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The Necrons, Tau, and Eldar do a lot of hovering with their vehicles. The Tyranids don't really have vehicles of any sort.

That leaves us with Humans and Orks. For the Imperium, they have the Landspeeder and a bunch of assorted tanks. For the Orks they have a bunch of assorted looted vehicles.

Which brings me to the question of wheeled vehicles. The Imperium uses a lot of tracked vehicles. The only wheeled vehicle I can think of is the Ork Wartrukk.

Why do you think the Imperium doesn't use any wheeled vehicles, equivalent to our modern day humvees?

I am sure they do, but I am fairly sure tracked vehicles are preferred on uneven ground like the battlefields most commonly featured in WH40k games. I think the Elysian Drop Troops list from Forge World has a wheeled recon vehicle.

There are also bikes, of course.

The Imperium does use several wheeled vehicles, but the only military one I can think of is the Tauros scout car and its big sister, the Tauros Venator.

The thing is, with the exception of the Tauros' magic motors, tracks are much better when you don't know what kind of terrain you'll be dealing with - wheels don't like deep mud or water very much, or loose dirt, or anything other than a hard, flat surface. Tracks can go anywhere, eventually.

Also tracks have a much smaller turning circle, so would be able to twist round a bit more easily

Not necessarily, you can have wheeled vehicles that do the same thing.

The same reason tanks don't have wheels. Tracks can go anywhere. Wheels are limited to relatively flat ground, they also break much more easily.

The Imperium can't make specialized vehicles for each terrain type they face. A guard regiment has to be able to fight on X, Y, and Z planets with the same vehicles. So the Mechanicus uses tracks because they are the most adaptable.

Sure, they're not as fast as wheels over open ground. But at least it can still cover that terrain, while the same can't be said of wheels in rough terrain.

Tracks also have the advantage of being able to support a larger vehicle due to more contact with the ground. You can make a more powerful vehicle and not worry about the extra weight.

Trucks have wheels cause wheeled trucks go fasta.

The 'civilian' vehicles mentioned in black library books and the 40k RPGs - groundcars, cargo-10s, etc, are wheeled, but don't expect to see them on the battlefield any time soon.

Also, bikes.

 koooaei wrote:
Trucks have wheels cause wheeled trucks go fasta.

Not always.

Tracks do out preform wheels off road, they also allow for heavy weight use, modern tanks way up 70 tonnes, try putting that on bags of air and expect to drive up vertical obsticals and bridge gaps with ease. Im not saying tyres can't but it is easier with tracks. Tracks are also more capable of taking a beating then tyres.

Besides its 40k why run some over with a tyre when you can turn them to pulp with a track?

Battlewagons do both

Big, mean half-tracks

Orks make wheels work almost wherever they want to, because Orks.

Warbuggies, BW, Trukks...

The wheel can also be solid rather than air-filled, and i'd assume the ork ones are, given they've nailed armour plates to them...

They do use tracked vehicles too, when they have difficult ground to cover.

Gray Templar hit on a big reason - tracked vehciles are more versatile on different forms of terrain. Wheeled vehicles do great on things like roads - far better than tracked - but tracked vehicles do far better 'off road' than wheeled vehicles are. That's not the only thing (there are some other tradeoffs between wheeled vs tracked, like certain maintenance issues that go both ways, but I digress.) Given that the Imperium can find itself fighting in almost any environement versatility is generally favored over performance, so tracks are naturally going to be preferred.

Of course as I recall in older fluff there were some 'wheeled' conversions, and the 3rd edition IG codex mentioned 'motorised' IG regiments (present at least in one sector of Segmentum Solar) and they can always requisition wheeled vehicles like trucks and stuff, but when it comes to the 'STC' oriented designs tracked seems to be the way to go for the Imperium.


Orks being Orks they just do whatever seems Orky enough to them (and so favor wheels, or tracks, or half tracks, or tracks iwth little wheels on them painted red....)

OP look at forge world and the novel lore

The real-world reason is that Imperial vehicles are heavily based on the WW1 tank aesthetic. Other races have skimmers to demonstrate how advanced they are, while Orks are the opposite. Not that the explanations in this thread aren't good, just that I highly doubt GW made that design choice out of practicality.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The same reason tanks don't have wheels. Tracks can go anywhere. Wheels are limited to relatively flat ground, they also break much more easily.

The Imperium can't make specialized vehicles for each terrain type they face. A guard regiment has to be able to fight on X, Y, and Z planets with the same vehicles. So the Mechanicus uses tracks because they are the most adaptable.

Sure, they're not as fast as wheels over open ground. But at least it can still cover that terrain, while the same can't be said of wheels in rough terrain.

Tracks also have the advantage of being able to support a larger vehicle due to more contact with the ground. You can make a more powerful vehicle and not worry about the extra weight.

So somewhere out there are some poor Guardsmen wishing the Imperium would get off its lazy ass and produce some specialized vehicles so they can win a decisive victory.

I'm not sure that such a vast and diverse Imperium would sacrifice specialization for convenience to such a great extent, given the significant tradeoffs in battlefield versatility.

The Imperium will definitely encounter many desert-like battlegrounds, so they'll probably roll out humvees and strykers like the current US military.


Ultimately, I agree with Frozen Ocean. Practicality was probably the last thing on GW's mind, they did it to fi with the aesthetic theme.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

tgjensen wrote:

There are also bikes, of course.

