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 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Earth, since we can just spam nukes.

And then the planet is left eradicated, and uninhabitable, along with most of humanity now having cancer and being sterile.

Without orbital superiority, the woefully inefficient space marines get stomped.

People clearly do not realize just how advanced and powerful modern-day armies are. The US alone could outnumber them 50 to 1 with attack helicopters, packing Hellfire missiles that could destroy marines and tanks from a mile out.

That is simply an extreme example. The marines would have to endure a relentless series of air strikes, artillery bombardments and tank rushes. It would never have to come to infantry engagements.

Honestly I'd be surprised if the marines lasted a week.

 ALEXisAWESOME wrote:
In the unlikely event that ALL of Earth's military prowess was put towards this single task the space marines wouldn't last long at all, While we don't often use our most destructive weaponry because of laws and such in a state of war all kinds of crazy ass weaponry would rain from the sky. We have the Tech for Rail-guns (Maybe not tau equiv. but enough to pen power armour i am sure) and drones as well as those steel rods dropped from space which hit with the force of 100KG of TNT. That kind of Kenetic Impact would Liquefy a Marine, Termie armour or not. The problem with 40k vs real world is that 40k armies simply aren't viable, Battles are won by Soldiers, Campaigns are won by Tanks and Wars are won with Artillry, guess which we would use straight away?

1. We have the tech for railguns in prototype stage only. They are most certainly not going to be used to penetrate power armor, I mean... they could, but considering they are being designed as warship mounted weapons, they would most likely be used again vehicles. Keeping in mind we only have a small handful of prototypes at present and they are nowhere near ready for production, this puts a severe limit on their effectiveness.

As for the 'rods from god' we "have the technology" to do it, but we don't have those systems in place, and we have only rough concepts. Barring secret squirrel treaty violating bs, we don't have those systems in place, and we wouldn't have time to build them/launch them, and in any case, a Marine invasion would likely mean that those systems would cease to exist. Thus, your post is invalid.

... we do actually have multiple teratons of TNT available in our nuclear stockpile. Several times over. We, as in, the United States, possess a nuclear arsenal capable of lethally irradiating the globe some 8 or 9 times.

You should check your numbers over, we haven't had that capability in a long while. While we still have some thousands of warheads, we have less than 1000 delivery vehicles available (between bombers, missiles, etc.)

A M1A2 doesn't need to pierce a Power Armour to kill whats inside, the force of the impact is probably many thousand times more than what any living thing can sustain. Similarly, BL and GW publications tend to show Marines as being nearly impervious to most common chemical gases, or simply needing a bit of time to recover after exposure, while we have gases that will kill anything deader then dead in a few milliseconds.

You forget about all the inertial dampers that stop the fleshy meatbags inside the armor from becoming blood jelly.

I think the description of the plasma weapons being "hotter than a star" is artistic license, and the fact that BL authors are writers, not scientists, and do not realize that having something that shot something that hot would kill everyone on the battlefield, and beyond.

Ever here of sonoluminesence? We've produced bubbles that have temperatures four times greater than that of the sun as they collapse, and the world has yet to catch fire...

I don't think you understand how powerful nuclear weapons here. We aren't talking about a concentrated blast of light. We are talking about the unleashed energy inside of atoms. A Space Marine will get vaporised. No amount of surgery will save a human from a nuclear weapon. If a Battle Cannon can kill a marine outright a Nuclear bomb will obliterate them.

Power armor is said to have been designed to witshstand nuclear blasts... Considering that most of the immediately lethal element of a nuclear explosion is overpressure and heat, and that marines have been shown to have been stepped on by friggin imperator titans and walked across the bottom of oceans and survived unscratched (in the fluff) it seems overpressure isn't much of an issue, and considering that the power armor is described as being able to survive ultra-high temperatures... theres a good chance the fireball wont get them either.

Really this debate comes down to a simple dilemma:

If we say the modern day military wins, then we have a serious issue with the fluff, as the fluff makes it pretty clear that a handful of marines are more than a match for a force of lesser troops (of which the modern day military would qualify as, we are guard equivalents) which is larger than the marine force by orders of magnitude. The fluff makes it clear that power armor can do x, y, and z, etc. etc. and that they're pretty much unstoppable.

