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HexHammer wrote:

 rawne2510 wrote:

HexHammer wrote:
Then what does the SM have to compensate for range and power, according to fluff?

Imperial Guard

So they can just snap their fingers and they drop some Basselisks/Leman Russ? ..then why wouldn't SM have them in their arsenal to begin with?

They used to, I know leman russ variants used to be fielded by Space Wolves and Basilisks were fielded and crewed by space marines during the horus heresy, FW even do a model for them.

However the main reason Space Marines don't used tanks is because what is the point of creating super soldiers capable of wearing armour that is comparable to the tank's armour anyway (in the fluff at least), only to sit them at the back of the battlefield lobbing shells?

They may as well leave that to the Guard, especially when you're only operating at chapter sizes. It's the same reason that they don't equip the SAS with MBT's or Howitzers..... or equip tank crews with support weapons, mortars etc. It's not very efficient.

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Keep wrote:
to slice "even" through 300mm steel at range would require some serious high power laser IRL - something we can't achieve yet, at least not to my knowledge. Also "steel" - imperium uses plasteel, which could possess magical capabilities that we dont know of, which make it better then RL armored steel.

The text is quite clear, its steel, its meant to give us an IRL comparision, this argument can't be used.

Does the example say it's equivalent to angled or none angled armour? I seriously doubt I GW or FW writer bothered to go that in depth. They're sci-fi writers, I doubt there's any sense of realism with 'any' of the statistical data given in 40k's fluff whether it's do do with weapons, vehicle sizes, crew amounts, internals etc etc. We have guns 'now' that can pen 560mm at 2000m.

Comparable thickness also depends on 'what' is being fired at it. The original M1 Abrams had an equivalent thickness of 350mm RHA vs KE rounds or 700mm vs Shaped Charges. Also Plastisteel sounds suspiciously like a form of composite armour seeing the word combines plastic and steel, which is often the two main combinations.

TLDR version? The writers most likely didn't have a clue what they were writing about and possibly wanted to give the impression the imperiums AFV's are most likely inferior to what we're fielding now.

 Exergy wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:


Does the example say it's equivalent to angled or none angled armour? I seriously doubt I GW or FW writer bothered to go that in depth. They're sci-fi writers, I doubt there's any sense of realism with 'any' of the statistical data given in 40k's fluff whether it's do do with weapons, vehicle sizes, crew amounts, internals etc etc. We have guns 'now' that can pen 560mm at 2000m.

Comparable thickness also depends on 'what' is being fired at it. The original M1 Abrams had an equivalent thickness of 350mm RHA vs KE rounds or 700mm vs Shaped Charges. Also Plastisteel sounds suspiciously like a form of composite armour seeing the word combines plastic and steel, which is often the two main combinations.

The M1 Abrams's 120 mm gun firing KE projectiles also has a incredible penetration against steel armor. More recent versions are well over 600mm, at a range of 2km. Up close it will go through over a meter.

And yet there are defenses against such things.

Well the main difficulty being accurately hitting things at that range... especially if your opponent is hull down. Even against older MBT's, most brand new MBT's are vulnerable to being penetrated, often relying on post penetration countermeasures to protect the crew.

It's akin to how the Coalition forces were worried about their tank losses vs the Iraqi's in the first gulf war. It never happened due to the tanks being older or export versions lacking the updated sights and targeting systems, meaning they were simply unable to accurately hit the allies at ranges the allies could hit them.

For a lot of the imperiums vehicles, even those used by space marines, a common theme is how performance is sacrificed for reliability, ease of production or being able to run on any fuel. Even then many vehicles were never originally designed a combat vehicles. Hell I have a feeling the Leman Russ was originally a tractor (whether or not an artillery or agri tractor I dunno) and everyone knows about the rhino of which most space marine vehicles have their chassis based on by the time you get to the 41st century.

HexHammer wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
No, there's litteraly a page where Forgeworld goes ''the armor of a Land Raider is the equivalent of 300mm of steel'' almost word for word.

O_O eh, 30 cm Imo that would qualify as medium armor, I dunno much about 40k fluff, so is it because it's a glorified transport? Modern tanks has about 1 meter of frontal armor, that mixed with ceramics and heavy isotope metals.