Oh yes, how could I forget those.

The Imperium needs to make some tracked bikes though. All those rough terrain that they encounter would limit the effectiveness of wheeled bikes.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Grey Templar, why do you think the Imperium doesn't have anything like the Nazi SdKfz 2?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Though when you've already got a Sanguinius with big, angel wings....

They don't drive up the freshly paved freeway in to battle, they are driving over scarred earth, smashed buildings, pilled up dead bodies, and since it is 40k, lots and lots of skulls. Tracks, like our modern day tanks and even WW2 tanks, go over alot more terrain alot easier, are fairly easy to repair, and look more badass.

It's for the ladies, because ladies like grinding treads (and armored plating and superior firepower).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo9lQFPWy_M

locarno24 wrote:
The 'civilian' vehicles mentioned in black library books and the 40k RPGs - groundcars, cargo-10s, etc, are wheeled, but don't expect to see them on the battlefield any time soon.

Oh god can you imagine Imperial STC family cars?

 Psienesis wrote:
It's for the ladies, because ladies like grinding treads (and armored plating and superior firepower).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo9lQFPWy_M

When I joined the Core, we didn't have any fancy shmancy tanks, we had two sticks and a rock for the whole platoon. AND WE HAD TO SHARE THE ROCK!

For Imperium it comes down to aesthetics, imperial tech is WWI/WWII inspired in appearance. Simple as that.

On the practical side of this however, tracks are better at dealing with rough terrain and they offer more stability then wheels, which is one of the reasons construction equipment is often equipped with them. Tracks do however have disadvantages, they can be 'thrown' at higher speeds or if foreign objects enter the moving parts of the tracks. Another problem with tracks is that there are a lot of moving parts, all of which can break, immobilizing the vehicle, all these parts make repair slow and problematic, not to mention dangerous (My father works as a mechanic in the mining and forestry industries and he knows people who lost fingers while replacing damaged tracks). In addition the parts are heavy and you usually need a crane of some kind to maneuver the tracks into position (and avoid pinch points).

Wheels allow vehicles to move quickly and can be repaired with minimal tools (and no crane) as well as less risk of injury to repair crews. The down side is that wheels are less stable then tracks, due to the inherent higher center of gravity that wheeled designs posses.

In real world conditions the off road capabilities of wheels vs. tracks are negligible in most situations as the increased weight of tracks counters any advantages to weight distribution. The only real advantage to tracks over wheels in rough terrain is traction on ice but with tire chains wheels are just as good.

Of course if you want to be a rebel you could use both with Christie suspension, which allowed the tracks to be removed and the driving wheels to take over in emergency situations or when speed was needed.

 Rippy wrote:
They don't drive up the freshly paved freeway in to battle, they are driving over scarred earth, smashed buildings, pilled up dead bodies, and since it is 40k, lots and lots of skulls. Tracks, like our modern day tanks and even WW2 tanks, go over alot more terrain alot easier, are fairly easy to repair, and look more badass.

If you wanna speak about practicality, I don't think skulls dot the landscape. Dead bodies sure, but they're gonna cover the whole surface. There may be also be fighting in miles of open ground and desert. And even on rough ground, hummers and strykers can cover it quick.

Wheeled civilian fits perfectly, there not as effective military veichals in case of a rebellion, giving the guard and PDF a advantage on battlefield terrain. Tracks are also complex to Maintain and even if they arre in super 40k materials still wear out and changing a broken track is alot harder than a tyre.

even with chunky tyres and modified a truck cannot go where a tank or APC can go as easily.

If I had to guess, it has something to do with STCs and the fact they don't have a pattern for how to build them. Or something to do with machine spirits and some mechanicum official deciding wheels are untrustworthy.

 Godeth wrote:

Besides its 40k why run some over with a tyre when you can turn them to pulp with a track?

Cauze of possibility to go fasta!

There is mention is a few books of Wheeled machines.

the IG book Gunheads has mention of Half Tracks and Cargo Trucks often named after how much they weigh (approx.) like the 8-Tonner and so on that can move troops, supplies and fuel.

Cars or at least civilian ones along with trucks allegedly exist, some are automated but those are for the well to do or taxis (also for the slightly less well to do.)

The buggies from Forgeworld (their name escapes me right now) are obviously wheeled for fast attack and hit and run attacks.


The ones from the Orks are the few actual modeled ones. Wheeled versions of say Chimeras are not impossible.

Maximus Bitch wrote:

 Rippy wrote:
They don't drive up the freshly paved freeway in to battle, they are driving over scarred earth, smashed buildings, pilled up dead bodies, and since it is 40k, lots and lots of skulls. Tracks, like our modern day tanks and even WW2 tanks, go over alot more terrain alot easier, are fairly easy to repair, and look more badass.

If you wanna speak about practicality, I don't think skulls dot the landscape. Dead bodies sure, but they're gonna cover the whole surface. There may be also be fighting in miles of open ground and desert. And even on rough ground, hummers and strykers can cover it quick.

When you've been fighting over the same stretch of ground for five years and have a body-count reaching into the millions, with no time to collect your dead, the skulls will be all that's left after decomposition and scavengers have done their work.

Hummers and Strykers suck in true off-road conditions, believe me. The HMMWV has run-flat tires, sure, but in truly broken terrain, it's real easy to bottom the damned thing out.