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I dont know why, but some reason I cant get over the thought that motorcycles are still widely used in a galactic war 40,000 years in the future. I know I may be just nit picking but something just doesnt seem right to me about it. Anybody else feel its just feels..kind of.. lame/lazy/weird?

Thanks for your thoughts.

No less than horses. Or the need to bash people over the head with chainsaw-swords instead of shooting them at range.

I've never had a problem with it. Ever.

There are plenty of reasons why they are still used. After all we also still use bicycles when we have motorcycles available. It might be the lack of resources, e.g. that you need rare minerals or metals. The result would be that you produce as much technologically advanced vehicles as you can but outfit the masses of your troops with e.g. motorcycles.

I do wonder, why does the Imperium have Land Speeders but no Jetbikes?

Yea, it's funny to feel strongly that some units have no place in 40K, but I'm with ya on that one. I found some hoverbikes and those look much more interesting to me as motorcycles.

And horses for rough riders? Utterly ridiculous. But to replace those... I have The Toughest Girls in the Galaxy motorcycle riders coming!

Makes about as much sense as most of 40K!

Why are horses ridiculous for Rough Riders? What should they have, seeing as Motorcycles are also apparantly ridiculous...

I think melee combat being a viable method of warfare is dumber than that.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I do wonder, why does the Imperium have Land Speeders but no Jetbikes?

Land Speeders use magnetic levitation, skimming on a planet's magnetic field. Jet Bikes, and other skimmers, use actual anti-gravity plating. Which is a technology the Imperium has mostly lost between the Heresy and M41. The only known Imperial Jet Bike that remains is with the Dark Angels.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I do wonder, why does the Imperium have Land Speeders but no Jetbikes?

Jetbikes were apparently too expensive in the Heresy and now the technology has been lost. The Dark Angels have the last one.


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Broly wrote:
I think melee combat being a viable method of warfare is dumber than that.

Can you explain why? I've never seen why people dislike this.

Broly wrote:
I think melee combat being a viable method of warfare is dumber than that.

Haha. So true.

In the grim darkness of the far future, the rifleman is the weakest soldier on the battlefield, quivering in fear, hoping his one or two shots kill his enemies before they run up screaming and hit him with an energized stick.

Melee combat actually makes sense when armor technology outstrips ranged technology, and if fighting in close quarters such as urban environments or trench warfare.

You know what one of the deadliest weapons of WW1 was? The humble trench shovel.

Urban? Think of a hive city. That would make modern urban warfare look and feel like an open field.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I do wonder, why does the Imperium have Land Speeders but no Jetbikes?

Imperial technology is based off machines that spit out a blueprint for anything ever needed and says "go build this, doesn't matter what you use everything will work because we've already perfected it".

The problem is the Imperium no longer has any of these machines or at least none in full functioning order so they're stuck using what blueprints they can find. They don't have the blueprints for the jetbikes anymore and the few remaining bikes left aren't well understood. Landspeeders on the other hand have a more complete blueprint and so can be made more easily.

As far as the OP I don't have anymore issue with bikes in the future then I do humanities most advanced soldiers using giant machine guns, or horses, or the fact that humanity worships machines and is afraid to change the paint on a helmet incase it offends the machines spirit.

So no bikes I'm good with.

Melee combat makes sense when half of your opponents are able to teleport at will using Sorcerous powers or psychic phase shifting. And when there is a race insane enough to think that strapping themselves to armed missiles as jetpacks is a good idea.

I am more bothered by the World War One tanks.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Melee combat makes sense when half of your opponents are able to teleport at will using Sorcerous powers or psychic phase shifting. And when there is a race insane enough to think that strapping themselves to armed missiles as jetpacks is a good idea.

Bikes are fine ..Melee weapons well even today most wars have more melee battles than shooting ..... run duck hide ..smash his face in ..its why the most modern weapons all have slots for bayonets..and soldiers/marines still carry the same folding entrenching tool ..as it excells at making the enemy die for his country..and has the really great advantage of not running out of ammo

The whole point of horses for rough riders in the fluff is it lets them go through terrain that wheeled vehicles can't go through.