Well the Landraider is supposed to be extremely heavily armoured...... seeing modern MBT tanks have the equivalent of 600mm-900mm of RHS... which is classified as 'medium' in modern classification..... so at 300mm that's pretty light. Then again the LR does have extremely flat sides. Modern armour is mostly, steel, metals, plastics and ceramics resulting in something that is physically around 50-30mm if I remember correctly, although one report states conscripts say the joints on the Leo 2 suggested a maximum of 80cm.... which having seen some of the welds on a leo 2 doesn't convince me in the slightest.

The wedge may be around 800mm LOS thickness, but the physical thickness of the upper glacis plate is closer to 40mm (which makes part of the wedge). Which is about right seeing 40mm would provide a simply LOS protection of 320mm at 7 degrees without being special at all. Seeing the wedge is in effect two plates and would be thicker, I can see how 800mm of LOS would be possible.

Once again TLDR version, the writer probably had no idea how thick the armour actually would need to be, to be classified as thick, so probably put 300mm as that would be high in comparison to ww2 heavy tanks.

HexHammer wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
They used to, I know leman russ variants used to be fielded by Space Wolves and Basilisks were fielded and crewed by space marines during the horus heresy, FW even do a model for them.

However the main reason Space Marines don't used tanks is because what is the point of creating super soldiers capable of wearing armour that is comparable to the tank's armour anyway (in the fluff at least), only to sit them at the back of the battlefield lobbing shells?

They may as well leave that to the Guard, especially when you're only operating at chapter sizes. It's the same reason that they don't equip the SAS with MBT's or Howitzers..... or equip tank crews with support weapons, mortars etc. It's not very efficient.

Because then their roles are extremely limited and doesn't really extend to other things than Navy Seals could do like needle point operations, and not pitched battles or prolonged multirole warfare.

As I understand it, a single chapter SM takes on hive fleets, Ork Wargs etc but that wouldn't make sense without heavy long ranged artillery. Modern artillery has easily a range of 40 km. Only thing I can come up with in their arsenal are orbital bombardment from their Battle Barge.

Ohhh space marines do have 'some' artillery, but it an extreme waste of space marines to have them manning artillery. Medium ranged stuff like whirlwinds etc, which are actually long ranged but nothing on basilisks. Most of the time you'll see them take command of imperial guard regiments and support elements. Outside of the Horus heresy (where space marines did have their own basilisks), they're not going to be fighting without the imperial guard being present. On chapter worlds you actually will see unaugmented humans directly under the control of chapters, just look at the battles on Baal or Macragge, plenty of non space marine troops.

Space marines in the current fluff when they're chapter size are not actually suited for prolonged warfare or pitched battles. The Imperial Guard are the sledgehammer while Space marines are the scalpel. The only exceptions are when you see multiple chapters banding together, often successor chapters banding around a first found chapter, the extent they almost form a force large enough, if not larger, than the space marine legions of old.

HexHammer wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
Ohhh space marines do have 'some' artillery, but it an extreme waste of space marines to have them manning artillery. Medium ranged stuff like whirlwinds etc, which are actually long ranged but nothing on basilisks. Most of the time you'll see them take command of imperial guard regiments and support elements. Outside of the Horus heresy (where space marines did have their own basilisks), they're not going to be fighting without the imperial guard being present. On chapter worlds you actually will see unaugmented humans directly under the control of chapters, just look at the battles on Baal or Macragge, plenty of non space marine troops.

Space marines in the current fluff when they're chapter size are not actually suited for prolonged warfare or pitched battles. The Imperial Guard are the sledgehammer while Space marines are the scalpel. The only exceptions are when you see multiple chapters banding together, often successor chapters banding around a first found chapter, the extent they almost form a force large enough, if not larger, than the space marine legions of old.

Isn't it so that Basilisks has a higher cal? And WW doesn't really pack much of a punch on strongholds?

Basilisks are 132mm.... which scale wise is completely wrong seeing the Russ only has a 105mm gun..... also a basilisk is obviously modelled on the German 8.8cm flak gun and the barrel is too long for it to be useful at indirect fire at anything other than longer ranges or from elevated positions, akin to how the allies repurposed tank destroyers in ww2 when the germans ran out of tanks..... but anyway I digress.

