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The Space marine chapter in question is the Blood Angels who have no Battle Barges but do have all their Thunderhawks for use in orbital assists. They also have all their tanks, fellblades, land raiders, bikes and the like.
They have Mephiston, Dante, Their flying librarian dreadnoughts, deepstriking land raiders, and all their psykers.
The Blood Angels in the scenario are teleported through Tzeentchan nonsense to current day Earth, and seeing that we do no follow the imperial cult, they declare war on us!
Current day man taken aback by this does not have time to prepare but all the militaries on Earth are ready for war.
Assume that pretty much any nukes would be shot down by Thunderhawks.
I know this has probably been done before but in the months I've been on here I've never seen it done so bare with me.

Never seen it done?... That's because these threads are goofy at best.

A strike cruiser would still win the day.
A Thunderhawk taking out all satellites would simply gimp electronic capability for modern militaries.
Pretty sure Thunderhawks would not shoot down a nuke.
It simply makes no sense that somehow all ground assets and no space assets would be transported.
Lastly, a couple thousand people(including tank crews) vs several million is a really comparison.

 troa wrote:
Never seen it done?... That's because these threads are goofy at best.

A strike cruiser would still win the day.
A Thunderhawk taking out all satellites would "simply" gimp electronic capability for modern militaries.
Pretty sure Thunderhawks would not shoot down a nuke.
Lastly, a couple thousand people(including tank crews) vs several million is a really comparison.

First Space Marines would require modern day tank rounds to be wounded/killed (I don't know how they'd even wound Mephiston barring nukes and specialist missiles) so all it would take is a few thousand.
Dude seriously a lasgun is .75 cal and space marines lore wise are immune unarmored to those.
Yeah Thunderhawks are perfectly capable of shooting down stuff from orbit it's called get this "orbital support" what a concept huh!!!
Saying "simply" and "gimp all electronic capability for militaries" together in a cohesive sentence implies you're probably not very smart.
"

-= This is a personal attack. Please review the Dakka Rules, especially Rule #1. -- Lorek =-

ThePrimordial wrote:

 troa wrote:
Never seen it done?... That's because these threads are goofy at best.

A strike cruiser would still win the day.
A Thunderhawk taking out all satellites would "simply" gimp electronic capability for modern militaries.
Pretty sure Thunderhawks would not shoot down a nuke.
Lastly, a couple thousand people(including tank crews) vs several million is a really comparison.

First Space Marines would require modern day tank rounds to be wounded/killed (I don't know how they'd even wound Mephiston barring nukes and specialist missiles) so all it would take is a few thousand.
Dude seriously a lasgun is .75 cal and space marines lore wise are immune unarmored to those.
Yeah Thunderhawks are perfectly capable of shooting down stuff from orbit it's called get this "orbital support" what a concept huh!!!
Saying "simply" and "gimp all electronic capability for militaries" together in a cohesive sentence implies you're probably not very smart.
"

Where do you get the 'caliber' rating of a lasgun from?

There's a tale similar to this in the Angels of Darkness.

Basically, it goes bad when fighting transhumans that can surgical strike at will and use drop pods and teleporters from orbit.

We'd probably win.
It'd be horribly bloody but we'd probably win.

Simple.

Nuke... everthing and rust the remainders with a bloodbath of our own people blood splattering on their armour until they finally have their armour fall apart. To be rather honest Space Marines simply cannot fight such a sustained war. Even their chainswords (CC weapons) would begin to dull after so much combat and their ammo would quickly run out. This is comparing a planet's worth of soldiers, nukes, and other weapons to the surgicial space marines that are supposed to strike and get out.

A space marine chapter's battle fleet would win. What would you do against lance strikes and gigantic gun batteries from orbit?

 riverhawks32 wrote:
A space marine chapter's battle fleet would win. What would you do against lance strikes and gigantic gun batteries from orbit?

It's like you didn't read the OP...

Sooooo... basically Bloods vs IG?

 StarTrotter wrote:
Simple.

