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They still have the ma duce why not the A-10

They don't have the Browning .50 Calibre Heavy Machine Gun. They posess a weapon that has very similar charactheristics to said weapon, but they don't have that weapon persay.

Hence, they will not have A-10s flying around. They will, however, have a plane that fulfills the A-10s mission, and maybe even looks the same, but it won't be the Fairchild A-10 Thunderbolt II

aka_mythos wrote:Flak armor I wouldn't exactly call it a "miracle" but I'd guess its equivalent to modern armor in some ways and superior in ways not immediately apparent. One is that it could very well be lighter than modern equivalents.

There is no "could". It IS lighter, as shown by Dark Heresy's weight measurements for a full body suit of Flak armor (boots, greaves, chest, back, helmet, shoulders, and arms) being lighter than merely the vest alone that is used in modern armies.

Also, flak armor is designed to be highly protective against blasts and shrapnel, and the Dark Heresy rules represent this with an increase in armor value against those kinds of weapons.

That's semantics. Since nothing that has yet to be made can be an "is".

The point of the post was to show and lead people, through example, how differences are not immediately apparent; those who are not immediately aware of every minutia of fluff. I know the fluff, I was explaining the subtlety of unapparent.

Just saying something "is" in the fluff isn't always enough, as it doesn't explain the subtler ways how two seemingly similar things are different. While you've run through that it is a full body armor system and its better against shrapnel... I think you've missed the point that this fictional armor could be more than just heightened protection and lapses that keezus brought up.

Any armor that is both lighter and stronger is a miracle, since body has defined the tactics of war.

Don't modern body armors have those large ceramic plates in them. I'd say if those were full body they'd at least be a 4+.But as it is, even the dragon skin and interceptor aren't full they just cover the super vitals... odly enough they don't cover the lower vitals. Dragon skin does a better job but is much more fragile to the environment. I don't know if the flak armor have any hard kill inserts in them but they do look kinda soft, and as such they won't be as good as the interceptor as even if the round doesn't make it in, it's still going to transfer some force making whatever miraculous strength it has redundant, I could be wrong though, it might be a hard plate. I'm not that well versed in the armors of 40k, just real world ones.

also on the subject of armors, what do you guys who have served say about the ceramic plate incerts, I know they're much lighter but once they've been hit it looks like a second strike in the same spot would penetrate, The steel plates just stop the rounds. I'd personally have a reliable armor that could stand up to multiple hits even if i had to sacrifice other things, you can always design a lighter weapon or take a smaller one. but I'm no tactical genious, that's just my thoughts on the matter I'd be interested in hearing what you guys thought.

Why do you say flak armor looks soft? Depictions of it look just as metallic as Marine armor is depicted, to me.

And no, flak armor is a solid armor that is made up of "layers of ablative and impact-absorbent material" (Dark Heresy, page 144).

A full set of military-grade flak armor-- plated gauntlets/vambraces, an armored helmet, a vest (Front and Back plates), plated shoulder pads/pauldrons, and plated boots/greaves weighs 11 kg (24.2 lbs).

A flak vest consists of a skeleton of lightweight, flexible metal. This skeleton is then wrapped in multiple layers of a high-tensile fabric that is the main protective component of the armour. After multiple layers of fabric are affixed to the skeleton,the vest is given its toughened outer shell. The same principle is used in the production of Guardsman helmets and bracers. Guards for knees and legs are also produced.

it's basically akin to kevlar over a wire frame.

Source New warhamer 40k: wargear

That's older and somewhat out of date fluff.

The "layers of ablative and impact-absorbent material" quote is from fairly recent. While flak armor CAN be in a softer material, standard flak armor is definitely made of a harder material (as seen on Cadian armor).

no the NEW warhammer wargear I think it came out around the same time as 5th

It was published in 2005. Dark Heresy was published in 2008.

Frankly, the "layers of ablative and impact-absorbent materials" condensed into a solid piece of armor makes far more sense given flak armor's design (it's supposed to protect against energy weapons as well as bullets) than kevlar wrapped around a steel frame. Kevlar isn't exactly proven to work against energy weapons (Because they aren't used in modern times). Or knives for that matter, while Flak Armor is good against monomolecular edged blades.

aren't monomolecular blades counted as power weapons in game?

also hardness has nothing to do with protection against energy weapons, that would be the specific heat of the material. water for example makes a great energy weapon barrier.

Monomolecular blades are probably closer to AP6.

Basically, Flak Armor gives an armor value of 4 (five against blasts), while monomolecular edges have a penetration value of 2.

No, it's the ablative layers that are good against lasers.

Ablative works but not as good as specfic heat. Balsa wood could be considered ablative but it won't offer much protection. Try it yourself dip your hand in water and then in molten lead. you'll be fine. just don't keep your hand in there.

Which is fine, but Kevlar is not good against melee weapons, while Flak Armor is. Hardness has its use.

if it's usefull against CC it might be hard but where do you get that it's effective V close combat.

Because the armor gives its save against close combat weapons?

Both in tabletop AND in DArk Heresy.

