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Other things that are direct ports: shotguns, grenade launchers, fists. To say that a lasgun is the equivalent of a .50 is ludicrous in the extreme. I don’t care if it’s cannon, cannon says warhounds and reavers have people in their legs to prevent boarding actions. Their legs aren’t even wide enough to fit a person in. So fluff has to go out the window as mistranslation. You can only call mpare the stuff ported directly such as heavy stubbers ,missile launchers, shotguns, auto cannons, ect

gendoikari87 wrote:
[imperial navy is banned from all vs discussions because imperial navy always wins. Period.

The Imperial Navy doesn't even always win in 40k, Big ships =/= Good ships.

The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?

The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?

The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.

age of sail with multi Km long vessels being called frigates

We would get rolled, almost without a doubt.

the Imperium if they had a "need" to launch a raid, e.g. to capture something would use teleport technology to land, grab and leave before we could react.

anything other than that and they would obliterate us from orbit

we would quite literally never see the faces of those who annihilated us.

some of our equipment, and likely tactics, would out match them (thinking tactical air power for one), as a result no Imperial commander would even engage, they would simply stand beyond range of our weapons and use theirs to better effect.

e.g. we have some super secret lab with some super secret bit of kit they want, in go a group of Terminators via teleport to secure the area before we can react, secure what needs securing then teleport the lot out.

Its more likely they would simply destroy any orbital equipment we have and just monitor from orbit, issue demands to surrender and then subjugate if they wanted the manpower, if it looked too much trouble they would use a firestorm to wipe us out then re-populate.

Terminators get rolled irl by usmc as badly as terminators get rolled table top just sayin. Hard armor does not protect against concussive blast pressure. And I don’t want to know what effects hesh would have on terminators as I’m currently eating

leopard wrote:
We would get rolled, almost without a doubt.

the Imperium if they had a "need" to launch a raid, e.g. to capture something would use teleport technology to land, grab and leave before we could react.

anything other than that and they would obliterate us from orbit

we would quite literally never see the faces of those who annihilated us.

some of our equipment, and likely tactics, would out match them (thinking tactical air power for one), as a result no Imperial commander would even engage, they would simply stand beyond range of our weapons and use theirs to better effect.

e.g. we have some super secret lab with some super secret bit of kit they want, in go a group of Terminators via teleport to secure the area before we can react, secure what needs securing then teleport the lot out.

And how do the Terminators know this lab exists, where it is, what the defenses are, what the internal layout is, or if they'll even fit through the hallways?

This are the sort of real world issues 40k fluff handwaves away that would not work in the real world

Its more likely they would simply destroy any orbital equipment we have and just monitor from orbit, issue demands to surrender and then subjugate if they wanted the manpower, if it looked too much trouble they would use a firestorm to wipe us out then re-populate.

With functional spaceships, sure, but once that 40k vessel has to deal with reality and things like actual physics they stop working rapidly.

That said, basically *any* vesssel capable of manned interstellar flight could do this. The power requirements for even a very primitive vessel mean such a ship could be covered in nuclear bomb machineguns as secondary weapons systems.

However, in 40k, such tactics are almost never used, ground forces are almost always deployed, with large scale orbital bombardment usually reserved for withdrawal actions. Hell, with ships that big you wouldnt even need bombardment, just drop the ship on the planet

gendoikari87 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?

The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.

age of sail with multi Km long vessels being called frigates

Yeah, I mean it makes for cool visuals and an amazing universe, it just doesnt translate to the real world well

gendoikari87 wrote:
Other things that are direct ports: shotguns, grenade launchers, fists. To say that a lasgun is the equivalent of a .50 is ludicrous in the extreme. I don’t care if it’s cannon, cannon says warhounds and reavers have people in their legs to prevent boarding actions. Their legs aren’t even wide enough to fit a person in. So fluff has to go out the window as mistranslation. You can only call mpare the stuff ported directly such as heavy stubbers ,missile launchers, shotguns, auto cannons, ect

Model =/= Fluff

Never seen that a warhound has people in the legs though, thats warlords and Emperor class, not seen it for Reavers either


And given that a Lasguns power is dependent on ... power mode, it can be anything from a light caress to blowing limbs off at 400m and even pentrating power armour (something our STANDARD rounds cannot do).