Nuke... everthing and rust the remainders with a bloodbath of our own people blood splattering on their armour until they finally have their armour fall apart. To be rather honest Space Marines simply cannot fight such a sustained war. Even their chainswords (CC weapons) would begin to dull after so much combat and their ammo would quickly run out. This is comparing a planet's worth of soldiers, nukes, and other weapons to the surgicial space marines that are supposed to strike and get out.

Chainswords would go through flesh and bone like a vibrating hot knife through butter, they simply will not dull from killing regular dudes, plus if their ammo runs out they can scream loud enough to kill normal humans, and I explained that nukes are barred from use because thunderhawks can pretty easily shoot them down anyway.

ThePrimordial wrote:
The Space marine chapter in question is the Blood Angels who have no Battle Barges but do have all their Thunderhawks for use in orbital assists. They also have all their tanks, fellblades, land raiders, bikes and the like.
They have Mephiston, Dante, Their flying librarian dreadnoughts, deepstriking land raiders, and all their psykers.
The Blood Angels in the scenario are teleported through Tzeentchan nonsense to current day Earth, and seeing that we do no follow the imperial cult, they declare war on us!
Current day man taken aback by this does not have time to prepare but all the militaries on Earth are ready for war.
Assume that pretty much any nukes would be shot down by Thunderhawks.
I know this has probably been done before but in the months I've been on here I've never seen it done so bare with me.

Are you saying that the Blood Angels have no battle barges.

Or they have no battle barges in this scenario? Because if it is the latter, then you are misinformed, they have 2 the Blade of Vengeance and the Bloodcaller.

Either way, the Space Marines win. No question, 40k is simply that much bigger and better.

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Sooooo... basically Bloods vs IG?

Imperial Guard have way better weapons than we do. Like tanks that fire bunker destroying rounds basic and fully automatic anti tank guns referred to as flashlights in fandom.....

You know those poorly equipped rebels that the Imperial Guard stomps into the ground? They are better than us technologically. Leman Russ battle tanks make Abrahms tanks look like tin cans with pea shooters. Space Marines are said to be better than Imperial Guardsmen. We could drown them in corpses since it's 6 billion vs. 1000 but it would be a bloodbath.

ThePrimordial wrote:

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Sooooo... basically Bloods vs IG?

Imperial Guard have way better weapons than we do. Like tanks that fire bunker destroying rounds basic and fully automatic anti tank guns referred to as flashlights in fandom.....

Uh? No? The lasgun is about as strong as an autogun which is really just an assault rifle by another name.

The marines would die at one point, they're not immune to volume of fire.

We also have a population of 7 billion against a force of a maximum of 2,000.
It would be bloody but earth would win.
Then we'd have access to all this technology that the marines kindly gave us... well 'gave'

 Bobthehero wrote:

ThePrimordial wrote:

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Sooooo... basically Bloods vs IG?

Imperial Guard have way better weapons than we do. Like tanks that fire bunker destroying rounds basic and fully automatic anti tank guns referred to as flashlights in fandom.....

Uh? No? The lasgun is about as strong as an autogun which is really just an assault rifle by another name.

The marines would die at one point, they're not immune to volume of fire.

But they are also not dumb enough to try engage us in prolonged fights, they'd indentify all the major leadership points of planet, drop pod in wipe out our leaders, and then pull back into their Thunderhawks in orbit, and watch us kill ourselves.

This comparison is hard to make due to fluff disparity.
In the game, a guardsman (See: Perfectly normal human) has a 1/18 chance to punch a Marine to death in a fistfight.
In Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, an Ork (See: Eight feet of pure muscle and aggression) has a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything.
It all comes down to "What fluff are you reading from"?
There are other ways to nuke people besides launching the bomb as a missile, by the way. Briefcase nukes could be snuck into battle, air strikes (They can't shoot down ALL our bombers, can they?) And there was one experimental weapon that fired a nuke like artillery. You can't brush off all nuclear warfare with a single (rather dumb) excuse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

ThePrimordial wrote:

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Sooooo... basically Bloods vs IG?

Imperial Guard have way better weapons than we do. Like tanks that fire bunker destroying rounds basic and fully automatic anti tank guns referred to as flashlights in fandom.....

Uh? No? The lasgun is about as strong as an autogun which is really just an assault rifle by another name.

The marines would die at one point, they're not immune to volume of fire.

