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I'm always stunned to see how quickly people go to the "nuke" argument. There's absolutely 100% no way in feth anyone on earth is going to drop a nuclear weapon on a threat as a first response. We would respond with infantry, armoured cavalry and air support if anything.

After the Tau wipe the floor with all of that, they'll have spread out. By the time we finally go through all the channels to decide to nuke the Tau, they'd have moved on or would at least be prepared for it. I mean, honestly. Do you think that an advanced alien race with insanely advanced technology is not going to see a nuke coming and do SOMETHING about it?

nomotog wrote:Heavy artillery- Seeaker missiles. Any tau vehicle can have them so they are available here.

Missiles are not artillery. Not in the traditional usage of the word anyway.

Personal antitank weaponry- EMP grenades. Fuses blasters are suit only, so they are not available.

I'm sitting here looking at the principles of Electronic warfare as part of my dissertation, and I'm trying to figure out how an EMP pulse disables a normal diesel engine.

Poison gas- We don't even have this. The tau are aliens you can't just poison aliens. You have a better chance of poisoning them with water then gas

wat

War of the Worlds begs to differ. If its got lungs, it respires. If it respires, that means it must be used to breathing oxygen like humans (or they'll all die of suffocation long before weapons become a factor). If its used to breathing oxygen, poisonous gas lobbed by artillery will have the same effect as it would upon a human.



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Dr_Wasabi wrote:I'm always stunned to see how quickly people go to the "nuke" argument. There's absolutely 100% no way in feth anyone on earth is going to drop a nuclear weapon on a threat as a first response. We would respond with infantry, armoured cavalry and air support if anything.

After the Tau wipe the floor with all of that, they'll have spread out. By the time we finally go through all the channels to decide to nuke the Tau, they'd have moved on or would at least be prepared for it. I mean, honestly. Do you think that an advanced alien race with insanely advanced technology is not going to see a nuke coming and do SOMETHING about it?

You know, the funny thing is, if you just push a small one out of aircraft, then no, I don't think they would see it coming. All your complicated gizmos dedicating ICBM's are useless against someone literally shoving one out the door.

Ketara wrote:

nomotog wrote:Heavy artillery- Seeaker missiles. Any tau vehicle can have them so they are available here.

Missiles are not artillery. Not in the traditional usage of the word anyway.

Personal antitank weaponry- EMP grenades. Fuses blasters are suit only, so they are not available.

I'm sitting here looking at the principles of Electronic warfare as part of my dissertation, and I'm trying to figure out how an EMP pulse disables a normal diesel engine.

Poison gas- We don't even have this. The tau are aliens you can't just poison aliens. You have a better chance of poisoning them with water then gas

wat

War of the Worlds begs to differ. If its got lungs, it respires. If it respires, that means it must be used to breathing oxygen like humans (or they'll all die of suffocation long before weapons become a factor). If its used to breathing oxygen, poisonous gas lobbed by artillery will have the same effect as it would upon a human.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dr_Wasabi wrote:I'm always stunned to see how quickly people go to the "nuke" argument. There's absolutely 100% no way in feth anyone on earth is going to drop a nuclear weapon on a threat as a first response. We would respond with infantry, armoured cavalry and air support if anything.

After the Tau wipe the floor with all of that, they'll have spread out. By the time we finally go through all the channels to decide to nuke the Tau, they'd have moved on or would at least be prepared for it. I mean, honestly. Do you think that an advanced alien race with insanely advanced technology is not going to see a nuke coming and do SOMETHING about it?

You know, the funny thing is, if you just push a small one out of aircraft, then no, I don't think they would see it coming. All your complicated gizmos dedicating ICBM's are useless against someone literally shoving one out the door.

Missiles fill the same role as artillery just better.
As i understand it, modern battle tanks have a heavy amount of electronic components, but you should be able to tell us exactly what parts and such what they do.
Filters. The tau have been on a lot of worlds, they must have some way to avoid being war of the worlded.

Dr_Wasabi wrote:I'm always stunned to see how quickly people go to the "nuke" argument. There's absolutely 100% no way in feth anyone on earth is going to drop a nuclear weapon on a threat as a first response. We would respond with infantry, armoured cavalry and air support if anything.

After the Tau wipe the floor with all of that, they'll have spread out. By the time we finally go through all the channels to decide to nuke the Tau, they'd have moved on or would at least be prepared for it. I mean, honestly. Do you think that an advanced alien race with insanely advanced technology is not going to see a nuke coming and do SOMETHING about it?

