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GT - while the fuel may be stable, the shielding / casing / control mechanisms would not; a significant portion of nuclear budgets is on keepign the damn things working*

*have 2 sites near where I live which do just that - disassemble nukes and test to make sure they are still gonna work. Building huge frikking lasers just to do this as well....

nosferatu1001 wrote:GT - while the fuel may be stable, the shielding / casing / control mechanisms would not; a significant portion of nuclear budgets is on keepign the damn things working*

*have 2 sites near where I live which do just that - disassemble nukes and test to make sure they are still gonna work. Building huge frikking lasers just to do this as well....

You mean huge lasguns?

nosferatu1001 wrote:GT - while the fuel may be stable, the shielding / casing / control mechanisms would not; a significant portion of nuclear budgets is on keepign the damn things working*

*have 2 sites near where I live which do just that - disassemble nukes and test to make sure they are still gonna work. Building huge frikking lasers just to do this as well....

and the impierium maintains hundreds of thousands of Kilometer long Starships, arms billions of Guardsmen, feeds those billions, maintains millions of tanks, extracts and refines fuel for those tanks and ships, Pays those billions of guardsmen(yes, they do pay many of them)

logistically, the maintenance of nuclear weapons systems is small potatoes. Clyclonic and Melta torpedoes would have no less complicated systems intergrated in them. prehaps even MORE complicated and they are used ALOT.

Ronin-Sage wrote:
Of course, when it comes to planets like Roks(?), daemon worlds and the like, you would hope/expect the most the destructive weapons possible to be brought to bear...

Lastly, there's the issue of "making sure" the enemy is completely dead. For instance, tomb worlds would probably not be outright nuked, but instead "cleansed" with something "cleaner" so that ground forces could be deployed to sweep out underground catacombs, which surface nukes would likely not damage. At the same time, you would expect the Imperium could have at some point developed an ordnance delivery system that uses something similiar to their ship-to-ship drill pods, where the missile is launched at a super-high velocity and drills itself to the vulnerable enemy within.

Or you deal with Roks, Daemon worlds, Tomb worlds and Tyranid infested planets with one thing, a Cyclonic Torpedo.

I think the reason they don't use them much is because...they don't have an real strategic purpose in the Imperium's battle tactics.

Example 1; Enemy world, no notable use for planet/asteroid/moon. Destroy the whole friggin' planet/asteroid base/moon with cyclonic torpedoes. No point in letting them have a chance to crawl into some fallout shelters and pop up a few years later. Nukes lack the power to crack planets (At even 10 times modern time's power...AFAIK)

Example 2; Rebel governor/cult uprising...etc. Drop planetary assault forces, support with artillery or even orbital bombardment from orbiting cruiser support. Not as much collateral damage to planetary infrastructure or resources, which is what the Imperium is REALLY interested in keeping.....nuts to the poor rebels.

Example 3; Enemy world, rich in resources, hidden technology, or is just a strategic strong point in the sector they want to man themselves. Just virus bomb the hell out of the planet. BAM, all life wiped out and they can terra-form/re-populate the world at their leisure.

Nukes aren't powerful enough to cause MEGA damage, and have long lasting radiation which can contaminate the Imperium's prize. I think nukes are more of a Dark age of Techology/Chaos thing, where collateral damage and radiation isn't cared about.

we have established that they DO use them. Plasma bombs are Fusion based warheads. Nucleonics are definitly used.


in your first example Nukes would be perfect to use. they leave radiation for many years ensuring that they don't come back out and it leaves the target usable after the radiation is gone.

2nd example: i will bet my lucky dice the impierium has tech to counter the effects of radiation on its soldiers. enviroment suits, injections(in Brotherhood of the Snake a marine injects a women with something that allows her to enter a radioactive area)

nukes have pretty small areas of effect when you are talking about a Planet and to the Galaxy as a whole. so you wasted a hundred square miles, you have the rest of the planet. and radiation can be cleaned up, sevitors are expendable so they use them to extract resources from the area.


Example 3: Virus bombs KILL the whole planet not just lifeforms. the atmosphere is burned away. anything that is vulnerable to tempertures in excess of 10,000 degrees is gone. they will NOT do this if there is a STC down there.

all that is left is an Airless ball of rock. worthless. Tyranids couldn't do a better job. Stratigic point? it better not have been what was ON the planet.

why you need nukes when you got World Eater bombs?

because Nukes don't kill the entire planet

CrashCanuck wrote:

Ronin-Sage wrote:
Of course, when it comes to planets like Roks(?), daemon worlds and the like, you would hope/expect the most the destructive weapons possible to be brought to bear...

