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tigonesskay wrote:I was wondering if the races of 40k were to invade earth today how would our military hold up?
US army vs orks- As far as missiles tanks and weapons we got the orks beat. In hand to hand combat we're pretty much screwed. A bayonet attached to an M-16 might not do
much to a who mob of Orks. The Seals and the speical forces might be used for scouting missions killing Leader orks to bring their morale down.
....Vs. Tau-It could go 50-50. A fight with them might end in a draw forcing the tau to come to a peace agreement with earth.
....Vs 'Nids we will be deep in... We will end up using nuclear weapons and even if we somehow win we will have all of the fallout to worry about...
.....Vs. Dark eldar. They might not be strong enough for a full scale invasion but with so many wars going on they sneak in during the chaos and snatch up some people up to use as slaves.
.....Vs. Necrons It'll be a long hard fight but if all of the armies of the world come together we might beat them if they are a small force. If the force necrons are legion sized....

Any race would get completely and utterly annihilated according to the "rules" as written.

First of all, short of any kind of planetary bombardment, ie: nuke them from orbit, the 40k world is measured in absurdly short distance. 72 inches is the upward limit of ranged weaponry in 40k, for the most part.

An F16 with AWACS support can engage enemy targets outside of visual range. That's the equivalent of hundreds of inches of table space. The m829 discarding sabot, a tank round utilizing a depleted uranium penetrator, has been confirmed to have penetrated TWO T72 tanks FULLY during the Gulf War. They can be used to penetrate 10-30 meters of sand and engage tanks on the opposite side, and kill them. Cover saves? Hah, get out of here. I don't know if any of you have ever shot sand, but 8" of sand will stop most rifle rounds. Our tank rounds can penetrate 30 METERS of sand and kill enemy tanks on the other side.

It doesn't matter what ceramic-steel armor a Land Raider might have. One depleted uranium sabot will pop any armor on the battlefield, modern, future, alien, whatever. The longest kill was a 120mm Sabot round was made by a British Challenger at 5.1 KILOMETERS. I don't know how many inches this translates to in 40k, but I'm assuming it's several tables in length.




40k is a game. Real life weaponry is far more devastating than any bolter could ever dream to be. Lascannons are a joke in terms of what the real world has produced for destroying enemy tanks in the 20th century.

You know what? You're right. The modern world vs 40k tabletop would equal 40k getting crushed.

BUT you have to remember that 40k is a game, it needs balance and rules and limitations that the fluff does not have. The intent was never to have several table-tops of matches with vast distances, in such a game one side or the other would completely annihilate thier opponent. Balance dictates these limitations.

Fluffwise, it's not so restricted. A believe sabot rounds could kill a tank, maybe even a termie. But I think it's comparable to a lascannon. It will have difficulty destroying something like a Land Raider or Monolith.

Fluffwise, orks can fire insane amounts of rockets in the air (Read 15 hours and you see) that can knock out aircraft regardless of how fast they move. (When you throw that much gak in the air you WILL hit something)

Fluffwise, space marines rip through steel with thier bare hands and bolter rounds penetrate tanks.

Fluffwise, Tau shoot. A lot.

Fluffwise, Nid's get carpet bombed but it does nothing. (And Mycetic spores)

Fluffwise, 40k suddenly looks a bit more formidable.

1 decent sized comet would plunge the world into another ice age and kill us all... I'm pretty sure quite a few of the 40k races could manage that.

Considering things like the Valhallans live on a planet as cold as Pluto, or the fact that terminator armor can absorb missile blasts with no issue... we'd be in trouble.

Vs 1 chapter we'd be fine. Vs a fleet of anything we'd be screwed. Vs orcs we'd be wiped out completely I reckon.

Vs 100 marines we'd be in deep crap, (They have strike cruisers too) never mind a whole Chapter. (A whole chapter cleanse entire subsectors, and wouldn't be wasted on a mere rebel planet)

They wouldn't have the manpower to subjugate us, but they'd certainly be able to crush our forces and soften us up enough for the millions of Guardsmen that followed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
BTW, Valhalla =/= Pluto.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:The longest kill was a 120mm Sabot round was made by a British Challenger at 5.1 KILOMETERS. I don't know how many inches this translates to in 40k, but I'm assuming it's several tables in length.

That's 200,787.4 inches. To scale that's 6274.6 inches or in the neighborhood of 1/10th of a mile. Not sure fighting a tabletop game in your back yard with your opponent in your neighbors neighbors neighbors back yard really works.

