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I've been trying to figure the scale and size of Space Marine ships, does anybody have a picture or link? Looking for a shot that maybe has all of the models in it? I've seen uncited data that lists the Battlebarge over 8km and Strike Cruiser about half and the escorts about 1-2km? Are the models representative of this?

I have a post on my blog from into gathers from other posts, all info from Rogue Trader books...

http://afterimagedan.blogspot.com/2012/03/bfg-ship-sizes.html

There also exists on the internet a comparison of various starships from various sci-fi genres. It includes the death star, star trek, battlefleet gothic, the Executor super star-destroyer, and even the Lexx, from the series with the same name.

I do not believe it shows a battlebarge. But it does show an Emperor class battleship which is only slightly longer and a cobra escort, which is the size of the marine rapid-strike vessels roughly.

It's humbling as a star wars fan to see that a Cobra destroyer is the same size as a Star Destroyer :(

The models are in scale with each other if thats what you are wondering.

A battlebarge is around 7 km in length.

A cobra escort(small by escort standards) is 1.5 km long. Other longer escorts are almost 2km long.

Thanks for all the tips everyone. I just wish they had a technical schematic book for various ships. I have several FW books, seems like right up their alley. Star Wars produced many technical books, granted StarWars is in a completely different league than 40K. I think my best bet would be to just buy all the FW & GW BFG models, it would run about 200, but it would give me all the references I need.

The ship size of multiple KM is completely stupid, I know it comes down to balancing game-play mechanics, but to claim that a Strike Cruiser is 4 KM long and can only carry 1 company of marines? To be honest I should sit down and calculate the max support vehicles and equipment that 1 company could conceivably use (considering max load out of like 40 drop pods, 5 Thunderhawks, 10 rhinos, 5 land raiders, whirlwinds, razorbacks, on and on I guess?)

Yes, a Technical manual would be awsome, and is practically mandatory for any Sci-fi universe.

Strike Cruisers CAN carry more then a company of marines however the limit stated is that is how many marines they can deploy at once via Drop Pods and Thunderhawk.


The ship also isn't exactly empty. It has hundreds of Servitors/Chapter serfs onboard as well in addition to the actual workings of the ship. The armor on the ships is incredibly thick too. Plus heat sinks for weaponry and the reactors. It would be quite crowded.

And it is stated that Strike Cruisers having a single company onboard is NOT the full transport capacity. During the Great Crusade they would have as many as 5 companies on a Strike Cruiser and far more support vehicles and such. The Strike Cruisers were designed to carry more marines then they do today.

I guess that makes sense canonically speaking. It's conceivable that these ships were designed before chapters were limited to 1000 marines. I've yet to read anything (or I just don't remember) about typical chapter numbers during the Heresy. It's been a while since I was reading the series though. I suppose weapon battery power supplies could take up tremendous space for guns that big and powerful. Also I;m not aware of any indication as to the size of the drives needed to open warp space (it is a drive controlled by a telepath navigator right? Wow, just had a RT flashback, I remember reading about how the Navigators are like royalty, and come from famous Navigator families, something about the ability to navigate the warp without having your mind implode?)

afterimagedan wrote:I have a post on my blog from into gathers from other posts, all info from Rogue Trader books...

http://afterimagedan.blogspot.com/2012/03/bfg-ship-sizes.html

Thanks, I've seen those numbers before, so I guess I will go with them.

Here is the approximation I came up with.

Chapters didn't exist during the Great Crusade. There were the 18 legions who were simply made up of 100 strong companies. As more Marines were recruited they just added more and more companies. The Word bearers had around 100 companies at their height and the Ultramarines had even more.

Even with the current chapter setup the amount of support material would require quite a bit of space. Iirc the Strike cruiser also has somewhere around 60000 crew members (serf, servitors, etc) to run the ship (compared to numbers in the millions for an IN ship of the line)

Yeah, those are the numbers I've seen. 130K for a Battle Barge. But those number are just so huge. I was in the Navy and have expectations for what it takes to man normal sized war vessels, maybe I should go do some dirty math...

