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Considering that the Imperium is accustomed to fighting wars of attrition, that wouldn't be an issue. And if SM could do what they do in fluff, I think BeRzErKeR has the right of it.

They nay-sayers argue that we'd win because weapons of today are awesome.

Others, myself included say we'd loose as we have no weapons, tactics, strategies or technology which would make us unique in the 41st millenium. In fact, the weapons which we're so proud of would be regarded as obsolete. In the fluff, the Imperium conquers planets MUCH more advanced, and MUCH better prepared than ours on a daily basis, and they do it easily.

But the biggest argument I'd have is that, if a vast Interstellar fleet of super-humans turned up, and explained to us how we are part of a galaxy-spanning Imperium, I don't think many world leaders would be arguing the toss. Reality is that they'd probably win before the first shot is fired.

IF this planet (Geez I can't even call it Earth becuase Terra exists...? ) could be convinced of the dangers it would face if left without the protection of the Imperium I think that we would surrender to the Imperium with relatively little fighting.

HOWEVER, against a foe that wishes nothing but our utter destruction it is a different story. Knowing orks, necrons ect humanity would fight to the death. And when one is willing to fight to the death, we become a very dangerous foe indeed.

How do we become dangerous, I would really love to see us get orbital bombarded and punched to death with armored tank equivalents of troopers known as the space marines. I really don't know how we are getting the fact that we would stand a chance, if we did stand a chance against space marines then the people we are fighting, which are geared and trained to assault a planet for the purposes of conquering it would not exist.

It's almost as saying that for some reason with our Antiquated technology compared to theirs even by imperial guard standards that with our rocks to their armored chassis that we would stand a chance, where are we getting this, even humans in 40k are better equipped and trained physically superior to us.

Hold on fellas let me grab my rock I'm going to go kill a space marine brb.

In WW2 some military officers were surprised by just how much damage completely desperate people with nothing to lose could do.

And the idea of damaging a tank via a hill, slippery cobblestones and soapy water is an amusing one. (I suck at history, I'd need to look up where that happened. I just recall my history teacher talking about it.)

Against things like necrons or nids, would we win? No, but I think we may put a reasonable dent in the first wave that came. Against the Imperium, I think we'd capitulate before complete destruction, but no idea how many causalities there would be before that.

I know there might be examples in 40k history when a less advanced army or race kicked the Imperium's butt in some battle...

Hmmm? A less advanced HUMAN army? If so, I'm not sure I've heard of it. In fact, advance or not, I know of no sucessful human realm to take on the Imperium.

The technology of Warhammer 40,000 is not 38,000 years more advanced than our modern technology. The storyline of 40k parallels our own Dark Ages. There are instances of advanced technology, but they are extremely rare.

Imperial Guard are pretty much the unwashed hoards of a conscripted Dark Age fief.
Space Marines are pretty much knights.

Comparatively, the bulk of battlefield technology in 40k is on par with what we used in the 40s and 50s.

Of course space travel is a different story.

The Imperial Guard tanks and artillery may as well be catapults compared to what we have today.

The Imperial Navy fighters and bombers are barely the equivalent of World War 1 aviation.

Space marines, even terminators and dreadnaughts are nowhere near as invulnerable as people think. Of course they’d beat us in hand to hand but we don’t fight hand to hand. Even if we did, there are plenty of stories of fully armored marines being dragged down by hoards of cultists. RPGs and Armor Penetrating rounds are but a very few of the weapons we can bring to bear on an armored target. I’m willing to bet that a mounted 50 caliber machine gun would make short work of even a terminator from well outside the range of a terminator’s ability to retaliate.

The question of orbital bombardment is a tricky one. Of course an orbital strike would be devastating but I’m not convinced it’d be too much trouble to modify our nuclear weapons to hit targets in orbit. I’m sure when our satellites first caught glimpse of the Imperial navy approaching earth the world leaders will immediately set many of the most brilliant minds on the planet to figuring out how to attack targets in orbit just in case the visitors are hostile. Considering that the vast majority of ICBM’s and nukes in submarines are already mounted on rockets, I’m not seeing it taking very long 0 and when your very survival depends on something, you have a tendency to work fast.