Somehow it always amuses me how people in these discussions take little pieces from here and there and compare those while disregarding the grander schemes. For an example, how can anyone say "modern soldiers have better tactics and so and so" with a straight face when we know for a fact from the canon that the imperial armies have many, many times triumphed over all sorts of civilizations in their own style? Certainly they have tactics that allow them to at least often enough triumph over all sorts of adversaries both more advanced and more barbaric than ourselves that the Imperium can carry on. Some use them well, some are bad at them, just like in our age, but they are situational and context dependant.

The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians: "this is what happened, this is an account of how it probably went". Just like the codexes are written as faction propaganda, should any other GW fiction be taken with a dosage of understanding towards the fact that the described personae are doing their personal best which the writer might not be able to express in the most convincing manner for a militarily acute reader. The imperial forces wage war much more regularly than any of ours and have a different mind set towards war in many cases, which allows them more easily to use human waves and other tactics modern armed forces consider obsolete. This however does not mean they are less effective: for the imperial war machine, it matters not if the enemy can win local firefights or suffer less casualties per engagement if they will eventually succumb under the relentless slaughter visited upon their world and population. Look at something like Siege of Vraks, surely it could have been done a lot neater but in the end it was won by smothering the place with enough willing bodies.

Our little world has barely started the age of massively mobilized warfare, which hopefully doesn't ever escalate towards the militant hell the Imperium of Man is. We know a lot about warfare and how to apply that effectively, as is evident in many special ops around the globe. That is however peanuts compared to Hammer of the Emperor, should it decide to come crashing down on us and drown us in our own blood and melting cities for resisting too much. They don't have to do it elegantly or as scientifically as we've done for centuries, as long as they do it effectively enough that it won't matter. To begin with, our world would most likely anyway surrender after they'd bomb few larger cities and military bases to dust from orbit as an opening missive from their diplomats. The Imperium isn't entirely stupid and tends to do intel gathering and stuff just as we would when they can (check Gaunt's Ghosts series for an example), which mind you is bloody well easier against our relatively low-tech and likemindedly human world. If they can get intel against teleporting space magic elves who eat dark matter for breakfast, surely they'll get some from us even if the GW writer isn't adequately familiar with the ways of war to describe how.

To reiterate: the Imperium of Man is in constant war. It also wins wars here and there. It conquers planets as business as usual. Ours is not a relatively hard nut to crack. They have tactics that allow them to win elsewhere, they may very well carry them here as well even if it results in losses we consider horrifying but barely register for the imperial expedition. Do not be deceived by GW's writers tendency to favour sillier action stories over the faceless machine's ability to grind on and manage.

If the Emperor wills it, nothing we can do will stop it.

 Sherrypie wrote:

The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians

Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians

Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.

That is of course correct, but if this question is to have any meaning one must look more at the implications of the setting as intended rather than sometimes inept handwavy technical details that are indeed produced by fiction writers for want of cool stuff. While those of us who care about tanks actually working might cringe a bit when this topic comes up, the relevant part is thinking about it in the inverse way.

1. Okay, so we have a situation where the Imperium clashes with our modern military forces.
2. The Imperium is a galactic super power. Their stuff must work.
3. We know from the canon what sorts of things they can do, so there must be some engineering that makes it so, even if it is exotic or unknown to us. Or written poorly. Let's not fixate on that.
4. Said engineering and tactics used make for interesting what-if-scenarios, but in the end our logistics simply cannot handle anything like a full-blown Imperial attack.
5. We're boned. We should have fixated on their stuff not working to stay alive.

 Sherrypie wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians

Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.

That is of course correct, but if this question is to have any meaning one must look more at the implications of the setting as intended rather than sometimes inept handwavy technical details that are indeed produced by fiction writers for want of cool stuff. While those of us who care about tanks actually working might cringe a bit when this topic comes up, the relevant part is thinking about it in the inverse way.

1. Okay, so we have a situation where the Imperium clashes with our modern military forces.
2. The Imperium is a galactic super power. Their stuff must work.
3. We know from the canon what sorts of things they can do, so there must be some engineering that makes it so, even if it is exotic or unknown to us. Or written poorly. Let's not fixate on that.
4. Said engineering and tactics used make for interesting what-if-scenarios, but in the end our logistics simply cannot handle anything like a full-blown Imperial attack.
5. We're boned. We should have fixated on their stuff not working to stay alive.

I dont think anyone would doubt that the full force of the Imperium would utterly obliterate Earth in the blink of an eye if all their stuff worked as as portrayed. Same for the Eldar or Tyranids or Orks or Necrons.

The problem is that fundamentally most of it either doesnt work or is fundamentally just really reskinned old tech that modern stuff is light years beyond. This makes comparing it to the real world, which must labor under the laws of reality, difficult, as one paradigm must fundamentally collapse for the other to exist.

