being salvaged and even if it had limped back to port it was so damaged that it was a write-off. Hood, although destroyed by a plunging hit to the magazine (showing the Royal Navy had learned little from Jutland), would have been a very nice target for dive bombers with its wooden deck armour ripe to be smashed through by high velocity bombs or turned to matchsticks and set on fire. Any increased armour would have helped that aspect but reduced speed which was, of course, the whole point of the battlecruiser variant.

Any 40K force worth their salt would be able to sit a few warships in orbit and use their scanning ability to spot, target and squash any large naval units. Alternatively flyers could be used to sink them handily.

Even if space power dominated the navy there still would be some small ships, like pt boats that would patrol small water ways. Who knows though? Battle ships would be great for bombardments that the imperium always loves to use.