They have problems against people who use pointed sticks and WWI era tanks. I'm not especially impressed by any of their abiliities except to die.

Frazzled wrote:Tau are reduced to dogfighting imperial aircraft.

Imperial aircraft is superior to ours in every way.

Can someone fill me in on what a LMG is. My guess is that it's role is to fire a steady stream of rounds to keep the enemy suppressed.

LGM? You mean LMG, a light machinegun?


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KingCracker wrote:Obviously you guys missed/forgot the discussion about how if a chapter of Space Marines assaulted modern day Earth, what would happen. The end result was, people thought they would lose. No, Im not kidding.

That's a different situation than this.

1000 marines is not capable of feasibly holding a planet of this size against a population that wants to resist. Millions upon millions of Guardsmen could. Dunno how many Tau it would take, but probably quite a bit.

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Tau are reduced to dogfighting imperial aircraft.

Imperial aircraft is superior to ours in every way.

Except for speed and ability to shoot at distance you are 100% correct. I'll give on G forces as we have no data on imperial craft and whether they have that incredibly high tech thing called a G suit.

nomotog wrote:Can someone fill me in on what a LMG is. My guess is that it's role is to fire a steady stream of rounds to keep the enemy suppressed.

Certainly:


A light machine gun may be defined either by the weapon or by its tactical role. It is used to fire short bursts, usually from a bipod; a sustained-fire mount such as a tripod is a characteristic of a medium machine gun. Some machine guns - notably general purpose machine guns - may be deployed either as a light machine gun or a medium machine gun. As a general rule, if a machine gun is deployed with a bipod it is a light machine gun; if deployed on a tripod it is a medium machine gun, unless it uses ammunition of .50 or 12.7 mm caliber or larger, making it a heavy machine gun. Modern light machine guns often fire smaller-caliber cartridges than medium machine guns, and are usually lighter and more compact.

Hope this clears it up!

Re Nuke argument:

- Tau remotely access internet via comms satellites etc
- Tau get reasonably good intel on our capabilities
- Tau laugh asses off that we can barely manage exterminatus on a small city, let alone planet
- Set up extensive air defence grid, every single bomber that gets within range of their sci-fi sensor equipment gets torn apart by drones etc
- 100 21c human elites get torn apart unless they manage to pull some seriously inventive ambush tactics to engage in melee

Frazzled wrote:Except for speed

They are optimized for fighting at mach 2. This does not include the speed of their afterburners etc. The Lightning is known to be incredibly maneuverable,. exceeded only by Eldar craft. (whom have super-futuristic technology that literally reduces inertia)

and ability to shoot at distance

The Imperium has missiles which outrange their artillery. Which itself outranges our modern day artillery. No, they have no lack of ability to kill at a distance.

Frazzled wrote:They have problems against people who use pointed sticks and WWI era tanks. I'm not especially impressed by any of their abiliities except to die.

A Leman Russ might look like a WWI era tank, but it contains most systems we would find in any modern tank, and many that we wouldn't. Its also pretty hard to destroy.
Tau don't 'struggle' against those. They point a railgun at it and watch the explosion. Tau are, in almost any scenario involving the IoM, heavily outnumbered, and have still managed to not lose too hard.
Any flaws in imperial tactics in comparison to ours is likely to be compensated by their far superior tech.

Ask yourself why Imperium uses such 'outdated' pieces of technology as a LRBT.
I think it's because there simply isn't anything that outperforms it in ease of production, durability and firepower.

I'd also like to point out that most poison gases that have been deployed in military context effect chemicals that transmit neurous signals, preventing air from reaching our lungs.
Other gases are corrosive.
Tau wear full body armour, which is likely to be proof against harmful chemicals. Their nervous system probably works on different chemicals so we woldn't have muvh luck there.

sarpedons-right-hand wrote:

nomotog wrote:Can someone fill me in on what a LMG is. My guess is that it's role is to fire a steady stream of rounds to keep the enemy suppressed.

Certainly:


A light machine gun may be defined either by the weapon or by its tactical role. It is used to fire short bursts, usually from a bipod; a sustained-fire mount such as a tripod is a characteristic of a medium machine gun. Some machine guns - notably general purpose machine guns - may be deployed either as a light machine gun or a medium machine gun. As a general rule, if a machine gun is deployed with a bipod it is a light machine gun; if deployed on a tripod it is a medium machine gun, unless it uses ammunition of .50 or 12.7 mm caliber or larger, making it a heavy machine gun. Modern light machine guns often fire smaller-caliber cartridges than medium machine guns, and are usually lighter and more compact.