Lastly, there's the issue of "making sure" the enemy is completely dead. For instance, tomb worlds would probably not be outright nuked, but instead "cleansed" with something "cleaner" so that ground forces could be deployed to sweep out underground catacombs, which surface nukes would likely not damage. At the same time, you would expect the Imperium could have at some point developed an ordnance delivery system that uses something similiar to their ship-to-ship drill pods, where the missile is launched at a super-high velocity and drills itself to the vulnerable enemy within.

Or you deal with Roks, Daemon worlds, Tomb worlds and Tyranid infested planets with one thing, a Cyclonic Torpedo.

You don't want to give Daemons new ideas.

Well, I think it's odd that some people are saying the Imperium doesn't use Nukes in order to avoid collateral damage? These are the same people that destroy entire planets populated with imperial civilians? The imperium has very much an attitude of "Kill them, better safe than sorry."

In terms of reasons for not using them, here are some of the things I think about Strategic (IE: City-busting) nukes:

1) Nukes are stated in the novel Mechanicus as 'Forbidden' weapons. Also, that was in the Heresy. Perhaps Nuclear tech has become much rarer, or even disappeared. (EDIT: Hang on, no, it hasn't disappeared. Just read the back posts!)

2) Nukes are primarily designed to destroy big cities. I can hardly imagine an enemy being able to establish a major city on an imperial world, and if it were an enemy world, surely it would just be planet-busted by cyclonic torpedoes or similar? Therefore, there is no real use for strategic nukes, other than destroying key tactical sites on ememy worlds the imperium wants to capture, and after all, you can just send in 12 million guardsmen to do the job more thoroughly (cleaning out catacombs, etc) rather than requisitoning hard-to-find tech, and waiting months for it to arrive.

However:

What I don't understand, however, is the lack of tactical nukes.
These are nukes designed to be used against enemy forces in ground combat situations, rather than cities and bases.
Yes, you can send out the guardsmen and tanks and titans, but surely it's much more efficient to say "Oh look, two million orks massing on the plains. Ok, press the tactical-nuke-deploying big red button."
Boom. 80-90% of orks gone.

Due to distance, there would be little or minimal damage to the city, and were the bomb designed like a small tsar bomb, (IE: Almost no radiation, just a big bang) there would be no lasting effects on the human populations.

Anyway, surely the imperium has some kind of super-heavy explosive weapon, even if nukes have disappeared, so surely if you want rid of the big ork invasion, use that, rather than throwing away your Titans, which might be needed to fight of the Eldar (who probably don't mass in one big killable chunk!)
.
Silly commanders.

Yes, the Imperium does have a big explody weapon.

There is no need for Nukes - we have EXTERMINATUS!!! Its better, cleaner, quicker and comes in handy sized cyclonic torpedos. Much better than Trident!

I totally forgot about Deathstrikes.

i belive those are confirmed as being Tactical Nukes(not represented on the table top accurately though)

And anyway, I think the imperium should use mass-attack nuclear bombardments as planet killers. I'm sure a big imperial ship could carry enough nukes to render a planet uninhabitable via radiation/nuclear winter.

See, this is because I don't like cyclonic torpedoes. It's actually stated that one torpedo can destroy a planet. As in tearing away the entire crust and ripping it apart.
With one missile.
Uhh, right.

Look, I don't mind them making up new physics (like the warp, etc), but I object to them taking the current ones and saying "ah well, that doesn't matter, does it?"
Seriouly, I can understand Virus Bombs, they semi make sense, but throwing one missile at a planet and then watching as the entire crust gets blown off by wind? Come on...

Hence, I like masses of nukes, because in the situation, they would actually work, and render the planet uninhabitable.

Nah the Emprah doesn't like nukes, in the Official Canon the age of strife and earlier periods are full of references to nukes. The Emprah likes the Bolter and sword method of clearing Xenos and scumbags. Exterminatus was only used in extreme circumstances, bottom line nukes are lazy. Plus this is a table top game, it would be pretty crap if you turned up and with a 2000pt army and i turned up with a 2000pt nuke.

Turn 1 would literally be this...

Launch detected - Impact - FTW.