But they are also not dumb enough to try engage us in prolonged fights, they'd indentify all the major leadership points of planet, drop pod in wipe out our leaders, and then pull back into their Thunderhawks in orbit, and watch us kill ourselves.

Or take out our oil refineries, let us run out of fuel to use any of our tanks or planes, and then stroll in and annihilate us.

Waaaghpower wrote:
This comparison is hard to make due to fluff disparity.
In the game, a guardsman (See: Perfectly normal human) has a 1/18 chance to punch a Marine to death in a fistfight.
In Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, an Ork (See: Eight feet of pure muscle and aggression) has a snowballs chance in hell of doing anything.
It all comes down to "What fluff are you reading from"?
There are other ways to nuke people besides launching the bomb as a missile, by the way. Briefcase nukes could be snuck into battle, air strikes (They can't shoot down ALL our bombers, can they?) And there was one experimental weapon that fired a nuke like artillery. You can't brush off all nuclear warfare with a single (rather dumb) excuse.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eldercaveman wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

ThePrimordial wrote:

 Laughingcarp wrote:
Sooooo... basically Bloods vs IG?

Imperial Guard have way better weapons than we do. Like tanks that fire bunker destroying rounds basic and fully automatic anti tank guns referred to as flashlights in fandom.....

Uh? No? The lasgun is about as strong as an autogun which is really just an assault rifle by another name.

The marines would die at one point, they're not immune to volume of fire.

But they are also not dumb enough to try engage us in prolonged fights, they'd indentify all the major leadership points of planet, drop pod in wipe out our leaders, and then pull back into their Thunderhawks in orbit, and watch us kill ourselves.

Or take out our oil refineries, let us run out of fuel to use any of our tanks or planes, and then stroll in and annihilate us.

Queue the invention of Prius tanks *shudders* or solar powered tanks which would go about a mile an hour if that

Considering how SM are the Sword of the Emperor and they do pin-point strikes instead of massive attrition warfare I say we would be -ed.

With their Psykers they would probably find who was really important to strike down to create confusion among the population / military and we would be powerless to block this psychic scan because we have no psykers ourselves.

And how would the military prevail against a pinpoint strike with Drop Pods falling from the skies, Thunderhawks swooping above from the atmosphere or Teleporting capabilities? I think anyone would crap their pants if they saw over a dozen Terminators appearing out of no where.

I know we have ships with missile interceptor capabilities, but I don't know if it would work against drop pods.

Trying to compare 40k to the modern world doesn't really work, 40k is really a Fantasy universe hamfisted into Space, it works largely because it says it does. No 40k ship would function in real life, certainly not with the crew requirements they have, for things like slave gangs to turn turrets onto targets and other sillyness.

Real world military equipment is far more advanced than what is available to armies in the 41st millenium. Modern tanks can move at highway speeds and hit another tank moving at highway speeds 2km away with an accuracy rate of 90% or greater (with the longest confirmed range tank kill at a distance of over 5 kilometers!). Artillery can put a shell into 3m box from 30 miles away. Modern aircraft can engage each other beyond the horizon from over 100 miles away.


A Space Marine chapter would have to rely on the threat of orbital bombardment with their ships that stop working once the real world is applied to them.

If it comes down to actual planetary fighting, the Space Marines are all dead in an hour through air attacks and artillery bombardments and they'd never see what killed them. 1000 marines aren't going to win against millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of Jets and Helicopters, hundreds of thousands of tanks and an equal number of artillery cannon that the modern world possesses. They couldn't be everywhere they'd need to be, or even 1/10,000th of the places they'd really need to be. And worst comes to worst, there are more than enough nuclear weapons to wipe out any SM landing zones in short order, and enough aircraft to ensure it is impossible to resupply said marines.


On top of that, going by the only actual printed sources we have (Imperial Armour Volume 2) on armor thickness and relative effectiveness, there are WW2 anti-tank guns that will penetrate a Land Raider's thickest armor, with a modern MBT 120mm AP round from a Leo2's L55 gun probably able to penetrate through and through probably 2 lined up Land Raiders and into a third.


