Conquering (our) Terra

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**Kain**

EmilCrane wrote:
Obviously there are plenty of ways to subversively take us down but I think the OP had a big kursk style battle in mind.

Well, I'm sure whatever survives the system crashing message and solar storm is going to throw everything it can into survival.

**MarsNZ**

A few whispered promises to the chimps who run this planet

= Daemon Terra

**the ancient**

Take out the satellites.
Which would reduce communications to radios and phone land lines, a few quick strikes against what evers left, leaving earth unable to coordinate a response against a strike force that can pretty much turn up and go as it pleases. So there is no united front.
Would also make just about everything a LOS weapon.
You dont have to kill everyone to conquer the planet. So im going to say possible

**Happyjew**

To take out modern day Terra would require some sort of Tactical Geniu---CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDDD!!!!!

Though Eldrad and a single Warlock could probably do it.

**welshhoppo**

What do you mean by conquering our Terra, Tzeentch has already won.

Spoiler:

**Furyou Miko**

I can't be the only one who finds that amusing and a favourable comparison rather than a pejorative comment... can I?

**the shrouded lord**

Furyou Miko wrote:
I can't be the only one who finds that amusing and a favourable comparison rather than a pejorative comment... can I?

technically, yes.
realy, no.

**liquidjoshi**

Furyou Miko wrote:
I can't be the only one who finds that amusing and a favourable comparison rather than a pejorative comment... can I?

Yo.

It wouldn't take much IMO to take down Earth today. At all. I mean, we can barely handle our own gak today. I'm thinking a few squads of marines.
Hell, if we're not dumb about it, simply a message from a fleet in space giving the usual shpeal about the Imperium and united mankind and so on would probably be enough to turn at least some of us in the right direction.
Again, if we're not dumb about it. How much trust do we really have in our leaders though...?

**Furyou Miko**

I dunno, did you vote for Cameron? :p

**Imperious**

Just trying to think of what TomaHawk cruise missiles would do to any leman Russ's stupid enough to be spotted. Also I think we are a lot brighter than imperial guard in general. Our tactical warfare would stand us in good stead against any of the races. As long as we weren't wiped out in the first wave. We would develop the tech and the tactics to take out anyone. We have evolved our warfare from clubs to electronic warfare. One thing is for sure. The human race can fight and will fight at the slightest provocation.

**Iron_Captain**

the shrouded lord wrote:
Furyou Miko wrote:
I can't be the only one who finds that amusing and a favourable comparison rather than a pejorative comment... can I?

technically, yes.
realy, no.

I always knew it! The US actually is ruled by lizards!
Ready the nukes! Death to the capitalist lizard things!

On a serious note, the debate of Leman Russ vs modern MBT seems rather senseless to me because we do not know if our weapons are capable of even scratching the fictional future stuff the Leman Russ is made of. Apart from that, between Titans, Baneblades and intercontinental missiles that tear holes in reality itself, I say the Imperium would have no trouble conquering Earth.

**AtoMaki**

Kain wrote:
EmilCrane wrote:
Obviously there are plenty of ways to subversively take us down but I think the OP had a big kursk style battle in mind.

Well, I'm sure whatever survives the system crashing message and solar storm is going to throw everything it can into survival.

I highly doubt it. Even if all the people of Earth united (LOL, the probability of this is much less than the probability of a real SM invasion

) under a single banner, our so-called leaders would throw in the surrender ASAP so they can "lead us into a new future" instead of risking the loss of their power.

**liquidjoshi**

Furyou Miko wrote:
I dunno, did you vote for Cameron? :p

I voted Clegg.

To clarify, I'm a student.

Never again.

**Furyou Miko**

Imperious wrote:Just trying to think of what TomaHawk cruise missiles would do to any leman Russ's stupid enough to be spotted. Also I think we are a lot brighter than imperial guard in general. Our tactical warfare would stand us in good stead against any of the races. As long as we weren't wiped out in the first wave. We would develop the tech and the tactics to take out anyone. We have evolved our warfare from clubs to electronic warfare. One thing is for sure. The human race can fight and will fight at the slightest provocation.

