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Lexicanum:
Flak armour consists of multiple layers of different ablative and impact absorbent materials designed primarily to deflect or absorb the majority of the force from a shot or blow. It is meant to provide defence against low-velocity, dispersed damage, such as explosions, shrapnel and ricochet material, rather than to protect against a direct impact, in which case the armour's protection is almost negligible. The ablative characteristics of the armour provide further defence against heat and energy based damage. Some layers commonly used include Carbon-fibre, Plasfibre and Thermoplas strips, although a number of specialised materials can be integrated in non-standard suits. Most guardsmen wear Flak Armour, a cheaply produced, lightweight armour vest provided en-masse to Imperial Guard units. A flak vest consists of a skeleton of lightweight, flexible metal. This skeleton is then wrapped in multiple layers of a high-tensile fabric that is the main protective component of the armour. After multiple layers of fabric are affixed to the skeleton,the vest is given its toughened outer shell. The same principle is used in the production of Guardsman helmets and bracers. Guards for knees and legs are also produced. Thermal-absorbent materials, applied to reduce the thermal signature of the infantry, help with staying invisible during night recon missions. Rarer still, Cameleoline is incorporated into the outermost layer of some Imperial Guard Regiments' fatigues providing yet more concealment.

Although it is a relatively ineffective armour, it is incredibly cheap and easy to make, requiring only a very low technology base, putting it among the most popular in the galaxy with a variety of races.

Does not protect against direct impact. Protection is almost negligible. Further protection from heat and energy damage.

Vice_Grip wrote:Protection is almost negligible.

... seriously, you're going to push the fething "flak armor is a tee shirt" view?

It says that in the above paragraph, not my veiw.

Vice_Grip wrote:It says that in the above paragraph, not my veiw.

Yeah, Lexicanum is pretty stupid sometimes.

That was the case of some fanboy making up his own lore.

Yep, that would explain it.

Thank you all for your comments and replies, they were great and of great help

And for the flak armor thing. It is not T-Shirt like most people believe, they are just outclassed when they are compared to the rest of the galaxy. Just like Mobile Infantry armor from Starship Troopers, it is design to stop bullets not giant bug claws tearing trough it. And I am quite sure that it can stop most of the minor shrapnel's that hit it.

Exactly. Glad to see you got your answers.

Don't want to spoil the natural conclusion, especially with an 'off topic' but did want to thank BeRsErKeR for getting back to me on the plasma reactor. Cheers for offering to find the source but I'll be grand for now (still got plenty of my old info where the lovely ships are concerned, so I'll dig it out if I ever decide that my wonderous and unfathomable God-Machine ships need to be a bit 'harder', like my Bolters). Cheers again.

BeRzErKeR wrote:
1) We can make statements and assumptions based off of physics as we understand them, and so can reasonably talk about how these things might work. In this case, if there's a piece of fluff that contradicts what we know about reality, we have to reject it or at least find a different way to interpret it. For instance, in some places it's stated that Imperial warships are powered by fusion reactors. However, these ships also possess both shielding and weaponry far, far more powerful than could be powered by any conceivable fusion reactor that would fit inside the hull. That means we MUST reject the assertion that the ships are powered by fusion, if we're using the laws of physics.

Alot of this depends on the numbers you accept, and that's far from granted. Isolated numbers can run from terawatts to something approaching or exceeding what our sun puts out each second as far as power generation goes. Some numbers are more consistent with performance with fusion (which also depends on the kind of performance you're thinking - efficiencies vary.) As well as how one is assuming such ships/vechiles/whatever actually work - we don't know so there is tremendous latitude in how they may or may not work, especially given the technological inconsistency across the Imperium. And that's the problem with this method - it requires you either ignore people who will object (and people WILL object) or it requires achieving some sort of consensus (which introduces complicatiosn of its own) in order for it to work.

On top of that is the simple fact that you can try to apply physics but it will only work up to a point. How far one can go or wants to go depends on the individual, but certain hard limits (like FTL or time travel) are going to be difficult or impossible to make work with 'physics' as we understand them and will simply be a black box.