Actually, it's almost impossible for a knife to go through flak armor in Dark Heresy. The knives do 1d5 damage, and the armor value of Flak Armor is doubled against primitive weapons (unupgraded close combat weapons count as this), leaving it with an armor value of 8. Combined with a human's average toughness bonus of 3, this means that knives would only penetrate flak armor on a critical hit, or when an inordinately strong user wielded it. Even a Space MArine, whose average strength bonus is 8, would have a hard time actually killing a guardsman with a knife.

which is lame and unrealistic, IMHO.

Or it just means that the armor is incredibly effective against standard close combat weapons.

Mind you, an Astartes' combat blade does not count as a primitive weapon, and does more than 1d5 damage to begin with. I sincerely doubt an astartes would even bother to pull out a human-sized switchblade.

all right, that makes more sense.

This is actually the entire purpose behind the "monomolecular" upgrade. Basically its biggest benefit is that it removes the primitive quality, allowing the blade to actually stand a chance against non-primitive armors.

But then, monomolecular upgrades are rather expensive, sometimes costing up to eight times the cost of the weapon itself.

Is tau armor flak armor, or something diffferent?

It's the equivalent of carapace armor with a 4+ save. Eldar mesh armor is the equivalent of flak armor...

I'm sure the RPG rulebooks go into much more detail.

Mr Nobody wrote:Any armor that is both lighter and stronger is a miracle, since body has defined the tactics of war.

With regards to flak its only a miracle in a modern context... when you put it into a 40k context, its nothing special.

Heck even in 40k it's a pretty damned good armor-- so long as you realize that most things which ignore flak armor are actually kinda rare.

Boltguns and shuriken cannons aren't exactly common items.


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ChrisWWII wrote:It's the equivalent of carapace armor with a 4+ save. Eldar mesh armor is the equivalent of flak armor...

I'm sure the RPG rulebooks go into much more detail.

Eldar Mesh is actually pretty damned good, about halfway between flak and carapace while weighing less than either (Weighs like a heavy cloth basically). Humans actually have their own mesh technology, but it's nowhere near as advanced as Eldar mesh.

Melissia wrote:Heck even in 40k it's a pretty damned good armor-- so long as you realize that most things which ignore flak armor are actually kinda rare.

This kinda plays to a hypothesis of mine... the reason the individual guardsmen is equiped so poorly to take on aliens and chaos is because the Imperial Guard primary role is in fighting other humans. That if you looked at the size of the Imperium relative to the galaxy the vast majority of conflicts across the galaxy would tend to be Imperial Guard versus different rogue human factions... like chaos cultist.

In that context, just as "Dark Heresy" shows, Flak Armor and Lasguns are damned good. When the threat of tyranids or Orks or Eldar etc strike they are very big deals but just tend not to happen as often, given the millenia that seemingly pass between those major conflicts.

I also think its twofold; I think the Imperium to a degree purposefully underequips guardsmen out of a paranoia that if a senior commander went rogue they would not be so well equipped as to pose to great a threat to other guardsmen regiments. For example, I think if the High Lords of Terra were less concerned of rebellion they could tend to equip a higher number of guardsmen more similarly to stormtroopers, or even some guardsmen like Sisters of Battle. Cadia's Karsikins are an example of that, where Cadia's loyalty and importance is such that they are allowed non-stormtroopers, never trained in the Schola Progentia, to be equipped as stormtroopers. This is not to say the Imperium isn't pragmatic enough to allow specialized regiments to have superior equipment just that there is some degree of healthy paranoid driven suppression of technology.

Melissia wrote:Or it just means that the armor is incredibly effective against standard close combat weapons.

Mind you, an Astartes' combat blade does not count as a primitive weapon, and does more than 1d5 damage to begin with. I sincerely doubt an astartes would even bother to pull out a human-sized switchblade.

or it could just mean that the game system is incredibly bad at representing the fluff as if you stab someone in the arm, leg, lower abdomen, neck, head or face, the armor isn't going to do anything to stop it. heck even most of the lower back is exposed.

Only on Cadian Guardsmen. On Valhallans it's said that the flak armor is contained within their coat.

And who says those fatigues aren't part of the armor? They could very easily be Kevlar, or whatever fancy 40k equivalent.

aka_mythos wrote:*snips*

No,the guardsmen are equiped like that because of the logistics(Warp) and because the problem of arming trillons of soldiers(Hive Worlds and there's 32k+ of them).



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Mr Nobody wrote:Is tau armor flak armor, or something diffferent?

Well common sources point to Carpace equaliment,while Kill Team makes it little better than Flak Armor.

gendoikari87 wrote:or it could just mean that the game system is incredibly bad at representing the fluff as if you stab someone in the arm, leg, lower abdomen, neck, head or face, the armor isn't going to do anything to stop it. heck even most of the lower back is exposed.

Which is represented by rolling high on damage (10 on 1d10 means you roll a second 1d10), and therefor overcoming the armor value. Similarly, the wounds system in DH and indeed 40k in general is abstract, and has always been.

It's assumed that combatants are moving around and attempting to avoid being struck in critical areas, and anyone who is dedicating themselves to close combat is using at LEAST a mono-edged weapon, if not a chainweapon or power weapon.