Yes, but this is humans invading, too, so... your pro-human stance doesn't really help. :p

liquidjoshi wrote:I voted Clegg.

To clarify, I'm a student.

Never again.

Well, to be fair, you didn't know that Liberal Democrat meant Backstabbing spanker at the time...

**liquidjoshi**

Exactly why I think Clegg would happily pull a 'crons on us.
"Into the Necron machine you go, I'll sit here and become an Overlord."

I can totally see that happening.

**Overlord Thraka**

I think against regiment of IG we would win. I think against 1 chapter of SM we would win. We would no doubt take losses, but like others are saying, reverse engineering the tech they have would be fairly simple and would give us a huge leap toward equality in the field of battle. Also I think higher caliber would certainly pierce Flak Armor. As for Tanks, we've got speed? And we've got lotz? I dunno. Man for man with IG we'd win. I think that the UN would agree to come together to fight of the Alien invaders, and then there'd be us 40k nerds to show them all the weak points in the enemy's armor and general forces

**daddyorchips**

wow, this thread is great. i've only read the first page but we've got americans claiming that the USA could defeat multiple chapters of Space Marines. but the USA didn't manage to defeat the Taliban ffs. What do they put in the water over there? Soma I reckon.

**kronk**

From orbit: The Space Marines could bombard all of our battle ships, carriers, and other large ships while they were still at sea.

They could then take out all satellites, leaving us unable to communicate.

They could then bombard every significantly sized power plant, putting us all in the dark.

The could then carpet bomb every airport, removing our ability to travel quickly.

THEN they could land and start cleaning house, country by country, military by military.

We wouldn't stand a chance.

**AtoMaki**

Overlord Thraka wrote:
I think that the UN would agree to come together to fight of the Alien invaders

No way in hell. If we scrap the "Earth is united" thing (so we leave Fantasy Land behind for good) then the most solid scenario is that the nations of Earth wipe out each other waaaaaay before the invaders can even land. I can see the USA side with the IoM with Obama inviting the leaders of the invading force into the White House to negotiate and announce the unconditional surrender of the USA. Europe will resist for a few seconds just to establish that they are not b*tches like the USA. Russia will go haywire and nuke the USA and Europe. China will lay low like sh*t in the grass. The others don't matter at all.

Uhm... Maybe North Korea will fight. Those guys are definitely crazy enough to do that

.

**CthuluIsSpy**

kronk wrote:
From orbit: The Space Marines could bombard all of our battle ships, carriers, and other large ships while they were still at sea.

They could then take out all satellites, leaving us unable to communicate.

They could then bombard every significantly sized power plant, putting us all in the dark.

The could then carpet bomb every airport, removing our ability to travel quickly.

THEN they could land and start cleaning house, country by country, military by military.

We wouldn't stand a chance.

Whilst true, the condition of the discussion is what would happen if they didn't didn't bomb us from orbit.

What would happen is that the marines would drop pod into a nation's leader / general's bed room, and kill everyone in the room while everyone still doesn't know what is going on. Or drop pod in an army base when everyone is still asleep.

EDIT: No idea why I put "you" instead of "they." Derp.

**kronk**

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Whilst true, the condition of the discussion is what would happen if you didn't bomb us from orbit.

Well. That's me embarrassed!

In that case, we'd win because we're cool.

**liquidjoshi**

kronk wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Whilst true, the condition of the discussion is what would happen if you didn't bomb us from orbit.

Well. That's me embarrassed!

In that case, we'd win because we're cool.

But it's something constantly ignored because otherwise it's a complete ROFLstomp regardless.

I mean, I still think we'd be fethed even without orbital support, but losing that way is just too easy, y'know?

**Orblivion**

liquidjoshi wrote:
kronk wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Whilst true, the condition of the discussion is what would happen if you didn't bomb us from orbit.

Well. That's me embarrassed!

In that case, we'd win because we're cool.

But it's something constantly ignored because otherwise it's a complete ROFLstomp regardless.

I mean, I still think we'd be fethed even without orbital support, but losing that way is just too easy, y'know?

Against the full military might of the Imperium? Yeah, we wouldn't stand a chance. Considering how the Imperium and specifically the Adeptus Astartes prefer to do things though, I think there are plenty of invasion scenarios in which the Imperium would bite off more than they could chew against us.