As far as wars of attrition go – The Tau are far less populous than the Imperial Guard and they repelled the Imperium. Of course they were still a multi-planet empire.

I had a mathematics professor about eight years ago who worked with mathematicians in the department of defense. When 911 happened, of course the talk of the class moved to the approaching Afghanistan conflict. The conversation then moved to the potential for nuclear war. I’ll never forget my professor saying that he couldn’t really discuss it but that nuclear weapons were archaic in comparison to what exists behind closed doors in the military… that it was unlikely that we’d ever even bother to use nukes again and that they mostly just existed as a frightening deterrent. He said he’s seen math that represented the ability to vaporize mountain ranges from space but that’s as much detail as he could go into – that was eight years ago.

I think we’d be ok if the Imperium showed up here.

Unless we can stop an exterminatus then wed be doomed. No matter what the numbers show. If there was a battle barge with energy weapons able to bombard cities and missiles able to strip the world of all lifeforms being able to lob our nukes at them can be pretty hollow. Plus wed have to be able to make such missiles able to stay on target with any evasive maneuvers their craft can attempt.

Plus what would there be to stop them from shooting our missiles down whilst on takeoff and causing us more damage?

incarna wrote:The technology of Warhammer 40,000 is not 38,000 years more advanced than our modern technology. The storyline of 40k parallels our own Dark Ages. There are instances of advanced technology, but they are extremely rare.

Uh, yeah. . . advanced technology BY THE STANDARDS OF 40K is pretty rare. I think you're working off of the tabletop stats, which are NOT what we're discussing. In the fluff, a lasgun is easily the better of any modern small-arm.

incarna wrote:
Comparatively, the bulk of battlefield technology in 40k is on par with what we used in the 40s and 50s.

The Imperial Guard tanks and artillery may as well be catapults compared to what we have today.

The Imperial Navy fighters and bombers are barely the equivalent of World War 1 aviation.

Ye-no. Not at all. Imperial Navy fighters and bombers are spacecraft. They can move at speeds inconceivable to modern air force pilots, engage at ranges measured in thousands of kilometers, and carry weapons capable of destroying battleships as standard armament.

incarna wrote:
Space marines, even terminators and dreadnaughts are nowhere near as invulnerable as people think. Of course they’d beat us in hand to hand but we don’t fight hand to hand. Even if we did, there are plenty of stories of fully armored marines being dragged down by hoards of cultists. RPGs and Armor Penetrating rounds are but a very few of the weapons we can bring to bear on an armored target. I’m willing to bet that a mounted 50 caliber machine gun would make short work of even a terminator from well outside the range of a terminator’s ability to retaliate.

Ok, first; why do you think a .50 cal can penetrate Terminator armour? Terminator armour can stand up to a sustained assault from bolter shells; that is to say, 30mm RPG rounds, loaded with an explosive we haven't even invented yet. I don't think .50 cal bullets will have much of a chance.

And second, why don't you think a Termie can respond at that range? A storm bolter is, as I just mentioned, a rapid-fire RPG launcher. I am inclined to think such a weapon could take out a .50 cal.

incarna wrote:
The question of orbital bombardment is a tricky one. Of course an orbital strike would be devastating but I’m not convinced it’d be too much trouble to modify our nuclear weapons to hit targets in orbit. I’m sure when our satellites first caught glimpse of the Imperial navy approaching earth the world leaders will immediately set many of the most brilliant minds on the planet to figuring out how to attack targets in orbit just in case the visitors are hostile. Considering that the vast majority of ICBM’s and nukes in submarines are already mounted on rockets, I’m not seeing it taking very long 0 and when your very survival depends on something, you have a tendency to work fast.