Hope this clears it up!

Ok so it's just a gun that you need to deploy before firing. I don't think the tau have any gun like that, but their normal guns probably shoot as fast and have as much stopping power as a normal LMG. A LMG actually sounds like a libility rather then an asset.

I have to place my bets on the tau on this one.

A. they have way superior fire power to us, and as for hth they have they kroot to deal with us. their tanks will simply plug us with the rail guns/ ion cannons

B. they have better guns

C. they have better armour

D. they can go invisible

Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:Except for speed

They are optimized for fighting at mach 2. This does not include the speed of their afterburners etc. The Lightning is known to be incredibly maneuverable,. exceeded only by Eldar craft. (whom have super-futuristic technology that literally reduces inertia)

and ability to shoot at distance

The Imperium has missiles which outrange their artillery. Which itself outranges our modern day artillery. No, they have no lack of ability to kill at a distance.

*Both the US and USSR have had interceptors better than that since probably before you were born. The Chinese have a new fighter of similar capabilities. Europe the same. Even Brazil is catching up. Plus we have stand off air to air missiles. Boom. Boom boom.

*How do you know their artillery outranges ours again? Please show me where in the codex or EPIC that Tau have artillery.


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Kallimakus wrote:

Frazzled wrote:They have problems against people who use pointed sticks and WWI era tanks. I'm not especially impressed by any of their abiliities except to die.

A Leman Russ might look like a WWI era tank, but it contains most systems we would find in any modern tank, and many that we wouldn't. Its also pretty hard to destroy.
Tau don't 'struggle' against those. They point a railgun at it and watch the explosion. Tau are, in almost any scenario involving the IoM, heavily outnumbered, and have still managed to not lose too hard.
Any flaws in imperial tactics in comparison to ours is likely to be compensated by their far superior tech.

Ask yourself why Imperium uses such 'outdated' pieces of technology as a LRBT.
I think it's because there simply isn't anything that outperforms it in ease of production, durability and firepower.

I'd also like to point out that most poison gases that have been deployed in military context effect chemicals that transmit neurous signals, preventing air from reaching our lungs.
Other gases are corrosive.
Tau wear full body armour, which is likely to be proof against harmful chemicals. Their nervous system probably works on different chemicals so we woldn't have muvh luck there.

The original Forgeworld book had rolled steel equivalent of just a few inches. Unless you've gone back in time to 1850 thats not a serious issue. PLus it has riveted armor.

Mustard gas is not nerve gas.

Frazzled wrote: Mustard gas is not nerve gas.

Indeed. It is an irritating/corrosive gas.
And riveting saves time in construction

Kallimakus wrote:

Frazzled wrote: Mustard gas is not nerve gas.

Indeed. It is an irritating/corrosive gas.
And riveting saves time in construction

Riveting also kills your crew when the hull is hit by a round. It creates the effect of a grenade inside the vehicle, which is why it hasn't been used since WWI.

This is the tau air superiority craft.

This is the tau bomber/drone carrier.

Do they beat earth jets?

'Ok so it's just a gun that you need to deploy before firing. I don't think the tau have any gun like that, but their normal guns probably shoot as fast and have as much stopping power as a normal LMG. A LMG actually sounds like a libility rather then an asset.'

No, you can fire it on the move, it only becomes static if you want it to be. You can also vary the ammo used in some of them, giving them more stopping power. Yes they are more accurate if you deploy them, but you don't have to.

They are tactically a much better weapon than the Carbines that the Tau would employ.

Frazzled wrote:*Both the US and USSR have had interceptors better than that since probably before you were born.

Oh, so the US and USSR have heavily armored (as well armored as a TANK) interceptors with perfectly accurate weapons able to destroy tanks in a single shot, homing missiles which ranges that re measured comparably with ICBMs, while still having a combat speed faster than or equal to most modern fighters' maximum speeds?

Oh wait. I just answered myself...

nomotog wrote:This is the tau air superiority craft.

This is the tau bomber/drone carrier.

Do they beat earth jets?

Its a target. Thats mach 2 at best. No long range interceptor missiles. Snoopy on his doghouse would cream these guys.


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Melissia wrote:

Frazzled wrote:*Both the US and USSR have had interceptors better than that since probably before you were born.