If we say that the marines win, then we have a serious issue with reality, as much of the feats that the Marines are professed to be capable of aren't realistically possible, nor are they plausible based on our modern understanding of science, nor are they even remotely plausible based on projected scientific advances. Furthermore, these same feats are not at all possible, nor are they remotely even close to being even minutely plausible, in the realm of military strategy, tactics, and the reality of combat.

So, in other words, there isn't really a right answer here, as we can't have our awesome fluff-marines win while remaining true to our reality, and on the flip side we can't have our reality win while remaining true to the fluff.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
OP should just specify if he asking about mid, high or low yield Marines.
They are different enough to be separate beings.
It seems the confusion is caused by some assuming that the low yield is the standard.

'Yields' . . . 'Calcs' . . . What is this? I am unfamiliar with the use this terminology in the context of fluff discussions. Sure, it makes you sound authoritative, but unless we know exactly what is meant by 'high yield space marine', it's not very useful is it. Where was this stuff defined? Is there a place where this was agreed upon? Can someone give me a link?

 Wyzilla wrote:

As for Bolters, base bolters used by Astartes tactical squads are .75 caliber mass-reactive rocket propelled rounds. Their real lethality however comes from their admantanium tips, which is why they can penetrate power armor.

*twitch*

Ok, I know this was probably just a throw-away line, and that I probably should not let this sort of thing bother me . . . but:

*eugh*

That's not how bullets work, it's not even how boltgun rounds are supposed to work. The Armour penetration granted by the admantanium tip is not directly connected to the lethality of the round (Just as the penetrative capability of modern armor piercing rounds actually makes them less lethal than normal bullets [though not by much]), the 'lethality' is in the 'mass-reactive explosive' that goes off once it's penetrated the armor of the target. That is the way they were designed: admantanium tip for penetration, explosive for lethality.

 Pendix wrote:

That's not how bullets work, it's not even how boltgun rounds are supposed to work. The Armour penetration granted by the admantanium tip is not directly connected to the lethality of the round (Just as the penetrative capability of modern armor piercing rounds actually makes them less lethal than normal bullets [though not by much]), the 'lethality' is in the 'mass-reactive explosive' that goes off once it's penetrated the armor of the target. That is the way they were designed: admantanium tip for penetration, explosive for lethality.

Slight correction, the tip of a boltgun round is in diamantium. Which changes nothing to the fact that we basically have current equivalents nowadays.

 Pendix wrote:
'Yields' . . . 'Calcs' . . . What is this? I am unfamiliar with the use this terminology in the context of fluff discussions. Sure, it makes you sound authoritative, but unless we know exactly what is meant by 'high yield space marine', it's not very useful is it. Where was this stuff defined? Is there a place where this was agreed upon? Can someone give me a link?

From what I gather, it's the the yield of a Marine in fluff (let's say his uberness) is determined by a calculated choice in regards to the narrative. Since it's 'cool' that Marines can wipe an entire planet in a matter of heartbeat, their potential will each be altered to allow them to do just that.

Which is a completely moronic way to approach these discussions, and,as you can see, pretty much all boils down to trolling the subject.

 Pendix wrote:
'That is the way they were designed: admantanium tip for penetration, explosive for lethality.

The tip of a Bolter gun is in diamantium, not in adamantium. It's described as a form of synthetic diamond, which, I guess, you don't want to have exploding inside of you, but still, that doesn't sound terribly worse than having a regular bullet fragment inside of you...

Name calling? Really?

Wyzilla's yield mechanics make perfect sense. SM depictions are so inconsistent that dividing them is a good way to look at it. Low yield (like being killed by a pointy stick ) and high yield (like the fact that plasma weapons are described as hot like the sun- which would make them wipe out continents) are obviously not compatible. Yields are his method to classify them.

It's entirely reasonable and has nothing to do with trolling or being moronic.

Try to stay civil, please? Insults are not good.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Spamming B-52s isn't much of an option, we have less than 80 remaining in operational service, and most of the remaining few hundred at the boneyard wouldn't be operationally ready in an at-all realistic timeframe.... and I'm pretty sure the Marines have access to AA systems that we have no answer to...

As for mass nuking, you'll have to clarify what constitutes 'mass' nuking. Launching the entire nuclear arsenals of all the global nuclear powers? Yeah, no the fallout would render a good stretch of the globe uninhabitable. But a few dozen, maybe even 100-200? We could survive... we might have an increased incidence of cancer and a lot of collateral deaths... but we'd survive as a species.