Sure, we could shoot nukes at a ship in low orbit; but we are not used to fighting in space, and the Imperium is. They routinely use weapons that far outclass modern nukes in ship-to-ship fights, and their ships are built to survive such. In addition, an Imperial ship mounts point defense. So most likely our nukes, which are big, easy targets as they rise out of the atmosphere, are shot down; and if not, they bounce off the Imperial ship's void shields. Then they blast our silos to glass. Oops, no more nukes!

Cryonicleech wrote:Call it fanboyism, but we are screwed against ANY 40k race. Why? It's the 41st Milennium for pete's sake, and Humanity with all its advances is STILL struggling with these other races.

We can beat Orks, for sure - they're not that smart, and while 40K's humanity might struggle against them, the "sin" of invention would see us gain the upper hand and kill them with biological weapons fast.

We're also cunning enough to feign submission to an Imperial occupation until we get our hands on that lovely, lovely technology of theirs.
Then we improve on it, and kick them back out again. Same goes for Tau.

Necrons? Eh. hackers and computer viruses designed towards however the necron "programming" function.

Eldar? Depends on what they want. Subjugation? See above. Eradication - we might be screwed. Then again, Eldar aren't usually interested in planetary populations unless they interfere with Exodites (I'm pretty sure we're not an Exodite world), or the farseer says that one person or his descendant will do something of significance that hurts us in 500 years, and they'll go in, kill that one guy, and leave again. We won't even know it happened.

Only races we'd be proper screwed against would be 'Nids - we have a few weeks to invent something that kills them all before the world is consumed.
Then again, if we put up enough resistance, the Hive Mind might calculate that eating our planet would be a net loss and bugger off, but that's the only hope of salvation we have.

It's not that we're currently well equipped against most of 40K's factions, it's that unlike any of them save the Tau, we is clever monkeys, and will invent solutions where they don't already exist.

None of this is taking into account that we're 6 feet tall on average versus the average 40K denizens height of a few inches .

Does the Earth get its full arsenal of Strategic and Tactical Nuclear Weapons? If so, I would say Earth > 1 Space Marine Chapter.

Bran Dawri wrote:

Cryonicleech wrote:Call it fanboyism, but we are screwed against ANY 40k race. Why? It's the 41st Milennium for pete's sake, and Humanity with all its advances is STILL struggling with these other races.

We can beat Orks, for sure - they're not that smart, and while 40K's humanity might struggle against them, the "sin" of invention would see us gain the upper hand and kill them with biological weapons fast.
Maybe. It hasn't worked for the Imperium so far, and there HAVE been recorded attempts.

We're also cunning enough to feign submission to an Imperial occupation until we get our hands on that lovely, lovely technology of theirs.
Then we improve on it, and kick them back out again. Same goes for Tau.
Exactly what do you mean by improve? At best you take some of thier weapons, but you'll never have access to Titan Legion or SM tech. And Tau or Imperials will hardly trust you enough. They're not going to just hand over their tech to you.

Necrons? Eh. hackers and computer viruses designed towards however the necron "programming" function.
Necrons are souls entrapped within machine bodies that repair themselves. How is a virus going to help? Where's the fething plug?

Eldar? Depends on what they want. Subjugation? See above. Eradication - we might be screwed. Then again, Eldar aren't usually interested in planetary populations unless they interfere with Exodites (I'm pretty sure we're not an Exodite world), or the farseer says that one person or his descendant will do something of significance that hurts us in 500 years, and they'll go in, kill that one guy, and leave again. We won't even know it happened.
Eldar DEFINITELY won't be handing over thier tech. And this could very well be an Exodite/Maiden world (we do sorta have a perfect enviroment).

Only races we'd be proper screwed against would be 'Nids - we have a few weeks to invent something that kills them all before the world is consumed.
Same point as the orks. Imperium did deliver something similar into the hive queen node. But they had to capture a lictor, study it for a while (while entire planets were getting eaten elsewhere) and THEN ram it down the Hive Ships throat. And that didn't kill all of them.