Not to mention that SM's really don't have any inbuilt intelligence gathering ability short of SM scouts (not really the greatest thing in the universe) and using psykers to probe people. They wouldn't know where to strike, who to target, who to kidnap, etc.


TL;DR applying 40k to the real world is a bad idea, 40k stops working when realism is applied and the modern world actually has far more advanced equipment.

A note on the Land Raider armor stat: I always assumed that the 200mm RHAe was for 40k era RHAe, 38,000 years from now, since IAv2 was written from an in-universe prospective .

That means their RHAe could be Rolled Homogeneous Adamantium or something.

Otherwise it's quite embarrassing .

They would run out of supplies (ammunition mostly) before they got anywhere. We don't have a unified planetary command (governor) to kill/subdue so they would have to fight each nation separately. We also have way too many soldiers to kill unless each Space Marine has a million bolter shells.

Imperium planets always seem to fall over when the renegade governor is replaced.

Okay so lets compared modern 21st Century military might with genetically superior, power armored (of which we don't have the tech for yet), and space faring Marines.

That's fair.

That being said, we could win. WE just have too many people, and some of our tech is (embarrassingly) more advanced than theirs. Also, would their psykers be of any use? Since Humans aren't a psychic capable race yet, would they be able to get at us?

 Vaktathi wrote:
Trying to compare 40k to the modern world doesn't really work, 40k is really a Fantasy universe hamfisted into Space, it works largely because it says it does. No 40k ship would function in real life, certainly not with the crew requirements they have, for things like slave gangs to turn turrets onto targets and other sillyness.

Real world military equipment is far more advanced than what is available to armies in the 41st millenium. Modern tanks can move at highway speeds and hit another tank moving at highway speeds 2km away with an accuracy rate of 90% or greater (with the longest confirmed range tank kill at a distance of over 5 kilometers!). Artillery can put a shell into 3m box from 30 miles away. Modern aircraft can engage each other beyond the horizon from over 100 miles away.


A Space Marine chapter would have to rely on the threat of orbital bombardment with their ships that stop working once the real world is applied to them.

If it comes down to actual planetary fighting, the Space Marines are all dead in an hour through air attacks and artillery bombardments and they'd never see what killed them. 1000 marines aren't going to win against millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of Jets and Helicopters, hundreds of thousands of tanks and an equal number of artillery cannon that the modern world possesses. They couldn't be everywhere they'd need to be, or even 1/10,000th of the places they'd really need to be. And worst comes to worst, there are more than enough nuclear weapons to wipe out any SM landing zones in short order, and enough aircraft to ensure it is impossible to resupply said marines.


On top of that, going by the only actual printed sources we have (Imperial Armour Volume 2) on armor thickness and relative effectiveness, there are WW2 anti-tank guns that will penetrate a Land Raider's thickest armor, with a modern MBT 120mm AP round from a Leo2's L55 gun probably able to penetrate through and through probably 2 lined up Land Raiders and into a third.


Not to mention that SM's really don't have any inbuilt intelligence gathering ability short of SM scouts (not really the greatest thing in the universe) and using psykers to probe people. They wouldn't know where to strike, who to target, who to kidnap, etc.


TL;DR applying 40k to the real world is a bad idea, 40k stops working when realism is applied and the modern world actually has far more advanced equipment.

Ya know, this. You hit it on the dot.

It would be like the Imperial Guard fighting a Space Marine chapter, but the Imperial Guard are really, really advanced technology wise. While a bolter is strong, I can't see it piercing any sort of vehicle armor. However, I could see a 5.56mm round piercing power armor. PA is really not all that protective. It stops las-gun fire, but pretty much everything stops las-gun fire, and you frequently see in the fluff bolters and other weapons going clean through PA. Terminator armor would be a different story, but just like in 40k enough firepower and it will drop.

 Vaktathi wrote:
snip

Well said!

Or said scenario but in the marvel universe instead, huh huh?

 Vaktathi wrote:



1000 marines aren't going to win against millions of soldiers, tens of thousands of Jets and Helicopters, hundreds of thousands of tanks and an equal number of artillery cannon that the modern world possesses. They couldn't be everywhere they'd need to be, or even 1/10,000th of the places they'd really need to be. And worst comes to worst, there are more than enough nuclear weapons to wipe out any SM landing zones in short order, and enough aircraft to ensure it is impossible to resupply said marines.