NuggzTheNinja wrote:40k is a game. Real life weaponry is far more devastating than any bolter could ever dream to be. Lascannons are a joke in terms of what the real world has produced for destroying enemy tanks in the 20th century.

I completely agree with you. Modern military weaponry and firepower make much of what exists in 40k look pathetic in comparison.

BS 4? HA! Our missiles are laser guided and almost ALWAYS hit.
AV 14? HA! Here’s a 120mm round – actually no, have 10 for good measure.
Oh you have Titans? What a shame, have an EMP
Night fighting rules in effect? Sucks to be you, we have night vision

40k is behind the times a bit in terms of modern warfare.

If a pistol a grot built out of mud, sticks, and prayers (The weakest 40k ranged weapon I can think of) outright kills a tac marine 1/6th of the time on a hit... a modern rifle better damn well at least do that much damage.

Gorkamorka wrote:If a pistol a grot built out of mud, sticks, and prayers (The weakest 40k ranged weapon I can think of) outright kills a tac marine 1/6th of the time on a hit... a modern rifle better damn well at least do that much damage.

Lasguns and Autoguns have more or less the same profile. Autoguns are basically 20th century rifles. If lasguns can kill Marines, run of the mill modern rifles would work just fine.

The question we should be asking ourselves is, would any of the stuff in 40k actually be useful in the real world? The answer is pretty much "no". Power armor would require too much maintenence for the protection it affords and would cost a bundle, bolters would be fairly worthless, lasguns *maybe* acceptable, Dreadnoughts and Sentinels would be RPG fodder.

Tacticaly many things in 40k make no sense, why would you put and armoured chasis on legs? As it is fantasy, the rules of engagement are vastly diiferent, just like at one time we stood in straight lines to shoot each other, war evolves. Since the descriptions of 40k weapons are so ambiguous it is hard to tell what would happen in a straight up brawl, but I have to say, earth whould be terrified out of it's mind, 6.5' soldiers that can rip people in half, imperiator titans. Terror is 40k's main weapon against us, that and blowing up our planet from high orbit.

Of course, these are all very nice and all. But you have yet to even come close to the problem of Orbital Bombardments.

Oh yes we have, and we found that it destroys us, without exeption we are owed by OB. What can we do against that, nukes? , they aren't program to fight ships in high orbit (even if they could), plus void shields would laugh at us.

This is a totally ridiculous topic. If an army technology 38000 years more advanced than ours invaded Earth, we would be completely doomed without chance. Blow up 10 major cities and Earth will be begging for mercy.

speedfreak wrote:This is a totally ridiculous topic. If an army technology 38000 years more advanced than ours invaded Earth, 40k lost pretty much all of it's cool tech after the Dark Age of Technology we would be completely doomed without chance. Blow up 10 major cities and Earth will be begging for mercy. That part's true though.

speedfreak wrote:This is a totally ridiculous topic. If an army technology 38000 years more advanced than ours invaded Earth, we would be completely doomed without chance. Blow up 10 major cities and Earth will be begging for mercy.

Epic win, and your right.

Meh, the Divisio mandati does a job like this every other week. Two Imperetors a continent, send out reasonable demands and set up Inquisitorial, Munitorium, and Arbites houses in every continent. If there's a fuss, make a big show and blow some stuff up, yeah?


If we were able to advance from viking longships to the USS Nimitz in 1000 years, think what we could do in 38,000.

This is ridiculess. All we need is a decent hammer and entire regiments would be reduced to plastic and metal bits.

I know nothing of modern military technology, so I will not atempt to comment on it, but I will point out that that it is very difficult to argue about how hard it is to pierce metals that don't exist with bullets that do.

if the imperium or tau invaded us we could simply surrender and agree to their greater good or emperor, everybody else we are screwed, if its taking us over 9 years to kill a HUMAN(Osama)
then what makes you think we can defeat giant men with automatic rocket launching rifles, or beat alien equivalents of terriost

Actually, if not given the choice of surrender, I imagine humanity here would put up a fantastic (if vainglorious) fight.

It may be futile, but when cornered humans really can give what for. (Valhallans are an excellent 40k example, and I can't even begin to credit all those in real history who have done similarily)

A few nations would be too proud to surrender (e.g. U.S.,
China, the bad Korea...) Until the U.N. get's involved...

tigonesskay wrote:A few nations would be too proud to surrender (e.g. U.S.,
China, the bad Korea...) Until the U.N. get's involved...