That's also supposed to be their point on the table top, which is why they're Cavalry-type movement (and, to my knowledge, NOTHING ELSE in the Guard is)

Of course, it makes them kind of useless on the tabletop when terrain isn't that big of an issue, but that's the case in the fluff, too. They're supposed to be called in for cases where terrain is an issue, so it makes sense that they'd suck in cases where it isn't, both in fluff and on the tabletop.

any info on what the "tires" are made out of? Is the Michelin man supplying the imperium.. or is there some sort of futuristic substiture.

Bikes make a ton of sense for orks.. IMO. But it always struck me as peculiar for marines (who weight upwards of a ton +) to be riding around on a two wheeler.

more advanced technology doesn't mean BETTER technology. even if the Imperium had jet bikes. normal bikes might, in some cases, be a better choice. due to reliability issues etc

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat actually makes sense when armor technology outstrips ranged technology, and if fighting in close quarters such as urban environments or trench warfare.

You know what one of the deadliest weapons of WW1 was? The humble trench shovel.

Exactly. As a Marine, shooting that nasty Chaos Marine with your bolter probably won't kill him quickly, but smashing his face in with a thunder hammer might.

Maximus Bitch wrote:
I do wonder, why does the Imperium have Land Speeders but no Jetbikes?

They had jet bikes before the heresy, actually.
After the heresy the knowledge needed to build them was lost.

They only exist as super rare relics now. I believe one of the Dark Angels has one.


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 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

Broly wrote:
I think melee combat being a viable method of warfare is dumber than that.

Haha. So true.

In the grim darkness of the far future, the rifleman is the weakest soldier on the battlefield, quivering in fear, hoping his one or two shots kill his enemies before they run up screaming and hit him with an energized stick.

Overwatch says hi.

If a guy with a sword manages to engage someone with a rifle in CQC, I would expect the swordsman to win.

CC-focused armies are at a distinct disadvantage in the current meta of 40K, compared to those armies that are more shooting-based, but if said CC army actually manages to get into melee in sizable numbers, they tend to really bring the hurt.

40k is built on an anachronistic aesthetic. Bikes are in the game because they're cool.

If an enemy has troops on the field, the Imperium will generally deploy a large ground force to defeat them.

Instead of say, just blasting them from Orbit.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat actually makes sense when armor technology outstrips ranged technology, and if fighting in close quarters such as urban environments or trench warfare.

You know what one of the deadliest weapons of WW1 was? The humble trench shovel.

I'd like to see you present some documentation on that idea.

Was it before, or after newly introduced weapons like machineguns, tanks, poison gas or rifle grenades? Or the improvement of artillery direction? I'd like to see what percentage of the 8-10 million military deaths were attributed to trench shovels, lol.

Close combat in World War 1 was borne of necessity and practicality. Firearms had two principle limitations at the time. Rate of fire, and ammunition capacity. A bolt action rifle was simply not an effective weapon at close range as anything other than a club or a spear. The presence of weaponized trench shovels and the more purpose-built trench knives were designed with the idea of covert raids and the ability of those weapons to kill with less potential for alarms being raised. Especially since the egress routes for raids were often back across killing zones for automatic weapons. However, it's important to understand that kind of warfare was a tiny fraction of engagements in World War 1.

The reality is that modern close combat (modern as in combat in the age of firearms) is still conducted principally with firearms. The tactics for close quarters employment of firearms have simply changed. And the weapons themselves have evolved to where units expecting such engagements simply use smaller, more compact versions of the weapons. You won't find a single instructional guide for room clearing, or street to street combat that includes instructions for discarding your service rifle in favor of a pistol and knife. Actual hand to hand exchanges are last resorts if a weapon runs out of ammunition in close proximity, or if circumstance places an enemy within the practical range of firearm engagement.

I think you gravely underestimate just how vast even short distances become when somebody is shooting at you. The average bullet from a modern rifle travels around 21 times faster than Usain Bolt at his fastest ever recorded speed. The reality is that even for an Assault Marine, a bolter would be a far more valuable weapon than a bolt pistol. Only the abstraction of 40K's distance compression, firearms artificial range limitation, and I Go U Go system makes the idea of fighting with sidearms and swords viable for all but the most ridiculously specialized troops (ie, those with the ability to cross distances with a degree of invulnerability like Warp Spiders, who amusingly enough use ranged weaponry primarily) in the game on an open battlefield. Or, conversely, troops like Tyranids who have the ability to bring to bear large numbers of expendable troops unconcerned with morale (though .

morfydd wrote:Bikes are fine ..Melee weapons well even today most wars have more melee battles than shooting ..... run duck hide ..smash his face in

More imaginary anecdotes from people who've never seen a real battlefield.