2) We take every piece of fluff at face value, unless they contradict each other, and simply ignore the fact that many things don't fit our understanding of the physical sciences. The problem with this is that technical discussions are no longer possible. If we go this route, we cannot use our own understanding of science to back up our positions; we can't say that bolter rounds are or are not like frag grenades, simply because the words 'shell' and 'grenade' and indeed 'fragmentation' no longer have any objective points of reference. The laws of physics have been revoked, under this system; Imperial technology is magic, it does exactly what it says it does but we don't know how, and that's all we can say. It's no longer possible to make any inferences at all, and so discussion is not really possible.

There's nothing wrong with taking all the fluff at face value - it's the interpretations where the problems and contradictions will arise. People (and this includes the writers, authors, artists etc.) will all - out of universe - put their spin on 40K and that invariably is going to lead to conflicts. But there is also no clear cut canon policy (which is actually a *good* thing, as arguing over canon gets boring and is needlessly restrictive.) And isn't neccesarily 'black or white' either - there's plenty of latitude between 'take everything seriously' and 'take nothing seriously' - it just requires that a person look at multiple examples of the same thing to find the answers, and the ones that seem to pop up most often are more likely true. Furthermore, given that the bulk of 'evidence' is either artwork or dialogue, you almost have to ignore the idea of 'literal' because of multiple definitions (which is where multiple references, and context become important.) This actually isn't a bad thing, as having an open ended approach and multiple intepretations can do much to solve apparent inconsistencies.

Example: you mention fusion reactors are mentioned on some starships (nick Kyme and James Swallow are notorious for this) - and the same applies with Titans (fission or fusion). That isn't neccesarily a contradiction, depending on the specific assumptions and parameters you are working with (numbers, etc.) For one thing, some depictions of 40K fusion are downright 'magical' either in the materials they use or what they do (meaning it isn't nuclear fusion. I've heard some people describe antimatter as fusion before, btw - and that works based on the definition of 'fusion' you use - eg joining together.) Alternately, starships might run multiple, redundant reactor systems for different reasons (fusion reactors could be used for some kinds of systems, whilst plasma reactors are used for others. Or the fusion reactors may be a component in plasma reactor functioning - we don't really KNOW what is involved in a plasma reactor.) Thirdly, fusion reactors and plasma reactors may just be the same thing - 40K plasma is weird stuff and one of its properties has been matter to energy conversion, which could be a form of 'fusion.'

The real problem is that 'analysis' is never going to be simple or straightfiorward or something you can condense into little bite sized tidbits for easy consumption. It's going to be long, convoluted, messy and full of compromise. And with the evolving nature of the universe, it is quite likely to change at least in small ways with each new addition. But that's the price you pay when there is no clear canon, when things are constantly added, and there's a heap of myth and interpretation added in. One also has to remember that as far as sci fi goes, the bar for precision is very low. It doesn't have to be precise, it just has to be 'close enough' because we can't do quite the same things with sci fi (EG testing theories) that we can IRL. In that respect its alot more like archeology than anything. But if you're pretty flexible about it and aren't too picky, a vague sort of consistency can be achieved.

So, in this discussion; are we applying physics, or magic? So long as we stick with one explanation consistently, either is fine; but we've been going with 'physics' so far, and that was the assumption I was proceeding under. If we switch to 'magic' now, then this entire thread is a waste of time.

Functionally its the same thing. We're not going for 'reality' we're going for plausibility. The difference is that the latter is alot more flexible and forgiving, as long as it is 'possible' that works. If we go for reality then you're really no better off than if you take everything as arbitrary, because nothing is going to conform perfectly to reality. You can even analyze 'magic' as long as you aren't going completely off the deep end and being arbitrary or dishonest about it.

There are people on different sites who have run numbers; I believe there was a series of very long and involved threads about analyzing 40k physics on stardestroyer.net a couple of years back. The universal conclusion was that either physics is radically different in the 40kverse (in which we must fall back on 'magic', and can't have technical discussions) or there are words in Imperial Gothic that simply don't mean what they mean in English. If 'plasma' is actually High Gothic jargon for 'controlled miniature white holes', then that solves the problem neatly, since modern physics simply has no idea how much energy white holes radiate; they're only theoretical at present. Incidentally, that also provides a possible answer for why plasma weapons are so destructive, since in reality firing a blob of plasma any distance should dissipate the heat through the atmosphere and leave you with only a thin fog of relatively harmless particles.

I have a feeling that was my stuff under discussion. That may be a thread I'll want to avoid because I'm sure it made me out to be some sort of lunatic.