Oh, so the US and USSR have heavily armored (as well armored as a TANK) interceptors with perfectly accurate weapons able to destroy tanks in a single shot, homing missiles which ranges that re measured comparably with ICBMs, while still having a combat speed faster than or equal to most modern fighters' maximum speeds?

Oh wait. I just answered myself...

Hyperbole much?
* Earth fighters are orders of magnitude faster. Earth fighters have stand off missiles. An old school sparrow has an 80lb explosive charge so er yea now that you mention it.
Tau sighters have guys with weird noses who have dfficulty taking down the finest in early 1960s era fighters (thunderbolts).

So again, Tau have no air cover, or more precisely after the flaming wreckage falls from the sky the Tau have no air cover

'War of the Worlds begs to differ. If its got lungs, it respires. If it respires, that means it must be used to breathing oxygen like humans (or they'll all die of suffocation long before weapons become a factor). If its used to breathing oxygen, poisonous gas lobbed by artillery will have the same effect as it would upon a human'

Just to be picky, the Martians in 'War Of The Worlds' died from the common cold.....but yes, gas would almost certainly affect the Tau, we just don't know how!

To begin with I personally think that earth would win, and that very few people on this thread seem to have read the OP question further than tau vs. earth. I think that a source needs to be defined that everyone can go off of, that would reduce confusion over airspeed, power and what not. Also if we could decide exactly how much air and tank support the earth infantrymen and the fire warriors have, and if we could simplify the equipment load out for each army, possibly give the fire warriors 1 drone per 10 men, pulse rifles, and their grenades, and the earth infantrymen HK416 rifles(The HK416 replaces the M4 carbine’s upper receiver with a short-stroke piston system that soundly beat the standard M4/M16 in May 2007 US Army reliability tests) , grenades, and the 7.62mm M240 LMG.

Frazzled wrote:

nomotog wrote:This is the tau air superiority craft.

This is the tau bomber/drone carrier.

Do they beat earth jets?

Its a target. Thats mach 2 at best. No long range interceptor missiles. Snoopy on his doghouse would cream these guys.

What aircraft are you thinking of? I am haveing a hard time finding fighter craft that go faster then mach 2. Granted I am looking on Wikipedia.

KingCracker wrote:Obviously you guys missed/forgot the discussion about how if a chapter of Space Marines assaulted modern day Earth, what would happen. The end result was, people thought they would lose. No, Im not kidding.



Well, Im not saying we would just be laughing stocks here, we would do damage to them and could possibly win some battles. But I think their superior technology would win. Unless Jeff goldbloom showed up with his windows 95 laptop of course.

Also, yea the fire caste is bred for war, but that doesnt mean they are auto winners here. The Japanese in WW2 could be lumped into that same category too. I know Im a bit rusty on my history....but we beat them.

Their armor would be REALLY tough to get through as far as compared to modern flak vests. Im sure they would be far better at stopping our rounds. Id guess our modern stuff would be a 5+ at super best, but most likely a 6 save. But in saying that, their armor isnt super bad ass, we could still blow them up, and if our rounds hit the soft targets, they would die just as easily as we do now adays.


*cant spell*

Until the Screaming Bald Guys' leaders get shot in their helmetless noggins by kids with Daisy airguns. If you're not hitting brain, you just aren't pumping it enough.


21C MBT technology is WAY ahead of that in the 41st millennium. Don't believe me? How fast can a Russ move and still fire its main weapon AT ALL? An Abrams can fire its cannon accurately while moving at top speed. It doesn't need to roll a few D6 just to see if it can see you at night on the first turn of Dawn of War. It sees you from several miles away, at night, through smoke.

Most Western militaries issue night vision at *least* at the squad level. In IDF line units, DMs, fireteam leaders, nearly everybody has night vision, and the IDF is very poorly equipped compared to the US. Roll a few D6 to engage at night? Please...24" range? LOL, we're hitting 10/10 headshots with a 4x ACOG and an M4 at 300m after running 390m and crawling 10m as part of training.


You can't apply things in 40k to the real world. 40k was designed by people who know nothing at all about how modern wars are fought.

I wouldn't put too much faith in poison gas against the tau.

Any poison we can produce would have nothing on the poisons Nurgle is capable of. I'm sure the Tau body armor has respirators and filters.

I also don't think its fair to say that the tau capabilities are limited to the table top. "Oh look! a devil fish can only move 12 inches a turn! Therefore it moves as fast as a moped!" this is just wrong on so many levels.