**liquidjoshi**

Orblivion wrote:
liquidjoshi wrote:
kronk wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Whilst true, the condition of the discussion is what would happen if you didn't bomb us from orbit.

Well. That's me embarrassed!

In that case, we'd win because we're cool.

But it's something constantly ignored because otherwise it's a complete ROFLstomp regardless.

I mean, I still think we'd be fethed even without orbital support, but losing that way is just too easy, y'know?

Against the full military might of the Imperium? Yeah, we wouldn't stand a chance. Considering how the Imperium and specifically the Adeptus Astartes prefer to do things though, I think there are plenty of invasion scenarios in which the Imperium would bite off more than they could chew against us.

I think we're clusterfethed if they send more than, say, ten guardsmen

There are probably guys out there that know more about our military than I do, but I'm willing to bet on Sci-fi bull - Erm, I mean, science. Yeah...

Actually, I'm willing to bet that a single Librarian could do it. Just my opinion though.

**CthuluIsSpy**

liquidjoshi wrote:
Orblivion wrote:
liquidjoshi wrote:
kronk wrote:
CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Whilst true, the condition of the discussion is what would happen if you didn't bomb us from orbit.

Well. That's me embarrassed!

In that case, we'd win because we're cool.

But it's something constantly ignored because otherwise it's a complete ROFLstomp regardless.

I mean, I still think we'd be fethed even without orbital support, but losing that way is just too easy, y'know?

Against the full military might of the Imperium? Yeah, we wouldn't stand a chance. Considering how the Imperium and specifically the Adeptus Astartes prefer to do things though, I think there are plenty of invasion scenarios in which the Imperium would bite off more than they could chew against us.

I think we're clusterfethed if they send more than, say, ten guardsmen There are probably guys out there that know more about our military than I do, but I'm willing to bet on Sci-fi bull - Erm, I mean, science. Yeah...

Actually, I'm willing to bet that a single Librarian could do it. Just my opinion though.

Yeah, a librarian would be nasty.

"Oh, you have a few tanks? That's nice..." *Opens a warp rift*

**Vaktathi**

liquidjoshi wrote:
I think we're clusterfethed if they send more than, say, ten guardsmen There are probably guys out there that know more about our military than I do, but I'm willing to bet on Sci-fi bull - Erm, I mean, science. Yeah...

Actually, I'm willing to bet that a single Librarian could do it. Just my opinion though.

Big thing is that 40k is a Fantasy universe with a Scifi paintjob, it just swaps out Knights and Dragons for Space Marines and Hive Tyrants, but otherwise remains very similar.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:

Yeah, a librarian would be nasty.

"Oh, you have a few tanks? That's nice..." *Opens a warp rift*

To be fair, most Psykers can't just open warp rifts with the flick of a wrist, and most tanks could probably engage the Librarian before the Librarian could do anything of the sort, or attack helicopters, mortars, long range artillery, etc

I don't think anything in the 40k universe would deal with modern artillery well, able to land a hail of unbelievably destructive shells 30km away within meters of an intended target, move, and do it again in minutes from an entirely different position. Radar-guided counter battery fire would be very rude indeed for most 40k factions

**Banzaimash**

They could always land some Calliduses, who would then take out and replace all major world leaders. Then they land troops, and the Calliduses surrender in their disguised form. Sure some will fight, but they will eventually be crushed by the tanks of the Imperial guard.

**Waaaghpower**

daddyorchips wrote:
wow, this thread is great. i've only read the first page but we've got americans claiming that the USA could defeat multiple chapters of Space Marines. but the USA didn't manage to defeat the Taliban ffs. What do they put in the water over there? Soma I reckon.

Adeuptus Astartes don't use Guerilla tactics, and wear bright, shiny armor that makes them stand out like blood on snow. Our problem with the Taliban was locating them. Once we've got a target, assuming we don't mind collateral damage, that target it paste.

**ansacs**

EmilCrane wrote:The imperium of man has the tech edge over us in two major areas, metallurgy and miniaturized power sources, allowing them to make anti grav vehicles, house sized tanks, titans, plasma and laser rifles etc.