 Vaktathi wrote:

leopard wrote:
We would get rolled, almost without a doubt.

the Imperium if they had a "need" to launch a raid, e.g. to capture something would use teleport technology to land, grab and leave before we could react.

anything other than that and they would obliterate us from orbit

we would quite literally never see the faces of those who annihilated us.

some of our equipment, and likely tactics, would out match them (thinking tactical air power for one), as a result no Imperial commander would even engage, they would simply stand beyond range of our weapons and use theirs to better effect.

e.g. we have some super secret lab with some super secret bit of kit they want, in go a group of Terminators via teleport to secure the area before we can react, secure what needs securing then teleport the lot out.

And how do the Terminators know this lab exists, where it is, what the defenses are, what the internal layout is, or if they'll even fit through the hallways?

This are the sort of real world issues 40k fluff handwaves away that would not work in the real world

Well if they don't know the lab exists you are back to they have no reason to come down at all, hence orbital bombardment.

would they fit in the corridors? who knows, but most labs I've seen have decent sized hallways as they have to have equipment moved through them.

We will ignore the way the marine needs his spine broken to get in the armour.

Its more likely they would simply destroy any orbital equipment we have and just monitor from orbit, issue demands to surrender and then subjugate if they wanted the manpower, if it looked too much trouble they would use a firestorm to wipe us out then re-populate.

With functional spaceships, sure, but once that 40k vessel has to deal with reality and things like actual physics they stop working rapidly.

Well yes you can start to say that if you take 40k, drop it lock stock into the real world that none of it works so of course we win!, however what you are then doing is comparing 40k, with all the bits that make it 40k removed. You either assume the tech they have "works" or you may as well not bother.

Any race or faction able to visit us now after crossing interstellar distances is likely to be able to squish us like bugs, there is a decent chance we wouldn't even see them coming.

That said, basically *any* vesssel capable of manned interstellar flight could do this. The power requirements for even a very primitive vessel mean such a ship could be covered in nuclear bomb machineguns as secondary weapons systems.

However, in 40k, such tactics are almost never used, ground forces are almost always deployed, with large scale orbital bombardment usually reserved for withdrawal actions. Hell, with ships that big you wouldnt even need bombardment, just drop the ship on the planet

gendoikari87 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
The issues with the Imperial Navy are amusing. Naval ships where gun turrets are loaded abd brought to bear on target by chain gangs of indentured crew slaves? Ships set up for firing broadsides...in space?

The IN is Age of Sail with a scifi skin.

age of sail with multi Km long vessels being called frigates

Yeah, I mean it makes for cool visuals and an amazing universe, it just doesnt translate to the real world well

I think the shear level of coolness would overwhelm us anyway

that or someone would roll a double one

One thing worth noting is "what would the IoM find of VALUE in earth" we're a primitive world, chances are we'd be valued for our resources and our labor, nothing more. all of which is avaliable in large quanities in the third world. they'd proably just obliterate north america and europe from orbit and focus their efforts on africa and asia. both with a high population density and less sophisticated armed forces

 argonak wrote:

 AtoMaki wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii

Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?

For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?

When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.

From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .

Your strength argument makes no sense. A guardsmen with a lasgun club is strength 3. You're saying they can club harder than a modern assault rifle can shoot a bullet?

S3 could also mean Arnold Swarzenegger with a giant axe lopping limbs off people. Aka a human with a CC weapon. A single bracket of Strength covers A LOT of ground.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
There is only physics, not “real life physics” versus “fictional physics”.

Particulates suspended in the air defract light, including coherent light. Lasers are coherent light. It doesn’t matter how much power is pumped into the laser, aerosols will block lasers. Even the Navy’s new megawatt laser is useless if it rains.

Lasers also require time on target to transfer enough energy to damage a target, due to surface ablation. A laser will literally block itself by turning the surface it strikes into a gas. Pulsing the laser helps, as does sweeping the laser from side to side, but in the end it’s time on target that causes the damage needed. To use a Lasgun or Lascannon, the operator has to hold the beam on target for as long as they can, which is not conducive to staying alive in an active war zone. That’s way lasers in general are poor weapons. The US military are currently using weaponized lasers to blind opponents, and if able, to knock out small unmanned craft like drones and missiles. And, if given enough time on target, to set boats on fire.

SJ

hi actual physicist here. Smoke won’t block a laser as powerful as a lasgun, but they will greatly reduce range. All lasers have a scattering effect they are neve exactly parallel beams. Air quality amplifies this. How much of an effect this would have? Fiik

Heavy carbon smoke is opaque to infrared, and therefore blocks IR range lasers.