Well, the UN might be able to get the US to see some reason. I think the US would splinter into factions that did or did not agree. Other nations would suffer this to greater or lesser degrees. The die-hards would have to be exterminated, they would not capitulate. If the options were 'present a tithe of soldiers and stop wasting your strength squabbling against yourselves or we'll destroy you', then they'd have to help in the no squabbling bit for a few generations, but life would likely continue on quite similar to how it does now.

If earth is OB'ed then what's the point if you wanted to capture the planet or it's resources? I thought OB's were for planets too damned to save or to stop the 'nids.

That guy has a point.. Earth is a pretty good planet with the fact that about 90% of planets in the 40K universe are messed up to begin with. Either wars or massive polution renders most imperial planets a eyesore.

Reading the planet strike book, there is a story of a inquistior and a company of space marines taking a planet that was pretty fethed up by chaos deamons... The only reason they just didn't blow the planet up was because the factories on that planet were invaulable.

Earth would be pretty invaulable imho. We have much water on our planet that would be worth heaps to others. We have several matierals that would find a use in the imperium and we would be able to supply some pretty good imperial guardsmens (Think a legion of stormtroopers)

Superscope wrote:That guy has a point.. quote]
I'm a gal actually but it's okay..

Put is this way. A Lasgun, capable supposedly of blowing the limb off of an unarmoured human (which is similar to one of our .50 caliber rounds) will do absolutely nothing to power armour in the fluff but blister the paint, if that. If one of our most powerful anti-personnel/ anti-material weapons is capable of doing nothing but blister its armour, then surely even a bazooka will be very hard pressed to do much more than scratch the paint. And lets not forget that a marine would be capable of biting through the armour of our tanks and absolutely murder any human in HtH simply because of speed and strength. You can literally fire as many sniper shots at their heads as you want and do nothing. Nothing short of an anti tank weapon will even slow them down.

They have pinpoint accuracy and even their side arms are capable of blowing up a car in a single shot. A bolter shoots explosive .75 caliber bullets remember? They are more than capable of blowing up an armoured vehicle with one pistol shot. And a marine wouldnt miss.

There are soooo many more reasons why we would lose. Lets not even start on terminators. If marines can take literally 1000 bullets to the face befroe even a crack in the armour then a terminator would quite literally be capable of destroying, for example the entire New Zealand Army single handedly. Their speed and strength and toughness is incomprehensible to us.

I would not rate our chances at all against 100 marines. A whole chapter would have us in a week.

Madgod wrote:
There are soooo many more reasons why we would lose. Lets not even start on terminators. If marines can take literally 1000 bullets to the face befroe even a crack in the armour then a terminator would quite literally be capable of destroying, for example the entire New Zealand Army single handedly.

Pffft.
http://www.invadenewzealand.com/

And no, we wouldn't use Exterminatus, but Orbital Bombardments are still very viable. What is a city or two to them, if it ensures thier surrender?

BTW, I have no doubt that the resistance over the years to occupation (after marines have left) would cause the Imperium far more casualties than any front-up initial war with us.

I'm picturing a war between a company of Space Marines and the modern Earth as going something like this;

Day 1
-Strike Cruiser arrives in orbit, demands our surrender. UN dithers. Various national leaders broadcast outraged refusals. Militaries begin to mobilize.

-Strike Cruiser shoots down all satellites, rendering us more or less blind, deaf and dumb; no satellite radio or TV, no military communication satellites, no orbital surveillance, no Google Earth even.

-Strike Cruiser blankets the radio spectrum with emissions, assuming void shields and lance batteries don't already do so, cutting off radio transmissions and isolating every

- Squadrons of Space Marines drop in on the capital cities of all major nations; Thunderhawks blow any fighters away as they come in, or the drop pods simply land too fast to be intercepted. National governments of the USA, China, Russia, and other major powers are utterly decapitated; legislatures annihilated, executives killed or captured. Space Marines return to orbit.

-Military commands of major powers are destroyed from orbit; the Pentagon, for example, is obliterated by a lance strike. Demonstration strikes may also be made on other areas.

-Another call for surrender is given. Earth is in chaos. Minor powers begin to surrender.

Day 2
-Attempts are made to hit the Strike Cruiser with nuclear weapons. The nukes are shot down, and the silos are blasted, along with any nearby urban areas.