Who needs a B-52? Everyone of the USAF's fighters are capable of carrying bombs that can penetrate 10' of concrete. Fanboi it all you want, a Marines Ceramite armor isn't going to be equivalent to 10' of reinforced military grade concrete.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Name calling? Really?

Wyzilla's yield mechanics make perfect sense. SM depictions are so inconsistent that dividing them is a good way to look at it. Low yield (like being killed by a pointy stick ) and high yield (like the fact that plasma weapons are described as hot like the sun- which would make them wipe out continents) are obviously not compatible. Yields are his method to classify them.

It's entirely reasonable and has nothing to do with trolling or being moronic.

Try to stay civil, please? Insults are not good.

Well, if they were that hot they'd kill the user every time they used them. Yes, Plasma Guns are used by other Imperial organizations so you can't say use the "Space Marines are so cool they'll just laugh it off". I think it's just hyperbole meant to sound cool.

In addition, I kinda agree with Kovnik Obama in that it's not a good way to approach these discussions. It's trying to legitimize crappy writing into some system of power levels rather than using what seems more logical. In addition, you'd have to start using this for every faction since their depictions can very wildly as well.

However, Wyzilla is quite correct in the fact that Space Marine's power depictions vary so much that it's useless to try and have these SM v X conversations from an objective standpoint.

Also, it's not a personal insult if he's calling the argument being made into question. An argument does not equal the person.

It depends, not sure what current US military ammunition would do to power armor. Can it still penetrate? I'm in the military and I know that if I was the same scale as the models I could hit them from distances much farther than 24" with my M4 alone. Question is would my 5.56 ammo just bounce off?

One on one in hand to hand combat, I would $hit myself. I have a bayonet that 80% of the time we're not allowed to sharpen.

Johnnytorrance wrote:
It depends, not sure what current US military ammunition would do to power armor. Can it still penetrate? I'm in the military and I know that if I was the same scale as the models I could hit them from distances much farther than 24" with my M4 alone. Question is would my 5.56 ammo just bounce off?

One on one in hand to hand combat, I would $hit myself. I have a bayonet that 80% of the time we're not allowed to sharpen.

The only thing the M-4 would be able to do would be target the weak points. Try to find the joints. Even then, it's unlikely to slow a space marine. We've have to rely on things like the M2, SMAW's, etc... Otherwise it would fall on our Armor and Aircraft to handle them.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Name calling? Really?

Wyzilla's yield mechanics make perfect sense. SM depictions are so inconsistent that dividing them is a good way to look at it. Low yield (like being killed by a pointy stick ) and high yield (like the fact that plasma weapons are described as hot like the sun- which would make them wipe out continents) are obviously not compatible. Yields are his method to classify them.

It's entirely reasonable and has nothing to do with trolling or being moronic.

Try to stay civil, please? Insults are not good.

Well, if they were that hot they'd kill the user every time they used them. Yes, Plasma Guns are used by other Imperial organizations so you can't say use the "Space Marines are so cool they'll just laugh it off". I think it's just hyperbole meant to sound cool.

In addition, I kinda agree with Kovnik Obama in that it's not a good way to approach these discussions. It's trying to legitimize crappy writing into some system of power levels rather than using what seems more logical. In addition, you'd have to start using this for every faction since their depictions can very wildly as well.

However, Wyzilla is quite correct in the fact that Space Marine's power depictions vary so much that it's useless to try and have these SM v X conversations from an objective standpoint.

Also, it's not a personal insult if he's calling the argument being made into question. An argument does not equal the person.

Semantics or no, when words like 'moronic' are being thrown around, I do raise an eyebrow.
If we are talking actual physics, Plasma Guns would indeed kill everything on a continent with every shot due to how the fluff is written (GW does not seem to realise that warmth that >= the sun is actually rather devastating)

It should be noted I never said 'Space Marine are so cool they'll just laugh it off' or equivalent.

'Using what seems logical' works just as badly, in fact. Logical to you and logical to others varies hell of a lot, even for a setting that is illogical to begin with. Who is to set down a standard for what is logical and not so that we can discuss all this?

Not to mention that there are far more options than dying-to-everything-easily Marines, average-Marines and kill-continents-instantly Marines. There are tons of choices in between. Which one/s are 'logical'?

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Name calling? Really?