Then again, if we put up enough resistance, the Hive Mind might calculate that eating our planet would be a net loss and bugger off, but that's the only hope of salvation we have.
No. Hasn't worked for fortress worlds, won't work for us.


It's not that we're currently well equipped against most of 40K's factions, it's that unlike any of them save the Tau, we is clever monkeys, and will invent solutions where they don't already exist. Um. We're humans. They're humans. (and Eldar/Tau/Orks etc). Why do you think we're any more innovative? A bit of inter-planet racism going on there?

None of this is taking into account that we're 6 feet tall on average versus the average 40K denizens height of a few inches .
Hmmm. Good point.

Emperors Faithful wrote:Maybe. It hasn't worked for the Imperium so far, and there HAVE been recorded attempts.

such as? Regardless, orks are far from invulnerable to conventional weaponry, even the low-tech (tho I disagree) weaponry of 21st century earth. Biological weaponry was just an example - we might have to resort to chemical warfare instead

Exactly what do you mean by improve? At best you take some of thier weapons, but you'll never have access to Titan Legion or SM tech. And Tau or Imperials will hardly trust you enough. They're not going to just hand over their tech to you.

Exactly what I said. We're a world with industrial capabilities. The Imperium, being humans, will consider us just another rediscovered human world brought inline, expect a tithe of Guardsman regiments and other stuff.
With us being a reasonably industrialised world, we will be expected to turn that industrial strength up a notch and start producing Imperial goods. Voila - imperial tech at our disposal. Hand it over to engineers and scientists to reverse-engineer it and then tinker with. (And why would we need SM tech?)
Tau would take a bit more time, but a similar scenario (maybe stealing the things instead of being given them) should suffice.

Necrons are souls entrapped within machine bodies that repair themselves. How is a virus going to help? Where's the fething plug?
Machine bodies. That means intricate electrical mechanisms - and they have to have some method of communicating wirelessly. All we need to do is figure out how, disrupt that (whether by using it against via the computervirus of Independence Day or just jamming the frequency or whatever), and we as good as have them beat.

Eldar DEFINITELY won't be handing over thier tech. And this could very well be an Exodite/Maiden world (we do sorta have a perfect enviroment).
So, seen any Exodites running around lately? Though it could once have been a maiden world. In any case, it's a moot point. Eldar live on craftworlds. There's no record of any of them wanting to raise a stellar empire by enslaving monkeigh.

Same point as the orks. Imperium did deliver something similar into the hive queen node. But they had to capture a lictor, study it for a while (while entire planets were getting eaten elsewhere) and THEN ram it down the Hive Ships throat. And that didn't kill all of them.

I know - I said we'd be proper f*kked against Nids - that's the last chance scenario.

No. Hasn't worked for fortress worlds, won't work for us.

There's a few instances known of this happening. One with a last stand by Imperial Fists for sure. Question is, do we have the stamina for that kind of a last desperate gambit?

Um. We're humans. They're humans. (and Eldar/Tau/Orks etc). Why do you think we're any more innovative? A bit of inter-planet racism going on there?

A little bit. Exactly how many instances of advancing technology for the Imperium in the ten millennia since the Horus Heresy do you know of? Only ones I can think of are anecdotal and relate to either rediscovering old technology (SCTs), or something akin to weapon-swaps on tanks. Heck, one of the notable things about the Imperium is that it doesn't progress technologically. How many instances of advancing technology do you know of for the Eldar? The Orks?

Hmmm. Good point.
Just trying to put the discussion into perspective a bit

thats a stupid post... nuking nids?

Exterminatus extreemis. lawl.

Bran Dawri wrote:


A little bit. Exactly how many instances of advancing technology for the Imperium in the ten millennia since the Horus Heresy do you know of? Only ones I can think of are anecdotal and relate to either rediscovering old technology (SCTs), or something akin to weapon-swaps on tanks. Heck, one of the notable things about the Imperium is that it doesn't progress technologically. How many instances of advancing technology do you know of for the Eldar? The Orks?