The table top is a game. It needs to be balanced as a game, and therefore movement speeds and ranges are decreased- so that it can be played on a reasonable sized table.

I'm sure a pulse rifle has longer range and is more accurate then our best sniper rifles-especially with marker light support.

The Tau have developed space ships, and can travel between stars at a reasonable rate (though not as fast as the IoM or Eldar) and they have and maintain an interplanetary empire. Lets not forget that the have FTL capabilities. How long would it take us to reach the next closest star from a space craft... 19,000 years by our current level of tech... thats halfway to when Warhammer starts!

Any army that can create space ships and colonize planets on multiple stars is not going to be wtf pawned by USSR interceptors. Nor are they going to roll over and die because we have long range missiles and artillery- they'll figure out our capacities and devise a method to defeat us. They have the technological advantage- not us.

They could glass us from orbit if they determined that we were too bothersome and there is nothing we could do. But I doubt it would come to that. Any hurdle we throw at the Tau will be analyzed and over come.

nomotog wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

nomotog wrote:This is the tau air superiority craft.

This is the tau bomber/drone carrier.

Do they beat earth jets?

Its a target. Thats mach 2 at best. No long range interceptor missiles. Snoopy on his doghouse would cream these guys.

What aircraft are you thinking of? I am haveing a hard time finding fighter craft that go faster then mach 2. Granted I am looking on Wikipedia.

You're right a lot of that is classified. Here's some older ones that are generations old but you get the picture. F-22s and Flankers / F 35s are the big boys right now.
Current stuff
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-35
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sukhoi_Su-27
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor


Earlier ones. Note when they came out
The one, the only, the Foxbat OLD school!!!!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxbat

Star Fighter put the lead into lead foot back in 1958
http://www.globalaircraft.org/planes/f-104_starfighter.pl
http://www.boeing.com/history/bna/f100.htm

NuggzTheNinja wrote:

KingCracker wrote:Obviously you guys missed/forgot the discussion about how if a chapter of Space Marines assaulted modern day Earth, what would happen. The end result was, people thought they would lose. No, Im not kidding.



Well, Im not saying we would just be laughing stocks here, we would do damage to them and could possibly win some battles. But I think their superior technology would win. Unless Jeff goldbloom showed up with his windows 95 laptop of course.

Also, yea the fire caste is bred for war, but that doesnt mean they are auto winners here. The Japanese in WW2 could be lumped into that same category too. I know Im a bit rusty on my history....but we beat them.

Their armor would be REALLY tough to get through as far as compared to modern flak vests. Im sure they would be far better at stopping our rounds. Id guess our modern stuff would be a 5+ at super best, but most likely a 6 save. But in saying that, their armor isnt super bad ass, we could still blow them up, and if our rounds hit the soft targets, they would die just as easily as we do now adays.


*cant spell*

Until the Screaming Bald Guys' leaders get shot in their helmetless noggins by kids with Daisy airguns. If you're not hitting brain, you just aren't pumping it enough.


21C MBT technology is WAY ahead of that in the 41st millennium. Don't believe me? How fast can a Russ move and still fire its main weapon AT ALL? An Abrams can fire its cannon accurately while moving at top speed. It doesn't need to roll a few D6 just to see if it can see you at night on the first turn of Dawn of War. It sees you from several miles away, at night, through smoke.

Most Western militaries issue night vision at *least* at the squad level. In IDF line units, DMs, fireteam leaders, nearly everybody has night vision, and the IDF is very poorly equipped compared to the US. Roll a few D6 to engage at night? Please...24" range? LOL, we're hitting 10/10 headshots with a 4x ACOG and an M4 at 300m after running 390m and crawling 10m as part of training.


You can't apply things in 40k to the real world. 40k was designed by people who know nothing at all about how modern wars are fought.

Why are you part of this discussion? Back under your bridge, Troll! You'll find no sustenance here.

Frazzled wrote:Earth fighters are orders of magnitude faster.

No, they aren't.

Earth fighters have stand off missiles.

So do IoM fighters.

An old school sparrow has an 80lb explosive charge so er yea now that you mention it.

Which is a weak explosive not actually designed to penetrate armor but instead to provide shrapnel that would destroy the fighter's basically nonexistent armor.

I don't know if you've noticed (you have a tendency not to actually read posts you're responding to), but I was only responding to these posts concerning Imperium's aerospace power.