Wyzilla's yield mechanics make perfect sense. SM depictions are so inconsistent that dividing them is a good way to look at it. Low yield (like being killed by a pointy stick ) and high yield (like the fact that plasma weapons are described as hot like the sun- which would make them wipe out continents) are obviously not compatible. Yields are his method to classify them.

It's entirely reasonable and has nothing to do with trolling or being moronic.

Try to stay civil, please? Insults are not good.

Well, if they were that hot they'd kill the user every time they used them. Yes, Plasma Guns are used by other Imperial organizations so you can't say use the "Space Marines are so cool they'll just laugh it off". I think it's just hyperbole meant to sound cool.

In addition, I kinda agree with Kovnik Obama in that it's not a good way to approach these discussions. It's trying to legitimize crappy writing into some system of power levels rather than using what seems more logical. In addition, you'd have to start using this for every faction since their depictions can very wildly as well.

However, Wyzilla is quite correct in the fact that Space Marine's power depictions vary so much that it's useless to try and have these SM v X conversations from an objective standpoint.

Also, it's not a personal insult if he's calling the argument being made into question. An argument does not equal the person.

Semantics or no, when words like 'moronic' are being thrown around, I do raise an eyebrow.
If we are talking actual physics, Plasma Guns would indeed kill everything on a continent with every shot due to how the fluff is written (GW does not seem to realise that warmth that >= the sun is actually rather devastating)

It should be noted I never said 'Space Marine are so cool they'll just laugh it off' or equivalent.

'Using what seems logical' works just as badly, in fact. Logical to you and logical to others varies hell of a lot, even for a setting that is illogical to begin with. Who is to set down a standard for what is logical and not so that we can discuss all this?

Not to mention that there are far more options than dying-to-everything-easily Marines, average-Marines and kill-continents-instantly Marines. There are tons of choices in between. Which one/s are 'logical'?

I suppose that is warranted on the internet forums where tone is difficult to discren. And I apologize, my statement was a little disingenuous. I meant to preemptively shoot down the counter of space marines being invincible enough tank such things. But, note that, if I am correct, it would take a greater source of heat than a Plasma Gun shot to properly cook a planet. As others have noted we have recreated star-like tempatures with no greater ill effects.

I believe what is logical would be applying what we know of actual science towards what GW has given to us. For example, since Space Marines are still made mostly out of water any source of heat would boil their organs alive if it was great enough. So them tanking Plasma, Lascannons or Melta can be taken as hyperbole or just a tall tale.

I also suppose that my personal interpretation of marines and that bias comes into play in my argument. I assume that their bodies are still as vulnerable as any humans which, if I recall, several BL authors disagree with me.

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Name calling? Really?

Wyzilla's yield mechanics make perfect sense. SM depictions are so inconsistent that dividing them is a good way to look at it. Low yield (like being killed by a pointy stick ) and high yield (like the fact that plasma weapons are described as hot like the sun- which would make them wipe out continents) are obviously not compatible. Yields are his method to classify them.

It's entirely reasonable and has nothing to do with trolling or being moronic.

Try to stay civil, please? Insults are not good.

Well, if they were that hot they'd kill the user every time they used them. Yes, Plasma Guns are used by other Imperial organizations so you can't say use the "Space Marines are so cool they'll just laugh it off". I think it's just hyperbole meant to sound cool.

In addition, I kinda agree with Kovnik Obama in that it's not a good way to approach these discussions. It's trying to legitimize crappy writing into some system of power levels rather than using what seems more logical. In addition, you'd have to start using this for every faction since their depictions can very wildly as well.

However, Wyzilla is quite correct in the fact that Space Marine's power depictions vary so much that it's useless to try and have these SM v X conversations from an objective standpoint.

Also, it's not a personal insult if he's calling the argument being made into question. An argument does not equal the person.

Semantics or no, when words like 'moronic' are being thrown around, I do raise an eyebrow.
If we are talking actual physics, Plasma Guns would indeed kill everything on a continent with every shot due to how the fluff is written (GW does not seem to realise that warmth that >= the sun is actually rather devastating)

It should be noted I never said 'Space Marine are so cool they'll just laugh it off' or equivalent.

'Using what seems logical' works just as badly, in fact. Logical to you and logical to others varies hell of a lot, even for a setting that is illogical to begin with. Who is to set down a standard for what is logical and not so that we can discuss all this?