Look. You'll never see me explain how a bridge is constructed because I'm not an architect nor an engineer. It is important to stick to topics you actually know something about.

morfydd wrote:
[
..Melee weapons well even today most wars have more melee battles than shooting ...

This is simply not true. Much shooting takes place at close ranges in urban environments, but melee battles are not the norm today when two military's engage.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat actually makes sense when armor technology outstrips ranged technology, and if fighting in close quarters such as urban environments or trench warfare.

You know what one of the deadliest weapons of WW1 was? The humble trench shovel.

I'd like to see you present some documentation on that idea.

That is actually a pretty established fact for WW1. It revolves around the issue of Trench warfare. The ranges were close, ugly and ammo tended to be in short supply. It make more sense to club a guy less than 2 feet from you than try and shoot him.

Check Modern Battle Tactics: Address Delivered April 9, 1917 by Capt. Beith

 Arcsquad12 wrote:
Melee combat makes sense when half of your opponents are able to teleport at will using Sorcerous powers or psychic phase shifting. And when there is a race insane enough to think that strapping themselves to armed missiles as jetpacks is a good idea.

Or just swamp them in bodies. Guns don't do much when you just have fifty shots but the enemy has a million bodies, and are physically incapable of feeling fear.


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barnowl wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat actually makes sense when armor technology outstrips ranged technology, and if fighting in close quarters such as urban environments or trench warfare.

You know what one of the deadliest weapons of WW1 was? The humble trench shovel.

I'd like to see you present some documentation on that idea.

That is actually a pretty established fact for WW1. It revolves around the issue of Trench warfare. The ranges were close, ugly and ammo tended to be in short supply. It make more sense to club a guy less than 2 feet from you than try and shoot him.

Check Modern Battle Tactics: Address Delivered April 9, 1917 by Capt. Beith

Also note too that less people tended to die in real life melee compared to the modern combat that evolved after the American Civil War. Unlike many enemies in 40k, if one party mounted a bayonet charge, the other, because they didn't want to die, buggered off and fled.So while melee was an effective tool of combat, it also killed less people compared to firearms because of the ability to run the feth away from bayonets and swords.

barnowl wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Melee combat actually makes sense when armor technology outstrips ranged technology, and if fighting in close quarters such as urban environments or trench warfare.

You know what one of the deadliest weapons of WW1 was? The humble trench shovel.

I'd like to see you present some documentation on that idea.

That is actually a pretty established fact for WW1. It revolves around the issue of Trench warfare. The ranges were close, ugly and ammo tended to be in short supply. It make more sense to club a guy less than 2 feet from you than try and shoot him.

Check Modern Battle Tactics: Address Delivered April 9, 1917 by Capt. Beith

Your "pretty established fact" seems to lack any real substantiating evidence. This sounds more like the Google Search Guide to World War 1. Again, I call for you to present some actual documentation that suggests that trench shovels were "one of the deadliest weapons of WW1".

Not the anecdotal account of a company commander on how to fight in the event of intra-trench warfare that you copied from the references section of Wikipedia. You're confusing the idea of ideal tactics for one uncommon aspect of warfare in World War 1 with how the war was fought on a day to day, continual basis. This is where it becomes important to actually know the context of how trench warfare was fought, and not just the basic concept. World War 1 was not a series of back and forth hand to hand skirmishes. The trench shovel was a weapon of opportunity, not a principal implement of warfare. Was the spade used as a weapon? Quite certainly. However again we come to the point where you're confusing simple occurrence with commonality. Does electrocution kill people? Sure. Is it one of the deadliest threats to regular everyday life? No. This is important to understand when the question is not "Did the shovel kill people?" but instead "What most commonly killed people?"

And even if we limit the discussion to just how close quarter combat occurred in World War 1 and not how closing the distance to facilitate those engagements was actually achieved, it's still missing the contextual understanding of what made firearms less than ideal at the time (size, rate of fire and ammunition capacity); limitations that are no longer present, and not typically present in 40K.

See, it's almost as if warfare can't be learned on Wikipedia or the History Channel.