But here is an update to the comparison in which I show stuff we can relate to. I would love to see the Enterprise go against a Hunter Destroyer.




Star Destroyer is said to have a 10,000+ crew.

People actually play BFG still???? wow
to respond imagine a man on the titanic.... Now imagine the space marine cruisers are cruise ships for titanics....
That should represent the giant size.

 afterimagedan wrote:
I have a post on my blog from into gathers from other posts, all info from Rogue Trader books...

http://afterimagedan.blogspot.com/2012/03/bfg-ship-sizes.html

Thank You for the info! Thanks to all who contributed to this thread!

 Grey Templar wrote:
The models are in scale with each other if thats what you are wondering.

A battlebarge is around 7 km in length.

A cobra escort(small by escort standards) is 1.5 km long. Other longer escorts are almost 2km long.

What was your source for the data you gave? I appreciate your input, btw.

On a related note, anyone know the in-universe sizes for the Ramillies Star Fort & Blackstone Fortress?

Don't forget this one as well:

If you want to scale the models yourself, current canon says that Imperial cruisers are 5km long (presumably not counting any bow weapons). This scales to 1: 56,243.

Have been working on the scale issue as well, using the actual BGF ship models as the basis. Below is a list of ships followed by the model measurements in mm and the scaled up full size length in meters. Lengths do not include bow guns unless noted.

Using the RPG lengths generates a lot of scale problems...

Cobra destroyer: 31.75mm 1786m

Chaos Cruiser: 94.5mm 5315m

Imperial Cruiser: 91.04/ 99.41mm with bow gun 5140/5591m

Dauntless Light Cruiser: 75.6/81.3mm with bow gun 4252/4573m

Pestilans is a unique light cruiser with 1.5 weapons bays compared to two weapons bays in a regular cruiser. I built a model in this configuration and it measures:
Pestilans Light Cruiser: 85.5mm 4809m

Repulsive Grand Cruiser: 95.5mm 5371m

Avenger Class Grand Cruiser: 125.20mm 7042m

Goliath Class factory ship is identical in size to, and is based on the Adeptus Mechanicus Ark battleship: 120.5mm 6777m

Space Marine Battle Barge is: 128.15mm including bow guns 7208m

Emperor Class battleship: 126.43mm 7111m

Universe Class mass conveyer: 213.5mm 12008m

Raiders and Chaos; Infidel, Havoc and Meritech Class Raiders are all based on the same hull so should be roughly the same lengths.

Just measured a bunch of ships. Given that the scale is 1:56,000, multiplying the length in millimeters times 56 gets you the "in universe" length in meters. Measurements and in universe lengths below.

If you compare these lengths to the RPG lengths that Dan posted, you begin to see some problems: Imperial light and regular cruisers, Chaos cruisers are very close and the Avenger class grand cruisers are only a couple of hundred meters too long, but most of the escorts are way off, generally a half klick (500 meters) on the small side. Repulsive is 2000 meters too long in the RPG stats compared to the BFG models.

Looks to me like the RPG writers were often just pulling numbers out of the air with very little reference to the size relationships between the BFG models.


IN meters
Cobra 31.75 1778
Sword 49.25 2758
Firestorm 48.33 2706
Falchion 49 2744

Dauntless torp 75.6 4234
Dauntless lance 81.3 4553

Cruiser 91.04 5098
Grand Cruiser 125.2 7011
Battleship 126.43 7080

Marines
Hunter 26.83 1502
Galdius 40.5 2268
Nova 39.55 2215

Strike Cruiser 67.38 3773

Battle Barge 128.15 7176


Chaos
Iconoclast 28.8 1613
Infidel/Havoc/Meritech 39.66 2221
Idolator 39.55 2215

Pestilans 85.5 4788

Cruiser 94.5 5292

Repulsive 95.5 5348
Grand Cruiser 125.2 7011