Not to mention that there are far more options than dying-to-everything-easily Marines, average-Marines and kill-continents-instantly Marines. There are tons of choices in between. Which one/s are 'logical'?

I suppose that is warranted on the internet forums where tone is difficult to discren. And I apologize, my statement was a little disingenuous. I meant to preemptively shoot down the counter of space marines being invincible enough tank such things. But, note that, if I am correct, it would take a greater source of heat than a Plasma Gun shot to properly cook a planet. As others have noted we have recreated star-like tempatures with no greater ill effects.

I believe what is logical would be applying what we know of actual science towards what GW has given to us. For example, since Space Marines are still made mostly out of water any source of heat would boil their organs alive if it was great enough. So them tanking Plasma, Lascannons or Melta can be taken as hyperbole or just a tall tale.

I also suppose that my personal interpretation of marines and that bias comes into play in my argument. I assume that their bodies are still as vulnerable as any humans which, if I recall, several BL authors disagree with me.

And the game stats- T4!

Though, the game mechanics are weird and should really never be used in fluff discussions. (For examples: Gretchin parrying every 3rd strike made by an Avatar, Warbosses surviving several direct hits from Plasma Blastguns, Techmarine armour versus Tactical Marine armour in protection against Battle Cannons, et cetera.)

For all we know, though, Marines CAN survive Lascannon hits... Though perhaps not unarmoured. In Space Marine the game Astartes can survive a Lascannon hit in multiplayer, or two in single player. In DoWII, they can survive two as well, rarely even three... And in some few cases even more! Game mechanics, yay!

I don't think we should take it too seriously. I mean I love a good discussion, but when it gets to the point of insults- implied or no- I think the line has been crossed and we need to look at what we're actually doing. Crazy stuff. In order to discuss, we first need to establish what we are basing our discussions on. The actual combinations of Marine portrayals that we select as 'viable' and shapes a possible Marine are... Beyond number.

A Plasma Gun shot would not cook a planet, just kill everything that is reasonably in the vicinity... And things that are rather absent, as well. Of course, it doesn't, but that's just another thing that does not make sense.

Your interpretation of Marines is as valid as any other, mind. I do not use my own interpretation in more specific discussions, though in more general ones I sure do.

And, for the OP; if we exclude nuking and assume Marines actually know what they are doing rather than just sit out in the desert, easy win for them. IMO.

How is this a survivor game and/or online RPG?

Dunno, it was in Background before but a mod moved it here.

The marines would have no chance. Remember that the marines are a precision strike force. They land, get stuff done, and then leave.

On their own they have little/no air support, limited armour, and very small number of men on the ground.

They would probably win a few engagements, but even with advanced weaponry they still die, and have limited ammunition. They also have too few men on the ground to effectively control an area, so would be on the defensive in almost every situation once they make planetfall.

Their superhuman nature is not a comparable advantage when faced with over 100 million men. The defenders wouldn't even need guns. They could bumrush the marines, armed only with sticks, and still come out on top. (except for landraiders, they'd have to be left alone till they run out of ammo/fuel).

 Big Blind Bill wrote:
The marines would have no chance. Remember that the marines are a precision strike force. They land, get stuff done, and then leave.

On their own they have little/no air support, limited armour, and very small number of men on the ground.

They would probably win a few engagements, but even with advanced weaponry they still die, and have limited ammunition. They also have too few men on the ground to effectively control an area, so would be on the defensive in almost every situation once they make planetfall.

Their superhuman nature is not a comparable advantage when faced with over 100 million men. The defenders wouldn't even need guns. They could bumrush the marines, armed only with sticks, and still come out on top. (except for landraiders, they'd have to be left alone till they run out of ammo/fuel).

They could use psychology. Take out media and leadership centres immediately when they make planetfall (You only need a few Marines to make a quick strike at a government building and get out again via Stormraven) and our confusion would be total. By appearing to be everywhere at once, using completely unknown technology, looking terrifying, the shock value...

It won't last forever, but if they are clever they could do it.

A single Techmarine could probably hack the entire Internet and intimidate the entire world at once. Remember, we don't know that there's just 100 of them. By the time we realise this planet will be theirs... Of course, then the rebellions wash in, but hey, at least they took the world once.

They might disorganize the world (no internet for example). But there is no way 1000 men would take the whole planet. With such small numbers I daresay we may actually breed faster than they can kill.