Aluminum based aerosols are opaque to microwave range lasers. And are cancerous.

What branch of physics do you study?

SJ

What you're describing is parts of an old school "Blind Grenade", a multi spectral blocking cloud, which was distinctly different than a "Smoke Grenade". I'm not sure we know what frequencies Lascannons operate on other than "the really neato ones."

I remember once in a white dwarf (in the early 2000's I think) that descibed the Heavy Bolter as like the cannon on a Apache gunship.

And the Imperium uses it as a GPMG. Also this means the M230 Chaingun can only just cause glancing damage to a Leman Russes weakest armour.

The Leman Russ model is over exaggerated, in my headcannon. Heroic scale gone too far. Yes, it has suspension. Yes, three crew can fit in the turret. Yes, the cannon can recoil and not kill the crew.

Tygre wrote:
I remember once in a white dwarf (in the early 2000's I think) that descibed the Heavy Bolter as like the cannon on a Apache gunship.

And the Imperium uses it as a GPMG. Also this means the M230 Chaingun can only just cause glancing damage to a Leman Russes weakest armour.

The Leman Russ model is over exaggerated, in my headcannon. Heroic scale gone too far. Yes, it has suspension. Yes, three crew can fit in the turret. Yes, the cannon can recoil and not kill the crew.

HB is a gyrojet system that means much less mass. Also there are thee distinct categories of irl autocannon. 20mm, 25mm, 30mm.

20mm explosive is the limit for legal ownership. It’s fireable from the shoulder from an anti material rifle, general purposes used in afvs and anti aircraft cannons

25mm is the next step up and generally used for afvs and anti aircraft guns for anti infantry and vehicles

30mm is the big boy on the block and used in a few systems. Unlike 20 and 25 it is not normal used for anti personnel. It is primarily anti material and anti tank as well as aircraft cannons

 AtoMaki wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii

Now it is time for you to laugh, because the humble lasgun canonically has the same firepower as a .50cal Browning HMG (slightly more, actually). From here, the list would be as per the following:
- S3 (autoguns, lasguns): 10/12mm HMGs and GPMGs. Modern assault rifles and LMGs/MMGs would be most likely S2.
- S4 (boltguns): 20mm grenade round (literally an unpropelled bolt round) or 20-25mm autocannon round. A Bushmaster would be thus a meager S4.
- S5 (pulse rifles, heavy bolters): 30mm grenade round or a 30mm autocannon round. The GAU-8 Avenger on the Warthog would be S5 and AP-2/-3.
- S6 (multilasers): 50mm cannon round or a shoulder-fired rocket launcher like the RPG-7 and the AT4.
- S7 (autocannons): 75-90mm cannon round or an anti-tank missile like the Javelin.
- S8 (krak missiles, battle cannons): 120-150mm cannon round or an air-to-surface missile like the Maverick.
- S9 (lascannons): 200m cannon round or a Tomahawk-caliber cruise missile. Please note that in the 40k universe this level is supposedly for your anti-tank needs.
- S10 (doom rays): Davy Crockett I guess?

For armor values, it wouldn't be a whole lot better. A .50cal round can punch through anything below tank armor with relative ease. On the other hand, the lowly flak armor worn by a Guardsman can stop a lasgun (a .50cal equivalent) with a 33% chance. And that's a lot of protection, maybe the equivalent of a Stryker with an armor kit on. So we would have this:
- Sv 7+: ceramic/kevlar infantry armor. I'm very generous here by the way.
- Sv 6+: light vehicle armor. Old stuff like Shilkas, BTRs, and the M113 would be also here.
- Sv 5+: medium vehicle armor. Most modern APCs and some MRAPs.
- Sv 4+: heavy vehicle armor. IFVs, MRAPs, the works.
- Sv 3+: tank armor.
- Sv 2+: dunno, maybe an Abrams with full DU armor kit?

When it comes to other characteristics, I can't see our stuff faring too well either. A modern human would be S2/T2. An assault rifle S2, AP+1. The standard Abrams would look a lot like a slow Land Speeder (T6, W8, Sv3+). Our equipment would be really crappy but we would have a lot of 'em on every model, like the standard soldier also carrying an S4, AP0, Heavy D3 weapon (an underslung grenade launcher) or the Abrams having tons of S2/3, AP0, Assault 3 weapons (various machine guns) in addition to its S8, AP-2, Heavy D6 big gun.