-Small numbers of Space Marines drop into surrendered areas and claim them for the Imperium. Space Marines begin the process of hunting down and exterminating any resistance, along with locals who jump on the bandwagon.

-More precision strikes and squad-sized drops break apart any sizable concentration of troops; major cities in Iraq and Afghanistan are eradicated from orbit, taking much of the US military with them. Any large troop concentration is vaporized, including those inside urban areas. Death toll rises to the millions.

-Space Marines drop on the UN complex in New York and kill all delegates present, then destroy the complex as a show of force. Hundreds if not thousands of soldiers and policemen are killed attempting to stop them.

-Civilians flee urban centers by the millions, causing widespread panic and confusion.

-Some major powers begin to surrender.

Day 3
-Space Marines continue to land in the capital centers of surrendered powers. National militaries of those nations which surrender are impressed to continue the war against those which still resist. Since those nations which have surrendered by this time still have some intact military capacity, they will have a massive advantage as fighting continues.

-Strikes continue on targets of opportunity.

Days 4-???
- Space Marines call for an Imperial Guard occupation force; it will arrive sometime in the next several months, if no warp storms intervene.

-Impressed human troops begin moving to take over those countries which continue to resist. Any surrendered nations which drag their feet have high government officials executed and replaced.

-Organized resistance is destroyed by orbital firepower and precision drops.

-Those nations which are completely taken over are ruled relatively lightly. The contrast between these fairly prosperous places and the cratered warzones that remain of those nations that continue to fight saps the morale of the resistance.

-Sporadic fighting continues until the Imperial Guard arrive.

Day ???
-Imperial Guard arrive in orbit and begin landing. Any remaining resistance is crushed in short order. The Space Marines depart for the next world on their list.

OMG.

To the 'people' who think that when they log on to Google Earth they are taking control of their own satilite, stop thinking and for our future as a race go out and get sterilized. This data is present on what we call SERVERS and it is SAVED so that you may call up these IMAGES when you want to. This is a pretty good proxy argument for all of you nay-sayers, you assume that today's nations would be crushed but you don't know anything about today's technology.

A .50 caliber round is not the strongest bullet made today, that is why they are classified as 'medium arms'. An autocannon is equal to a modern day autocannon and we can start our real-world fluff comparisons there. In which case we have the ability to take out a Space Marine a lot easier then some of you are suggeting, but a sniper would NOT be the one to do it. I believe that their materials are stronger then anything we have today but they are not indistructable.

The nuclear weapons that were stockpiled during the cold war would have been ICBMs because it's more fuel efficent going half-way around the world in stratospheric flight then it would be sub-orbital. This is a short jump to orbital flight and I'm sure that we would be more then capable of changing it if the missles can't do it already.

The armor (tanks) would be tough but we could eventually destroy them, even if we resort to Tactical Nuclear Weapons as opposed to the massive planet killers that the rest of you are suggesting. There are non-nuclear options like thermobarics or HE and AP rounds, probably with less effect but better ecologically

In Real World we have to view the Space Marines as much stronger Navy SEALS. They are tough as nails individually and no one will question that, but in an open battle field against an armed force equiped force they would be crushed simply because they are not meant to be in that kind of a fight. Troops on the ground would be bombed or shelled and anything in the air would be flying in flak and SAM missles for hours on end.

I'll imagine that the Imperial Guard are probably trained on par with the US-Marine Force Recon\ Army Rangers or the UK-SAS\ Commando Brigade and they are numberd in the millions so that would be a tough fight. I think we would lose against them.

We DO have lasers by the way, what we lack is a portable power source

ComputerGeek01 wrote:OMG.

To the 'people' who think that when they log on to Google Earth they are taking control of their own satilite, stop thinking and for our future as a race go out and get sterilized. This data is present on what we call SERVERS and it is SAVED so that you may call up these IMAGES when you want to.

FYI, I'm aware of that. However, the images are updated periodically, meaning there is a SATELLITE taking pictures. No satellite, no updates, Google Earth becomes obsolete pretty soon. Normal construction would make sure of that, not to mention a planet-spanning war.

Morgrim wrote:

tigonesskay wrote:A few nations would be too proud to surrender (e.g. U.S.,
China, the bad Korea...) Until the U.N. get's involved...