When they reach counties that have legalized firearms then there is no way their numbers will hold up over time. Do I even need to mention suicide bombers and IEDs. People do not need government or a higher power to make them defend their homes.

The only way they could do it, is by converting populaces to their cause, and raising improv guard regiments. Only then would they have the manpower, but then this would no longer be just space marines vs the earth.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Name calling? Really?

Well, no, more like 'statement-qualifying'. I think it's appropriate, but feel free to replace it with whatever flavour of ''it fails to grasp the basic premisse behind the discussion'' you happen to be inclined toward.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
Wyzilla's yield mechanics make perfect sense.

In the context of the current discussion, nope. not at all. The (perfectly correct) realization that authors may, amongst other things, alter the capacities of protagonists, employ deus ex machina, or may abuse the many hyperboles left in the settings is something that is appropriate in a discussion on the narrative. In a discussion pitting a particular force in the narrative and the modern military in it's entirety, the fact that authors have used artistic licence is barely relevant, only when its adressing an argument based on those narratives directly. All we have to do is go look at the neutral descriptions of the equipment, doctrines and capacities and compare them to those in the real world, then guesstimate how many of ours will fall before one of them does. If we establish that we lost less then 1%, then we know we win.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
SM depictions are so inconsistent that dividing them is a good way to look at it.

But that's not even the point of 'yield and calc'. The point is that a specific author can make any story he want. It has nothing to do with Marines in particular being depicted inconsistently. The result of adopting this as an hermeneutic is that there is simply no point to these discussions. To contribute to this discussion, you have to accept a certain degree of restraint in your fictional representations. Either by restricting yourself only to the neutral descriptions or by accepting that cases of obvious hyperboles are that, obvious hyperboles.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
It's entirely reasonable and has nothing to do with trolling or being moronic.

Since wyzilla qualiflied this discussion as meaningless on the basis that we tried to dig for facts to compare, nope, not sorry.

Okay folks here's how it is.
Fundamentally we're talking about basically the same firepower for the IG as the Space Marines in the Aliens movies franchise. An M41 Pulse Rifle is roughly equivalent to a Bolter, with a grenade launcher attached (the 30mm on a M41 is more like a single shot from a Heavy Bolter).
That's still not too far better than what we have today.

But you also have to consider the Logistics and Procedure.
If 1000 Space Marines (lets make them Chaos Space Marines, to be honest) . . . just landed in some random part of the world and started causing problems . . . sure there would be a Localized Military Response. And those guys would have a new rear end ripped in them.

However guys are eventually going to go back and tell headquarters about these mechanized monsters.
They arent going to fight man-to-man with the proverbial equivalent of little godzillas running around. People arent that stupid.
So the arguments about .50 cals and 40mm grenades being brought to bear is irrelevant, as they will not be brought to bear from small arms.

So then they'll send in the big guns and airstrikes.
And thats going to take out some % of the Space Marines in the double digits.
WHY Is That You Say?

Because even if they can shrug off the effects from 155mm artillery fire, they're going to take Direct Hits from some stuff.
Shaped Charge warheads have a pretty high AP, even in Warhammer standards.
Even a crappy RPG-7 anti-armor rocket can penetrate up to 24 INCHES of solid hardened steel. And its not a simple penetration either, it has quite abit of nasty incendiary oomph behind it too. And we arent talking about RPG-7's here.

And planes tend to drop big bombs - - 500 pounders, 1000 pounders, and so on. I dont care what kind of power armor you're wearing, that kind of stuff still has a blast template.
(there was an incident once where a plane on an aircraft carrier exploded and caught fire, it was armed with 250 and 500 pound general purpose bombs, these eventually detonated. A 250 pounder blasted a 12 foot wide hole in the deck, and the 500 pounder blasted a 40 foot wide hole in the deck. I think we can reasonably assume if it can do that to a ship hull, it can do that to space marine armor within those ranges).

Not to mention those damn Cruise Missiles with 3000 pound warheads, and cluster bomb ordinance that drops armor penetrating anti-tank warheads by the bucket load. And you don't see that coming, it just flies in over the treeline and *Pop*.

Oh, and apparently at least one military on this planet still uses Napalm.