From personal experience, all our soldiers would have BS6+ tho .

I mean everyone is entitled to their opinions, mine is that yours on this subject should be discarded. A guardsman flak armor is not light vehicle armor

Setting aside the problem that the fluff doesn't make sense, one can't deny the fluff presents a lot of 40K weapons as extremely powerful. Of course, potency is not always reflected by the in-game stats. For example, space marines are more powerful in the books than on the table top. Nonetheless, I don't understand why anyone would think guardsmen with their lasguns are more potent than modern infantrymen. Feel free to correct me if you have a good example from the books. The fluff makes the lasguns sound about as effective as an assault rifle:

https://regimental-standard.com/2018/03/28/field-dressing-a-lasgun-wound/

And in the game, an unarmored person who gets hits has 50% chance of continuing to fight. I don't think a person's odds would be better against an AK47.

 Vaktathi wrote:
40k is Fantasy in space with a scifi skin. The real world is, practically speaking, light years beyond 40k, and, barring orbital bombardment by ships that have no right to function, would obliterate most 40k forces with ease, including Space Marines.

Exactly. We would lose to the space battleships, aside from the fact that the Imperium likes to engage on the ground. With their swords. LOL.

The Imperial Guard is equivalent to Shogunate / pre-Napoleonic infantry. A US Army platoon could comfortably defeat any Imperial Guard force at the Company level. More, as long as their ammunition holds up. Space Marines are firing larger caliber muskets, but they're still low-grade blackpowder weapons that we comfortably outrange. Space Marine armor is probably barely equal to what SWAT wears. Imperial Armor is laughably bad, comparable to Italy's tanks in WW2 - a typical M2 Bradley would destroy them long before they got close enough to engage.

I'd like to see a swat team arrive in a drop pod. They'd be going home in a mop and bucket. Autogun rounds bounce off space marine armour. A guy taking a bullet while wearing Kevlar sure as hell knows he's been shot.

gendoikari87 wrote:
General question: how does the worlds modern military tech/soldiers stack up against those from 40k?

Personally I think a modern us or Russian or Chinese soldier would be more than a match for any infantry the ig can bring to bear, basically the equivalent of tempestus. Though they’d start to have trouble against bigger targets (m16 being the classic autogun) they do have access to better equipment, for example both Russians and the us have stockpiles of semi and full auto rifles in full rifle calibers with ap ammunition. Probably the equivalent of hotshot lasguns. But overall better training (because hey we don’t have a tyrranid fleet over us)

In terms of main battle tank, despite the look the Abrams/leopard2/chally2 all have the same caliber of gun as the lrbt 120 smoothbore , and what’s more the vanquishers description sounds super similar to our modern version. Armor wise I don’t know much about the russ but outside of the Abrams most mbt have active protection systems designed to stop missiles

Overall I’d say we actually have better equipment and tactics than the imperium at large. Maybe even space marines. The same I think can be said for most scifi and fantasy worlds because most writers simply do not fully comprehend the full breadth of the power of modern weapons nor are they trained in tactics.

Also let’s not forget things in 40k that are near direct ports from our world

Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii

I think understanding the world and resources is one of the main things you need to focus on. We, in all cases, are at war with each other, only making advances to one up modern weaponry. IG weapons are made to one up about 12 different xenos and heretics with varying abilities and armors, I mean think about the chitin of a Tyranid and what we have fought along those lines, the answer is nothing.
Being that the IG is vastly larger than our separated armed forces throughout the world funded by their respective governments, resources are stretched to include as many soldiers as possible. Lasguns may not be all that great in the grand scheme of the 40k universe, but the other option is nothing, which I think the leaders of the IG would honestly prefer, and still demand utmost loyalty while a wraithknight plays hacky sack with your body.
There are few military groups that demand the zealot-like loyalty the IG demands, while having as large a standing force as they do, against the creatures they fight. With this information, if the IG were to invade Earth to recruit citizens for its army, they would beat us, as we have no options for orbital bombardment, we do not have Ogryns to spearhead fortifications and wave off tank shots with their shields, and we do not have highly specialized and biologically engineered soldiers and assassins. We would lose, if not from their insanely advanced weaponry and sensors, but by their sheer numbers, as they have planets worth of soldiers to our single planet, and that is even if we decide to work together.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:

The main point is that GW's writers are not tacticians, they are more akin to descriptionary historians

Well, really what they are is Fiction writers, and primarily in a Fantasy genre, and thats the problem with the comparison. The real world is bound by physical laws and cause/effect in ways that fiction is not. There's lots of stuff in 40k that just doesnt fundamentally work even when we have rather detailed information on stuff (like the internal layout of Imperial tanks), and a lot of other stuff thats so contradictory that attempting any comparison with the real world just doesn't work.