Nonsense. If Maugan Ra, a lone Eldar all by himself, can single-handedly prevent a Tyranid Hive Fleet from making planetfall, 1000 Marines could surely defend dozens of separate planets + all their moons without breaking much of a sweat.

And let's not forget that during (Forge World's version of) the Badab War, the Red Scorpions removed the core of the central sun of the planetary system in question, threw it at a pesky orbital space station, all without upsetting the basic gravitational balance of the planetary system (or significantly harming the planet the station was orbiting), and they only did so because reinforcements were late and they didn't have "proppa" weapons.

The sheer amount of intergalactic engineering-skills on display there (for such a mundane purpose as removing a space station) makes the Old Ones weep.

I read an interesting book saying that pretty much all of the modern military machine could be more efficiently replaced by infantry and aircraft alone.

Tanks are mostly designed to kill other tanks over open terrain. Modern man portable missile technology and/or aircraft negate tanks.

Artillery has a woeful range compared to aircraft, are difficult to resupply and aren't necessarily that accurate. replace with aircraft.

Helicopters have a similar problem when compared to jets.

So we get down to the key benefits of our current military - Missile tech, accurate airborne weapons, and a population of 7 billion allowing us to strap huge wads of C4 to poorly equipped troops and send waves of them at the marines. Barring the intervention of orbital weapons, you'll end up with lots of explosives being hugged to the marines and going foom.

We also have enough nukes around to seed a wide variety of likely drop pod landing zones with mines and lure them in, or lob a few tactical nukes into new landing zones by artillery or aircraft based platforms. Hell, given that ICBMs have about a 4 minute run time, you could hit them after they land in a way that is really hard to intercept.

I would tend to agree that it would be costly, but we would win in the end. Without the support of the Imperial Guard, Marines can't take and hold anything and we would end up winning by attrition.

 Flinty wrote:
I read an interesting book saying that pretty much all of the modern military machine could be more efficiently replaced by infantry and aircraft alone.

Tanks are mostly designed to kill other tanks over open terrain. Modern man portable missile technology and/or aircraft negate tanks.

Artillery has a woeful range compared to aircraft, are difficult to resupply and aren't necessarily that accurate. replace with aircraft.

Helicopters have a similar problem when compared to jets.

So we get down to the key benefits of our current military - Missile tech, accurate airborne weapons, and a population of 7 billion allowing us to strap huge wads of C4 to poorly equipped troops and send waves of them at the marines. Barring the intervention of orbital weapons, you'll end up with lots of explosives being hugged to the marines and going foom.

We also have enough nukes around to seed a wide variety of likely drop pod landing zones with mines and lure them in, or lob a few tactical nukes into new landing zones by artillery or aircraft based platforms. Hell, given that ICBMs have about a 4 minute run time, you could hit them after they land in a way that is really hard to intercept.

I would tend to agree that it would be costly, but we would win in the end. Without the support of the Imperial Guard, Marines can't take and hold anything and we would end up winning by attrition.

But that's the thing, Marines do NOT play the war of attrition game unless it's absolutely critical. That's the IG's job.

The SM do precision strikes. They get in, kill / maim / burn what they have to do and hopefully get out or die to the last man trying. With their firepower and armor they should be able to succeed in their mission and GTFO before it becomes a war of attrition.

Not to mention they would pound the heck of us if they decided to Orbital Strike important defense assets.

And I still think their ceramite armor is much stronger than people give it credit for. I think the only way a modern day gun would be able to kill a marine outright with a bullet would be with a lucky shot, like hitting the lenses. And it better be a heavy caliber. I honestly think they would just be p*ssed if a 9mm hit a marine's eye.

Lots of Edits: Lots of silly mistakes

A full maned drop pod should deal with the most important targets. Just imagine a pod breaching through the roof of the white house. That alone would stun the whole world for quite some time. Then the huge bulk of the civilian population has no idea how to fight at all and the bulk of modern military is trained in a support role, they barely train to fight either. Some shock attacks at political, military and logistic key points and pretty much everything would collaps.