Also consider . . .
Most big guns armed on planes and helicopters are 20mm or 30mm variety. They might as well be automatic Heavy Bolters.
And any jet that did a strafing run would be flying in so fast its unlikely they'd get hit, meanwhile they just strafed a line and dumped 150 rounds of ammo. I think that might use the flamethrower template.

The Result . . .
More or less the Space Marines are going to disperse, they aren't stupid either and they're not going to clump together in a single fighting force, they're going to separate off into a bunch of squads. They dont want to get Nuked either.

Though this will prove disastrous too, because the foreign military isnt going to take any chances. And each one of those squads, as it is identified by satellite imagery, will be targeted with some huge strike, they'll take a cruise missile and some GBs and they'll get bombed into oblivion too.

The ammunition the space marines are using will probably run out too. Anything that shoots bolter shells or bullets is going to eventually run out of ammo, and anything that uses energy packs like the plasma guns or the portable lascannons is going to run out of juice.

Also consider, the more technological weapons such as Lasers and Plasma weapons could get --damaged-- from blasts and shrapnel, those things have critical fragile components (especially the Plasma weapons, which have always been known to be finicky in WH mythology).

In the end what you will end up with is maybe 50 to 100 Space Marines that are scattered and divided, who have fled to the wilderness and become some kind of individual threat to people in that place. And will eventually be hunted down and killed, though the death toll on our end would be pretty high. And in the end they will probably end up using our own weapons against us since theirs ran out of ammunition or got broken.

====
The Nuke Scenario Everyone Loves to Reference
====
If any military was going to decide to nuke these guys, you have to realize what kind of nukes we have to bring to bear these days.
They are not Tactical nukes (1 Kiloton), they are not Hiroshima nukes (20 Kiloton).
Thats old technology from the early cold war, thats briefcase bombs designed to scare people, its not real military hardware.

More than likely they'd ship them a W80 thermonuclear warhead (H-Bomb) at 600 miles an hour on a cruise missile.
That's about 200 Kilotons, or 10 Hiroshimas all in one spot.
Enough to completely level the landscape for about 4 Miles and put a 1/2 mile wide crater in the ground.
48 inch radius template anyone? (96 for you IG folks)

The crater is where not even the ground survives, as it has completely Vaporized everything that is made of physical matter within a certain distance. Not to mention being that close also hits you with so much Radiation that itll vaporize you even inside the power armor. And the shockwave from it is like getting hit by a Train and chewed up under its wheels, then have that same train derail and roll around on top of you and grind you into the dirt.

Radiation . . . most of the energy of a nuclear bomb (70%) is in X Rays. The X Rays given off by a nuclear explosion is what causes all that Heat, the Fireball, and the shockwave. Because it reaches out and gets absorbed by the air/ground/whatever and heats it up. Up close it does yknow go through tissues and stuff but there is a limit to how far it can travel through the air. So if they're close enough, you get Space Marines reaching 10,000 degrees just like the air is reaching 10,000 degrees.

So basically its like taking multiple Melta hits, which are inflicting Continuous damage over time, not single strikes.

I dont know the properties of Adamantium but its sorta like if you've got a huge overbuilt door attached to a wooden doorframe, it doesn't matter how tough the door itself is, it might survive but what its attached to may not. Also im pretty sure that no matter what its density its not going to block out the radiation either, and even if it does, that's just going to heat it up.

Oh and all their items, the bolter guns, the lasers and plasma guns, and all of their explosives - all that goes up in smoke. And the EMP from the blast will probably trigger all their explosive devices and all that stuff will just spontaneously explode too.

The Survivability Radius for Space Marines against a nuclear explosion may be Much Tighter than it is for everyone else, maybe even people inside tanks, but there IS a straight up Kill Radius ("D" damage) associated with them.

Other types of Nukes that would be on the table - - anything from an ICBM is either dropping multiple 400 Kiloton warheads, a 600 Kiloton warhead, or something in the Megaton range (for comparison, a thermonuclear device in the Megaton range could probably give a Star Wars Star Destroyer a run for its money, and crack it in half like a cigarette if its shields weren't up).

I don't think they would use the 50 Kiloton MIRVs when they can just ship them a W-80.

Though (fortunately, or unfortunately?) we don't have any of the really big bombs anymore, like the 20 Megaton or 100 Megaton crap. The biggest ICBM nukes im aware of that are still in service are in the 1-3 Megaton range. Enough to wipe a small city completely off the map pretty much.

Woh nelly 3 month jump