We have the edge in computer technology, especially micro-processors and detection (radar and satellites). That allows us to have tanks that can balance wine glasses on their main guns while moving over rough terrain and Fire and Forget missiles and our huge advantage in the air.

Do I think we'd win versus the imperium of Man? Hell no, even just with the guard alone we're no so far ahead that they can't just drown us in more stuff that probably as good as most of our equipment. Once marines get involved its over, their rapid global strike capability would probably be too much for us to deal with, they can hit us where it hurts until we sue for peace.

However we would give good account of ourselves.

This is a good point. What would happen to all our computes if they even come near an IoM tech, many of which are highly infected with a huge variety of virus', etc. Funnily enough the IoM would probably be better served by "gifting" us an artifact from mars to destroy our entire tech base.

Kain wrote:In any case, this scenario depends entirely on your calcs.

The calcs that put lasguns at megajoule firepower that bores through meters of concrete, while Orks shrug off .50 cal BMGs like raindrops, with marines capable of punching through eight inches of steel with their basic bolters and moving around like spiderman on crack while lance batteries put the K-T Impactor asteroid to shame with single shots at full power means that we get curbstomped by even token forces.

Low balling 40k to it's minimum means that the curb-stomp happens in reverse as single Spetsnaz squads mow down thousands of Chaos space marines.

I generally tend towards high end 40k for my interpretation and write my fiction to reflect that.

Essentially, I'd see us as crumbling in short order before something like the first war for Armageddon, the Maynarkh Dynasty, or the battle of Macragge.

From what we know of the Necrons, they'd first send out their malignant broadcasts that essentially sidefeth any electronics that receive the message; causing most of modern society to undergo massive disruptions. Then they'd cause a huge solar storm in the sun, frying most of what remained of the electronics and cooking everyone on the dayside of the planet. At this point, only military hardware is in any way functional, the civilians are in a panic and millions if not billions are dead. Society is on it's last legs at this point if it hasn't already keeled over and died.

Then the Necrons start landing and sweep up what remains. Our industry is already functionally dead, civilizations have collapsed, and economies have receded tremendously. We fight for as long as we are able barring Necron mindhax, but it's futile. Most small arms are useless against the Necrons; accelerating the already occuring demise of the Assault Rifle as we know it (grunts with ARs already cause absolutely pitiful numbers of casualties, 5% or so, and even the Taliban uses AR grunts as cannon fodder because RPGs are more effective) but thanks to the collapse of most societal networks, new weapons aren't forth coming.

Our already small peacetime stocks of high end munitions(Libya put a strain on NATO's supply of PGMs, and America is running rather low on Javelins) are quickly depleted, there's no time or resources left to shift to second world war era levels of militarized heavy industrialization (which is quite hard to do). We don't give up, this is a war of extinction, and history shows that when faced with such wars, national wills are very hard to break. But the Maynarkh Dynasty doesn't offer us any surrender terms anyway.

In a short period of time, Earth is silent. All human activity has ceased, and only the silent legions of the Tomb Worlders remain.

This also. Many of the factions could really mess up out technology base.

However having said that tech is not like hollywood portrays. Most of the military stuff is off network and could not be infected as there is not interface to load new code. This is a very common defense against intrusion and many important systems keep a backup offline so they can reset invaded or infected systems.

liquidjoshi wrote:
Furyou Miko wrote:
I can't be the only one who finds that amusing and a favourable comparison rather than a pejorative comment... can I?

Yo.

It wouldn't take much IMO to take down Earth today. At all. I mean, we can barely handle our own gak today. I'm thinking a few squads of marines.
Hell, if we're not dumb about it, simply a message from a fleet in space giving the usual shpeal about the Imperium and united mankind and so on would probably be enough to turn at least some of us in the right direction.
Again, if we're not dumb about it. How much trust do we really have in our leaders though...?

The thing is that most modern nations do not actually follow their "leaders" they follow the ideal of a national government and their identity as a citizen. In the middle ages if a lord told you to rebel against "Britain" (not accurate I know) you rebeled and you considered yourself as being loyal. Now if my president, congressman, governnor, etc. tells me to rebel I will laugh at them and definitely not rebel. However if they all die and USA is attacked then I will sign up to defend it even if it means getting my rifle out of storage.