So what your are saying is this conversation is worthless and everyone should move on? I somewhat agree.

phillv85 wrote:
I'd like to see a swat team arrive in a drop pod. They'd be going home in a mop and bucket. Autogun rounds bounce off space marine armour. A guy taking a bullet while wearing Kevlar sure as hell knows he's been shot.

Realistically anyone arriving via drop pod would not arrive intact. Even if space marines had the physiology to survive such an impact the pods themselves would be blasted out of the air by whatever local force is controlling the area. That's just one example of how bad an idea space marines are in an actual realistic fight.

As for the power armor it's pretty impressive but 0 stealth means they're easy pickings for forward scouts to radio in air and artillery strikes, or just good old fashioned traps and ambushes. sure autoguns bounce off, but I'd be willing to bet if you actually tested power armor it doesn't do much against Concussive blast waves. Means they're still susceptible to grenades like the M203. and LAW, because even if the HEAT doesn't penetrate the armor (which it probably can) the armor being a hard material will transmit the blast wave through it.

we do not have Ogryns to spearhead fortifications and wave off tank shots with their shields,

Ogryn's are about the dumbest thing in the IG and perfectly exemplify why 40k loses to real armies. Giant dumb brutes walking across the battlefield with explosed heads and a giant gun are what you call bullet magnets. Because contrary to how rules work, a bullet to the brain kills anything without two brains.

That's really the core of the 40k problem. "drive me closer i want to hit them with my sword" while cool. will get you killed. Period. Dead. Deceased, an ex person. Even in urban combat H2H is relatively rare. Things like grenades are vastly more important. In fact the entire game system and plots tend to leave out the most important tactics of warfare Deception, and stealth. Engagements with the enemy are rarely pitched and even. Especially tank battles. the side to locate and identify the other first usually wins. This even extends to things like the Tiger or panther VS M4. the myth of it taking 5 shermans to take out a cat is just that, a myth. 5 shermans vs 5 tigers or much more often panthers was decided by who saw the other first, and who shot first. Everything else was secondary.

Reason for this is simple. if you identify your enemy first you can choose to engage, and if you choose to engage it's going to be from a place of advantage. Moreover if you're opening fire from ambush your shots are going to be calm and collected. The enemies however are going to be going through a significant emotional event. that's how 5 shermans vs 5 panthers can end up with 5 dead panthers and no dead shermans. even though the panther is considered to be a superior tank.

This is all because simply put ranged weaponry eventually overtook armor and kept surpassing it. Explosives mean that won't be reversed until you can field units with 360 degree force fields.

gendoikari87 wrote:

phillv85 wrote:
I'd like to see a swat team arrive in a drop pod. They'd be going home in a mop and bucket. Autogun rounds bounce off space marine armour. A guy taking a bullet while wearing Kevlar sure as hell knows he's been shot.

Realistically anyone arriving via drop pod would not arrive intact. Even if space marines had the physiology to survive such an impact the pods themselves would be blasted out of the air by whatever local force is controlling the area. That's just one example of how bad an idea space marines are in an actual realistic fight.

As for the power armor it's pretty impressive but 0 stealth means they're easy pickings for forward scouts to radio in air and artillery strikes, or just good old fashioned traps and ambushes. sure autoguns bounce off, but I'd be willing to bet if you actually tested power armor it doesn't do much against Concussive blast waves. Means they're still susceptible to grenades like the M203. and LAW, because even if the HEAT doesn't penetrate the armor (which it probably can) the armor being a hard material will transmit the blast wave through it.

No, you are right, 38,000 years into the future and they didn't develop blast reactive armor, man what an oversight! Seriously, this entire topic is an exercise in opinion mongering and "if anything in 40k existed in the real world it wouldn't work because of science!" IG is essentially the modern military, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING else is anything we have, or have run into before, ever. We don't fly through space in pockets of insanity to arrive at a planet infested with space locusts to purge them in the name of a man we never met who sits on a toilet on dialysis. We don't fight space elves with angry screaming woman who leap at you with swords. We don't have genetically engineered super soldiers who are decked out in power suits and fire guns with bullets the size of a vitamin bottle.