The cyclonic torpedo doesn't blow the planet up... not the NORMAL cyclonic torpedo.

There is a two-stage variant that does, however. It uses a melta effect to burrow into the planet's core and then explode in a way that causes the planet to destabilize and oftentimes rips it apart.

People, Plasma bombs are really a cool sounding name for Fusion based Nuclear Warheads.

Nukes are used.

the Impierium really cares $0.02 about radiation if they are willing to level cities with conventional bombardments just because they couldn't retake the city.

Titans are powered by Fusion reactors, Dreadnoughts are powered by Fusion reactors. they call them Plasma reactors because the fuel is in the Plasma state of matter. it is easier to accept that there is a 4th state of matter in addition to Solid, liquid, and gas then to teach Basic Nuclear Physics to the masses and call it by its real name(not that Plasma is in appropriate in and of itself)



Automatically Appended Next Post:
People, Plasma bombs are really a cool sounding name for Fusion based Nuclear Warheads.

Nukes are used.

the Impierium really cares $0.02 about radiation if they are willing to level cities with conventional bombardments just because they couldn't retake the city.

Titans are powered by Fusion reactors, Dreadnoughts are powered by Fusion reactors. they call them Plasma reactors because the fuel is in the Plasma state of matter. it is easier to accept that there is a 4th state of matter in addition to Solid, liquid, and gas then to teach Basic Nuclear Physics to the masses and call it by its real name(not that Plasma is in appropriate in and of itself)

Grey Templar wrote:the Impierium really cares $0.02 about radiation if they are willing to level cities with conventional bombardments just because they couldn't retake the city.

Yes they do. Radiation means mutation. Conventional bombs just mean rebuilding the city, which does not endanger the population's genetic purity.

True Dat.

although they certaintly have tech to counter the effects of radiation and for sure cancer isn't a Cardinal sin.

The fact people are living 150-200 years(albiet with expensive Juvnat treatments) suggests that Cancer is cureable(or at least relegated to being a tolerable condition)

The IoM tolerates Ogryn and Ratlings(in most areas) so any longlasting mutations from nuclear blasts would likely be acceptable.



When the IoM takes over a former Xeno world it must be "Cleansed" so radiation cleanup is likely part of that.

Ogryns and Ratlings are "abhumans", their mutations are stable and they're not believed to be a threat to the Imperium. Mutation itself is considered a sin.

so Comissar Yarric is a Pre Alpha Minus class Heritic because he is taking Chemo

Yarrick is an Imperial Hero, and therefor it doesn't matter.

The Imperium is hypocritical that way .

Simple, it's heresy.

am i the only one who remembers Rad grenades from 2nd ed?

Rad grenade
Rad grenades emit a deadly field of radiation. They are considered highly dangerous due to the difficulty in detecting radiation on the battlefield, and the erratic nature of their power output.1

(straight from lexicanum, http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Rad_grenade)

they were used by the imperials and often described as being mini nukes mushroom clouds and all.
Nukes are mentioned in the Iron Warriors index astartes article iirc and also wasn't it a nuke that the Crimson fists accidentally dropped on their Chapter fortress?

the debate seems pretty solid that the imperium does use nukes but it appears clear that it depends on situation, although their use by the imperial navy seems pretty universal

which is why i am an advocate for Plasma weapons actually being Fusion weapons(the Fuel is in the Plasma state)


so the conventional Plasma Torpedoes used for Ship to ship combat are really Nuclear warheads. Radiation doesn't matter in space as there is as much or more coming from all the stars, but the intense heat and pinpoint radiation is good against continant sized space vessels.

Cheese Elemental wrote:

Samus_aran115 wrote:

Devastator wrote:why are computers forbitten too?
we dont know

Yesh. The imperium is failz. The use servitors, which are probably more effective than computers, or not.

Any thinking program is forbidden because the last time mankind used them, it led to the creation of the Iron Men, AIs who nearly wiped out humanity.

GLaDOS

Ever since the Church of Scientology took over the Earth, created the Emperor, Primarchs and Space marines now called the Lords of Terra. These people tend to control most technology and do not let the helpless civilians have access to them, tends to make me believe the Lords of Terra have something to hide and do not want technology to fall into the wrong hands. lol but nukes are used in space combat by the navy on a regular basis as anti-capital ship weapons as well as hard targets planet side.

They use them all during WW3 .