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Martel732 wrote:

 BoomWolf wrote:
Comparing space marines to US marines is absurd.

US marines are maybe MAYBE comparable to IG veterans (how many US marines fought superhuman alien forces?)

A space marine, in scale, is equal not to even the most elite units, but the most elite individuals. The one in a few millions kind that no amount of training in the real world limits can replicate, people like freaking Simo Hayha, ranking kills in the hundreds with simple guns. And then you add superpowers.

These guys in fluff are walking tanks. The tactical value of modern jet fighters.
If you compare jet fighter per population, you might get a good estimate.

But the fluff is already absurd and to be ignored. In practice, the Eldar could exterminate 10 chapters a week with star cannons if we went by fluff numbers. There must be more than 1K marines per chapter. It is necessarily true due to the size of a galaxy. Asorel's numbers sound reasonable for a GALACTIC conflict.

^ Well this is the problem of the fluff.

If you take fluff as an example a lone marine would be able to defeat a few thousand average humans. Originally the pre-horus legions numbered about 10,000, now it goes from 10,000 all the way to 250,000 for Ultramarines. Games workshop like usualy has it's fluff all over the place.

Now space marines being used is suppose to be quite rare, with most campaigns not even using entire chapters, with most using a few companies. The main problem is, even with the fluff as it is, as soon as they start facing armies in their millions they would struggle (never mind tens of millions). For any realistic number, for a lone campaign, they need companys with tens of thousands of space marines. Overall requiring a chapter of 100,000. However that would bring us to pre-horus numbers, which obviously causes issues.

Basically Games Workshop from the very beginning messed up the SM scale in fluff when creating the 40k universe.

Hierophant wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
"A chapter may only destroy a single target but change the outcome of a entire war. "

War doesn't work like that. Only in anime and GW fluff.

Our wars dont, because we usually have more humanitarian concerns than Space Marines do, and don't go around assassinating civillian leaderships, or wiping out capitals like they do. If we did, our wars would be a lot shorter.

However, there's plenty of examples throughout history where things like that have happened, and they've ended wars and battles at a stroke. Just look at Hiroshima for example. Or medieval battles where the death of the King meant an end to the entire war.

Even if that wasn't true (which it is) we're not talking about reality anyway, so it's an asinine point. We're on a fluff forum, not a war forum. If it works in the fluff (as you agree) then it's a correct response for this discussion. Real wars don't have Daemons or Necrons either. Shocking, I know.

Actually the main difference between 40k and real world examples is the fact in the 40k universe we are willing to exterminate entire planets. And even then for no reason other than to contain the enemy.

IRL even when you see cities sacked, it's mostly due to troops wanting their due spoils of war. Even with entire cities being wiped out it ended up being more practical to sell a notable portion as slaves or intergrate them into the conquerors society. Never mind the defender wiping out their own troops/citizens as you see in 40k, which you never really see IRL.

All in all it's not only humanitarian concerns, it's also economic and large scale cultural concerns. The impression I get from the Imperium is the fact it is willing to sacrifice billions to protect it's ideology over absolutely anything else, whatever what, which then again suggests the Imperial Cult is just as dangerous as the ruinous powers in making the Imperium of Man collapse imo.

My mate has a whole theory how the Imperial Cult was actually created by chaos to undermine the Emperor.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
We can't exterminate planets, as we only got one, but we are perfectly fine with next best thing, which is exterminating entire cities or even nations for relatively trivial reasons (look at WW2) There are no humanitarian concerns in total war, and the own population and infrastructure is fair game in a scorched earth strategy or when armies have to live of the land.

We don't even exterminate entire cities or nations (Ancient examples of destroying cities that is, modern examples A) Still don't wipe them out and B) are in the context of a war containing millions and we now lack city states).

Even using WW2 as an extreme example, the closest you got was the holocaust, mostly due to the fact they where a minority (basically how mutants were treated), useful minorities such as scientists etc where kept. Even concerning the USSR they never planned on wiping the entire country or culture. Mostly because they needed the manpower and living space. The main point in all current and previous warfare was generally to increase manpower. When they do need to stop attackers, it is slightly different, but once they gain the upper hand, gaining resources, land and manpower eventually becomes the goal.

In the 40k universe the imperium arguably needs neither requires more manpower or resources.