If you want to compare what the Imperials have in 40k to what the modern military has, there can be no middle ground, no ifs, no ands, no buts. They have superior technology and weaponry, and we have a scattered military force across multiple nations, even if we worked together, if they took too many casualties, they would glass our planet and repopulate it for the resources. If you really think we can just willy nilly whip out a LAW or RPG for every frakking Space Marine or Terminator they TELEPORT down into our battle lines, good for you, you don't understand how teleportation works, or arm mounted gatling cannons.
We haven't even gotten to psykers yet and how they can summon frakking psyonic lightning storms, or pop heads with their power, but we have.....AK-47s? Oh guerrilla tactics? Say hello to the Katachans, special forces? Say hello to the Vindicare, and this is before the IG take enough casualties to call in the Space Marines, which you wholly underestimate.
Even if you compare them to the powersuits in Fallout, that is basically a mobile tank firing weapons you cant even hold without support from a tripod or a tank. They have jetpacks, so good luck leading them into a trap or hole, some of the chapters are well versed in those tactics and will be waiting for you in your hidey holes with flamers and lightning claws while you feebly try to penetrate their armor with an AR15 loaded with NATO 5.56, even with AP rounds that doesn't have much punch, and the person underneath is genetically altered to take a hit or two.

Lets leave the Imperium behind, lets say we get invaded by one of the xenos species, start with the Orks, who would steer asteroids into our planet while they ride on the back of it. Tides of them in the billions WAAAAAAGHing across the planet, sure we have a lot of weapons, and they would work pretty damn well against the unarmored ones, we might even call it a win, until the second wave hits. We would be overrun, chopped to pieces, teeth collected, and eaten.

Last one, Tyranids, what do you possibly think we, in any military arsenal, would have against an alien specifically designed to hunt, kill, and reduce everything to biomass? Man, we have the airforce! They have millions of expendable fodder to slam into anything we put into the air. Man we have superior tactics! They have billions of creatures that will charge your lines and tear you to pieces. Man we can lead them into traps! Cool, they will run over the dead and assimilate your biomass before noon. Dude we can nuke them! Great, you did the job for them, easier to assimilate the biomass of things that are already broken down by large explosions. This isn't including the biological warfare they would use against us, terraforming our planet and releasing deadly spores into the atmosphere, weakening anyone who had the misfortune of being alive.

If you want to compare the modern military to the 40k universe, compare it, don't deny anything because you don't think it makes your argument valid, because the argument isn't to be honest.

No, you are right, 38,000 years into the future and they didn't develop blast reactive armor,

38,000 years also for xenos races to develop better missiles. also even assuming the blast does not destroy the pods, they are still subject to newtons laws of motion, meaning you will knock them off course and wildly out of control.

Contrary to the popular saying, advanced technology does not equal magic. You cannot break the laws of physics. armor can only block so much blast force. Period. Doesn't matter how advanced they are. end of story.

his entire topic is an exercise in opinion mongering and "if anything in 40k existed in the real world it wouldn't work because of science!"

Yes that's the entire point of the thread, nothing in 40k works even remotely as an actual military unit because the writers don't understand tactics or science.

How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.

gendoikari87 wrote:

No, you are right, 38,000 years into the future and they didn't develop blast reactive armor,

38,000 years also for xenos races to develop better missiles. also even assuming the blast does not destroy the pods, they are still subject to newtons laws of motion, meaning you will knock them off course and wildly out of control.

Contrary to the popular saying, advanced technology does not equal magic. You cannot break the laws of physics. armor can only block so much blast force. Period. Doesn't matter how advanced they are. end of story.

his entire topic is an exercise in opinion mongering and "if anything in 40k existed in the real world it wouldn't work because of science!"

Yes that's the entire point of the thread, nothing in 40k works even remotely as an actual military unit because the writers don't understand tactics or science.

So basically your title, and your ability to structure any feasible argument is flawed and in the end doesn't matter. You say you want to compare, but at the same time, all you want to do is shove into peoples faces that 40k logic is skewed and doesn't work. So your agenda isn't to actually compare, its to prove something wrong and yourself right by some righteous reasoning only you know.
Well, as long as I know that for a fact, time to exit stage right, you have all the proof you need in my previous post, nitpicking small excerpts from it to try and feebly prove you are right is just building a strawman and you bore me now, bye.

It’s a misnomer to think the IG of 40k has superior technology to our modern day militaries. The IG functionally has WWII level of technology. Yes, they have Lasguns, but the only advantage Lasguns have over modern military grade small arms is the lack of a reliance on ammunition. Most IG weaponry is unguided and short ranged. Most of modern weaponry is designed for high accuracy at extreme ranges.