When correctly used in the fluff and using real life logic.... which admittedly the writers don't have.... the basilisk is used for two main roles. As a long range distruptor.... aka breaking up formations, pinning the enemy, forcing them into cover, harassing fire during an enemy advance, counter-battery fire to suppress enemy artillery and destructive fire at selected enemy units. It's not really suited to bombard heavy fortifications. It's need for direct fire to be accurate is also a weakness, as the range needed to fire indirectly is rather extreme. However as the US showed during ww2 this can be countered with great training, but even then howitzers would be prefered. The role GW tried to copy for the basilisk was ww1 heavy howitzers but gave it the look of the 8.8cm flak gun. It's second role would be direct fire support, which would mostly be on the defensive and mostly helping against enemy armour. This is supported by both the fluff and real life comparisons.

To take out heavy fortifications you'd use the shorter range 40k equivalent of heavy howitzers, heavy field artillery or field mortars (aka heavy mortars). This is what the Medusa would fill and is the most common variant used in this role(disclaimer other artillery is available). This is why the space marine legions originally were equipped with Both Medusa's and Basilisks when they still fought in pitched battles..

*However* now that space marines generally operate in much smaller numbers, they are effectively reduced to special ops. As such they rarely need artillery. If they need some they will usually commandeer them from the imperial guard, take some out of their old stocks that have been mothballed or use the Whirlwind and Vindicator. Now the Vindicator is used generally for removing bunkers, fortifications and the like in a direct support role. However the whirlwind is basically using for softening up an enemy or fortifications at the last moment before the main attack starts. You wouldn't necessarily expect them to take out the hardest of fortifications, but they are perfectly capable of destroying a wide range of fortifications, and due to their extremely good ability to fire incredibly indirectly (think javelin missiles) at extremely short ranges, they're incredibly accurate.

KayTwo wrote:
Slopped armor was one of the great tank renovations of WW2

Since before ww1..... the whole concept of sloped armour is incredibly old, even being used on ww1 tanks and before tanks were even a thing (such as confederate ironclads).

Put simply it's easier to make 'boxy' tank and it gives more internal space, thus many tank designers to this day still making 'boxy' armoured vehicles.

HexHammer wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

HexHammer wrote:
SM does have a indirect weapon, like WhirlWind.

Which is nice and all, but we're not talking about the fething whirlwind. The thread is about the Lascannon.

We just got a bit side tracked, but still it doesn't make any sense to me, that SM got such overall short range on their stuff, nothing heavy long ranged, it would suggest it's easy to lay a trap and just fight SM from a distance, even if they had the option of getting IG support. Especially with all those table top stand offs, just don't engage SM in close combat, but nuke them down from afar.

In all honesty your issues with SM artillery has already been answered.

 Grey Templar wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

HexHammer wrote:
SM does have a indirect weapon, like WhirlWind.

Which is nice and all, but we're not talking about the fething whirlwind. The thread is about the Lascannon.

We just got a bit side tracked, but still it doesn't make any sense to me, that SM got such overall short range on their stuff, nothing heavy long ranged, it would suggest it's easy to lay a trap and just fight SM from a distance, even if they had the option of getting IG support. Especially with all those table top stand offs, just don't engage SM in close combat, but nuke them down from afar.

Space Marines are not forces who engage in long range static warfare.

They're elite special forces which deploy rapidly and engage the enemy from short ranges. Standard procedure for Space Marines is to drop pod/use thunderhawks to rapidly insert into the target area, neutralize enemy targets of importance, and then immediately extract. They're never going to get drawn into long engagements if they can help it.

Chapter Marines....

Legionary Marines however, while still special forces, where designed to do pretty much every aspect of warfare, including pitched battles and long range warfare.

It's the main reason during the great crusade and horus heresy that space marine legions came equipped with their own basilisks and medusas.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Yeah. A laser technically will not stop till it hits something. However it will quickly diffuse over distances till it eventually is indistinguishable from background radiation. This happens faster in atmosphere.

Thats actually one reason its so dangerous for little handheld lasers to be pointed at aircraft. At altitude, that little 1/8" dot becomes several meters of still blinding light.

This would mean any laser weapon would have a maximum effective range, even in space.

I would presume however laser weapons would still have a 'maximum range' in space.

By comparisons solid projectiles don't have a maximum range.... they just keep going until they hit something, although I presume gravity would have a higher effect due to less resistance, albeit I'm sure machine spirits could calculate for compensations

HexHammer wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:

KayTwo wrote:
Slopped armor was one of the great tank renovations of WW2

Since before ww1..... the whole concept of sloped armour is incredibly old, even being used on ww1 tanks and before tanks were even a thing (such as confederate ironclads).