Well, the UN might be able to get the US to see some reason. I think the US would splinter into factions that did or did not agree. Other nations would suffer this to greater or lesser degrees. The die-hards would have to be exterminated, they would not capitulate. If the options were 'present a tithe of soldiers and stop wasting your strength squabbling against yourselves or we'll destroy you', then they'd have to help in the no squabbling bit for a few generations, but life would likely continue on quite similar to how it does now.

NO ONE MESSES WITH TEXAS!!!
*Chuck Norris will come and roundhouse kick a Space Marine, then they will all realise that the Emperor has been reancarnated(sp)*

Problems Solved!

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Madgod wrote:
There are soooo many more reasons why we would lose. Lets not even start on terminators. If marines can take literally 1000 bullets to the face befroe even a crack in the armour then a terminator would quite literally be capable of destroying, for example the entire New Zealand Army single handedly.

Pffft.
http://www.invadenewzealand.com/

That would be a little bit of over kill?
A SM could take 1000 bullets? Not if you shoot them in the eyeball...

BeRzErKeR wrote:I'm picturing a war between a company of Space Marines and the modern Earth as going something like this;

Day 1
-Strike Cruiser arrives in orbit, demands our surrender. UN dithers. Various national leaders broadcast outraged refusals. Militaries begin to mobilize.

-Strike Cruiser shoots down all satellites, rendering us more or less blind, deaf and dumb; no satellite radio or TV, no military communication satellites, no orbital surveillance, no Google Earth even.

-Strike Cruiser blankets the radio spectrum with emissions, assuming void shields and lance batteries don't already do so, cutting off radio transmissions and isolating every

- Squadrons of Space Marines drop in on the capital cities of all major nations; Thunderhawks blow any fighters away as they come in, or the drop pods simply land too fast to be intercepted. National governments of the USA, China, Russia, and other major powers are utterly decapitated; legislatures annihilated, executives killed or captured. Space Marines return to orbit.

-Military commands of major powers are destroyed from orbit; the Pentagon, for example, is obliterated by a lance strike. Demonstration strikes may also be made on other areas.

-Another call for surrender is given. Earth is in chaos. Minor powers begin to surrender.

Day 2
-Attempts are made to hit the Strike Cruiser with nuclear weapons. The nukes are shot down, and the silos are blasted, along with any nearby urban areas.

-Small numbers of Space Marines drop into surrendered areas and claim them for the Imperium. Space Marines begin the process of hunting down and exterminating any resistance, along with locals who jump on the bandwagon.

-More precision strikes and squad-sized drops break apart any sizable concentration of troops; major cities in Iraq and Afghanistan are eradicated from orbit, taking much of the US military with them. Any large troop concentration is vaporized, including those inside urban areas. Death toll rises to the millions.

-Space Marines drop on the UN complex in New York and kill all delegates present, then destroy the complex as a show of force. Hundreds if not thousands of soldiers and policemen are killed attempting to stop them.

-Civilians flee urban centers by the millions, causing widespread panic and confusion.

-Some major powers begin to surrender.

Day 3
-Space Marines continue to land in the capital centers of surrendered powers. National militaries of those nations which surrender are impressed to continue the war against those which still resist. Since those nations which have surrendered by this time still have some intact military capacity, they will have a massive advantage as fighting continues.

-Strikes continue on targets of opportunity.

Days 4-???
- Space Marines call for an Imperial Guard occupation force; it will arrive sometime in the next several months, if no warp storms intervene.

-Impressed human troops begin moving to take over those countries which continue to resist. Any surrendered nations which drag their feet have high government officials executed and replaced.

-Organized resistance is destroyed by orbital firepower and precision drops.

-Those nations which are completely taken over are ruled relatively lightly. The contrast between these fairly prosperous places and the cratered warzones that remain of those nations that continue to fight saps the morale of the resistance.

-Sporadic fighting continues until the Imperial Guard arrive.

Day ???
-Imperial Guard arrive in orbit and begin landing. Any remaining resistance is crushed in short order. The Space Marines depart for the next world on their list.

So us West Virginians Are left alone... SWEET! big mistake, our branch of the national guard, random mountain men, me, and those that make a living hunting, move into the forests and co-opt gorrilla strike missions for a whiles untill the imperial guard come along, and burn out forests with hellhounds and flamers, while he retreat into the mountains, set up prime ambush areas, block off routs or makes them far to dangrous to travel by all but the famed Tanith First and Only. We then equip ourselves, or what's left of us, with RPGs Rock Luanchers, ect. And hold off as long as we can, untill tehy finally kill us off, soem months to years later.