Imperious wrote:Just trying to think of what TomaHawk cruise missiles would do to any leman Russ's stupid enough to be spotted. Also I think we are a lot brighter than imperial guard in general. Our tactical warfare would stand us in good stead against any of the races. As long as we weren't wiped out in the first wave. We would develop the tech and the tactics to take out anyone. We have evolved our warfare from clubs to electronic warfare. One thing is for sure. The human race can fight and will fight at the slightest provocation.

This is what a lot of people forget. Many of the missile systems do not require satillites but can be rader and control guided. A leman russ could be smoked from miles away with mountains between without satillites or anything but the boat it was fire from's abilities.

kronk wrote:From orbit: The Space Marines could bombard all of our battle ships, carriers, and other large ships while they were still at sea.

They could then take out all satellites, leaving us unable to communicate.

They could then bombard every significantly sized power plant, putting us all in the dark.

The could then carpet bomb every airport, removing our ability to travel quickly.

THEN they could land and start cleaning house, country by country, military by military.

We wouldn't stand a chance.

Actually the SM probably could not bombard any moving targets. They do not have precision targeting systems and normally make up for this inaccuracy with using tactical level weapons to target vehicles and continent level to target cities. This conversation does become trivial if you start talking about exterminatus level support from an orbital fleet. So the OP limited it.

**Kain**

ansacs wrote:

Kain wrote:In any case, this scenario depends entirely on your calcs.

The calcs that put lasguns at megajoule firepower that bores through meters of concrete, while Orks shrug off .50 cal BMGs like raindrops, with marines capable of punching through eight inches of steel with their basic bolters and moving around like spiderman on crack while lance batteries put the K-T Impactor asteroid to shame with single shots at full power means that we get curbstomped by even token forces.

Low balling 40k to it's minimum means that the curb-stomp happens in reverse as single Spetsnaz squads mow down thousands of Chaos space marines.

I generally tend towards high end 40k for my interpretation and write my fiction to reflect that.

Essentially, I'd see us as crumbling in short order before something like the first war for Armageddon, the Maynarkh Dynasty, or the battle of Macragge.

From what we know of the Necrons, they'd first send out their malignant broadcasts that essentially sidefeth any electronics that receive the message; causing most of modern society to undergo massive disruptions. Then they'd cause a huge solar storm in the sun, frying most of what remained of the electronics and cooking everyone on the dayside of the planet. At this point, only military hardware is in any way functional, the civilians are in a panic and millions if not billions are dead. Society is on it's last legs at this point if it hasn't already keeled over and died.

Then the Necrons start landing and sweep up what remains. Our industry is already functionally dead, civilizations have collapsed, and economies have receded tremendously. We fight for as long as we are able barring Necron mindhax, but it's futile. Most small arms are useless against the Necrons; accelerating the already occuring demise of the Assault Rifle as we know it (grunts with ARs already cause absolutely pitiful numbers of casualties, 5% or so, and even the Taliban uses AR grunts as cannon fodder because RPGs are more effective) but thanks to the collapse of most societal networks, new weapons aren't forth coming.

Our already small peacetime stocks of high end munitions(Libya put a strain on NATO's supply of PGMs, and America is running rather low on Javelins) are quickly depleted, there's no time or resources left to shift to second world war era levels of militarized heavy industrialization (which is quite hard to do). We don't give up, this is a war of extinction, and history shows that when faced with such wars, national wills are very hard to break. But the Maynarkh Dynasty doesn't offer us any surrender terms anyway.

In a short period of time, Earth is silent. All human activity has ceased, and only the silent legions of the Tomb Worlders remain.

This also. Many of the factions could really mess up out technology base.

However having said that tech is not like hollywood portrays. Most of the military stuff is off network and could not be infected as there is not interface to load new code. This is a very common defense against intrusion and many important systems keep a backup offline so they can reset invaded or infected systems.

-->Specifically mentioned that this would mostly harm civilians.

-->Specifically mentions having served in the Russian military.

-->People repeat obvious factoids to him regardless.

-->