Put simply it's easier to make 'boxy' tank and it gives more internal space, thus many tank designers to this day still making 'boxy' armoured vehicles.

I think it was mere chance that they made sloped armor and not intentionally, because the german WW2 Tiger Tank didn't have sloped armor and the germans was very diligent people, they made such high quality that their tanks took too much time to manufacture, compared to the US and UK tanks that was garbage. It was the Russians that invented the concept of sloped armor and only after the east front war with Germany vs Russia, then the germans began to make sloped armor.

The tiger 1 actually kind of does have sloped armour if you look at it, even it's more horizontal plates have slight angles to increase LOS thickness. In fact most post ww1 tanks have some degree of sloped armour on them as well. Add to the fact if you look in the Tiger 1 crew manual you will see they tell crews to angle their tanks at around 30 degrees from their opponent to 'slope' the armour angle to increase the chance of deflections. Even German tank designers highlighted that sloped armour was offer extra protection, at the sacrifice of internal space which meant you had to make the tank even larger (and it was already too large) or make the tank too cramped. Look at the sheer size of later heavies with sloped armor such as the Tiger II and IS series.

By comparison most 40K era Imperium Tanks, are weirdly enough, extremely roomy and have plenty of space for high tech equipment. You'd probably find tank crews being incredibly comfy by ww2 standards, which kind of goes against the imperium looking after troops, rather than cannon fodder. It probably wasn't intentional

If Sherman tankers for example did the same thing, their frontal armour would have an effective thickness much higher than the tigers, however their side armour was too thin to do this. By comparison the Tiger 1's side armour was thick enough. The Panther 1 is another tank they told their crews not to angle for the same reason. By comparison the Tiger II is another tank crews were told to angle.

All sloped armour did was mean crews didn't have to angle their tanks. In theory T-34 crews could of done so, but I'm yet to see evidence claiming so. Also many early war british tanks had sloped armour too such as the matilda II and crusader III. Also the slopes seen on tanks like the sherman and t-34 use a lot of space up, meaning weirdly enough they aren't really efficient designs, you get far less internal space, higher profiles and they are harder to make. As such most modern tanks have angles seen more commonly seen on the Crusader III, Panzer III + IV etc,. The you get some like the K2 Black Panther that are rather boxy, as once your armour get's to a certain level slopes can make it harder to equip your tanks with higher levels of protection because LOS thickness is less important than it used to be.

Sorry I'm getting a bit sidetracked here.... if you want to discuss the mechanics and history of sloped armour just PM me

HexHammer wrote:

 Baldeagle91 wrote:
I would presume however laser weapons would still have a 'maximum range' in space.

By comparisons solid projectiles don't have a maximum range.... they just keep going until they hit something, although I presume gravity would have a higher effect due to less resistance, albeit I'm sure machine spirits could calculate for compensations

Maybe in space, but not in normal earth surface conditions, wind resistance would give it a limited distance so it will slow down and drop.

I know some observatories has a powerful laser not only to measure the atmospheric turbulence for adaptive astronomical observations, but also an extremely powerful laser to hit the moon mirrors placed on the moon long ago. The moon has quite a distance.

I'm afraid that "sloped armor" on the Tiger 1 tank is mere due to chance than intentional.

Well we were talking about space specifically in that quote. laser that is simply projecting light and one that is required to slice through armour like butter are slightly different things. It's an interesting discussion but in all honest sci-fi representations of small attack craft and laser in space, might possibly be inaccurate, personally I feel tradition style battleships with kinetic weaponry would probably have a massive resurgence due to fuel and issues concerning vacums.

Well navies knew about the effectiveness of sloped armour before ironclads were even a thing... I think circa 1700's, at least early to mid 1800's. Certainly by the late 1800's and early 1900's they were talking about LOS thickness, deflection rates, effectiveness of single vs dual plates etc. All stuff discussed by landship designers in ww1 and tank designers in the interwar years. Fortifications also used sloped walls for deflection purposes since antiquity.

Concerning the Tiger I.... it actually mentions angling armour in the Crew Manual. German tank designers also quite actively argued the benefits of more extreme slopes vs the extra internal space and lower weight. You'd be surprised how 'unboxy' most stereotypically 'boxy' tanks are because of very intentional designs.