For the Orks? Lots. Ork Meks are always inventing new things, all the time. Shokk Attack Gunz are recent inventions. Orkimedes invented the tellyporta for the Third Armageddeon War. The Mighty Mangler of Bork, if I recall correctly, forced his Meks to invent a piece of artillery large enough to bombard the moon of his world from the surface (yes, he was a little mad). Orks are quite possibly the most inventive race in the galaxy.

@Bran Dawri: You do know that fething around with sacred technology is heresy right? The Imperium and Tech priests are gonna be keeping a close eye on us...

Yup - and us, being comparatively enlightened beings, do not care for such superstitions. And a planet is a big place. Hiding research labs from visiting investigators should be possible.

Well why don't ye make a 2k Codex?

An M16 is an Autogun, an M60 is a H. Stubber, etc.....

Bran Dawri: Necrons are not true 'machines'. They simply have bodies made of necrodermis. You can't hack them or sabotage their 'systems', because they don't have any.

Has anyone yet discussed the fact that all these fictional worlds are supremely more densely packed with warrior castes. I mean it boils down to percentage mobile army. For every one soldier, how many civilians know how to fight WELL. Grimdark is set back in feudal mentality and although there are alot of serfs, Carls and Thralls usuallt made sure their lessers could at least shove a pointy stick in someone's snotbox. I speak for some of suburbia when I say, don't invade my place. Please?

the_ferret sums that up well enough.

tigonesskay wrote:

Emperors Faithful wrote:

Madgod wrote:
There are soooo many more reasons why we would lose. Lets not even start on terminators. If marines can take literally 1000 bullets to the face befroe even a crack in the armour then a terminator would quite literally be capable of destroying, for example the entire New Zealand Army single handedly.

Pffft.
http://www.invadenewzealand.com/

That would be a little bit of over kill?
A SM could take 1000 bullets? Not if you shoot them in the eyeball...

Maybe a little bit but it wouldn't be hard. We would have next to nothing that could hurt it. No planes. Armoured vehicles that are probably easier to blow up than the average American GM car. This is the army, you must remember with only 2000 regulars. The army that was too stupid to measure their armoured vehicles against their planes before buying them (they don't fit and so are pretty much useless). The army whose entire annual budget is less than what the US Army has spent in Iraq alone by 10am. We would have very very little that would hurt it at all. Even less that could with stand even a single bolter shot. I wouldn't like to bet either way. And I'm allowed to say this because I live in NZ.

But you would surrender long before it ever came to an actual fight anyway so it doesn't really matter, does it?

@ bran dawri

'how many instances of advancing technology for the Imperium in the ten millennia since the Horus Heresy do you know of? Only ones I can think of are anecdotal and relate to either rediscovering old technology (SCTs), or something akin to weapon-swaps on tanks. Heck, one of the notable things about the Imperium is that it doesn't progress technologically.'

did the light just go on for you?

the imperium reached its zenith, its now trying to get back there.

we would be screwed sideways against any 40k race

orks -were created by the old ones as a warrior race and have outlasted them, the eldar and humans. i doubt they would die so easy without @ least granting resistance to the next generation
which reminds me orks on earth is very bad, as soon they will be popping out of the ground.

It would depend on the amount of orks. A single rok (while cuasing chaos on a continent) would be relatively easy to contain and defeat. They have no ships in orbit, no air superiorty and very few vehichles to start off with.(Infestation that grows after is a different story, that'll be around for a while)

If it's a full blown Waaagh on the other hand, it doesn't look so good for us.

What if we launch nuke to the warboss position.

In the case of a Rok? Yeah, that'd work.

But a Warboss at the head of a Waaagh is going to be much more difficult to target.

We have enough nukes to destroy world 13 times so launch it on orks.Ork infestation is almost impossible to rid off.

I doubt very much ANY Govt would approve of luanching all our Nukes. No matter the situation.