Flak Armor is the same between both groups, while Carapace Armor is no different than modern ballistic vests. Players of 40k either forget or never bother to learn that Flak vest are not designed to stop bullets, they are designed to stop shrapnel from nearby explosions. Actual ballistic vests are designed to absorb the kinetic energy of small arms fire, while ballistic plate incerts are intended to absorb the energy of higher caliber rounds up to rifle round in some cases; ie, Carapace Armor.

Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40k PA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.

The argument that 40k plasma weaponry is a game changer versus our tech is a bit laughable. Plasma is ionized gas. Sure, it’s hot, but it’s also electrically charged. All modern motor vehicles, even civilian ones, are electrically grounded. A bolt of plasma from a 40k plasma weapon might disable an armored vehicle, but probably not destroy it, and definitely not harm its crew or passengers. Plasma has a very penetration potential versus metal, even thin automotive steel. The electrical discharge would probably act as a localized EMP, which will knock out civilian vehicle, but not a military one. And even if it can be argued that 40k plasma weapons actually do have the energy transfer potential to kill a tank, modern tanks with reactive armor are design to defeat plasma based shaped charge warheads. Also, plywood sheets spaced a few inches apart defeat high explosive warheads, especially if the space is filled with water containers like soda cans. Your 40k dude can through God’s own bolt of lightning, and any modern day Redneck can Redneck the F only of course ignoring it.

So your Space dudes shoot armor piercing explosive rocket grenades? Space plywood defeats it, so does a grid of rebar.

So your Space dudes like to melee with chainsaws and energy swords? Our dudes fall back and just keep shooting.

Oh, so you got tanks! We kill tanks faster than we can build better tanks. In point of fact, our tanks only exist because other tanks exist. Tanks are almost functionally obsolete as a battlefield role given current anti-tank technology. And given the WWI level of IG tank technology, IG tanks are just metal coffins. Any 1st World or 2nd World modern tank should be able to kill any IG tank at range with little effort due to the fact that IG tanks are built to a 1920’s design standard while our tanks are built to 2000’s design standard. AdMech consider WWII tanks to be sophisticated technology bordering on heresy.

Oh, so you think ceramite and adamantium are super tech materials? Adamantium is from the root Adamant, which is diamond, which means Adamantium is carbon enriched iron, is high carbon steel. Which was invented by Arabs just after Roman fell. Ceramite? The modern day term is Composite Metal Foam, invented in the 1920’s but only became popular in the 1960’s, and truly became widely used over the past decade. Recent steel-aluminum foams have been demonstrated to act as very effective radiation shields, very effective thermal shields, and very effective ballistic armor (high caliber armor defeating round literally turn to powder on impact with 1” foam plate). The US Armor is planning on the next gen Abrams MBT to have Metal Foam spaced armor instead of reactive plates, which will save literal tons of weight while boosting overall protection.

Oh, any we use computers. Our cheapest smartphone has more processing power than pretty much anything built by the Imperium and AdMech. Sure, the Imperium can nuke us from orbit, but the ground game is ours.

SJ

You're wrong admech doesn't use computers they use cogitators, organic brains harvested to act as computers. Meaing even a servo skull has more processing power than our current day supercomputers. The admech is post robot apocalypse apocalyptic cult with varying degrees of technology.

We know the imperium does not use always traditional carbon based fuel. they have a variety of power scources wich for conveniences sake all have the same result on the tabletop. (Vostroya aside).

Do not underestimate the ground power of an army with air superiority and zero regard for losses.

Power armour is described as not just protecting the space marine but allowing for a host strenght/speed boosting effects. a space marine is described as pretty much Captain america in iron mans suit.

Adamantium is based on wolverine's claws, not adamant.

I can't even remember a recent description of what ceramite is supposed to do.

Plasma weapons are dangerous not for ionizarioon but the pure amount of energy they deliver. Everything depends on just how hot those flames are. And imperial plasma tech has been descriped as " the caged heart of a star."

And that's before we delve into the heart of 40k's handwavium : the warp.

Well, if the imperial guard can fight Tau and Eldar successfully, it can fight us for sure. One Droppod with space marines on every major government of the earth and most militaries won't even know what hit them or what to do. And once the warfare on the ground starts, even if we kill 10 guardsman for every loss we'll still be massively outnumbered (even the Chinese military will be) by a foe that is mostly on par with our military.

The imperium also has computers, even if they don't call them that way. They also have targeting scanners, otherwise the anti-air tanks wouldn't work.