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 Mr Morden wrote:
I'm really trying not to be condescending here, but if you're trying to justify these numbers it means you haven't understood the problem. It's not that surprising - the human brain doesn't do well when imagining distances over about a km or numbers more than a thousand, we're not really evolved for that kind of thinking.

Its clear from the size comparison website and video's posted earlier that big ships are common in fact almost expected in Sci-fi shows. games etc. 40K is even on the smaller side compared to some - Halo, The Culture, etc etc

They are this big "because" - trying to find in universe justifications may be fun but ultimately fruitless.

Ok, aha, I see, hmmm, maybe, uhmmm.
..well you have to have big huge venting shafts various people can fall down in, nuff said!!

Crew exist to perform tasks, not to fill up volume. Given how so much else of the 40K Imperium's technology works, a large crew may not be necessary because much of the Imperial high technology items are effective black boxes. Tanks are mothballed for years or centuries yet somehow still work fine when taken out of storage. The STC technology produced by the Mechanicus and used in the Imperium seems to have incredible durability and longevity.

Therefore there is no reason to use modern crew requirements, and the need for constant maintenance and training. The Imperium explicitly is shown using unskilled human labor for common crew for certain tasks, but not necessarily for all others. All technical matters are left in the hands of Tech-Priests, who only make up a very small fraction of the total crew.

Nor is there a requirement that the same population density has to be achieved uniformly throughout a ship. So while the inhabited crew sections, gun decks, and critical areas might be warrens of unwashed humanity, there could equally be vast deserted decks and maintenance passages, filled with mysterious humming or clanking machines that nobody is expected to touch except when the ship is docked in a shipyard.

 Graphite wrote:
I think a problem is that we're assuming a comparison between an aircraft carrier and a spaceship. A fairer comparison would be with something like a submarine, an enclosed airtight environment designed for extended periods away from base.

Say an Ohio class with a crew of 150, about 150m long, 12 wide and 10 tall. Lots of which is taken up with planetary bombardment weapons.

In which case W1zards numbers are out by a factor of.... 2.

Excellent point.

According to wikipedia, your crew count and dimensions are slightly off, so here is the math replacing the Nimitz class aircraft carrier with an Ohio class submarine. 170*13*11 is 24,310 cubic meters with a crew of 155 that is 156.84 cubic meters per crewman, and is actually surprisingly more spacious than the aircraft carrier. I always thought subs were the most crowded and cramped of ships.

So... redoing my math for the SSD assuming 90% unusable internal space and 50 times less crowded than an Ohio submarine.

(9,523,584,700/X)=(156.84)*(50) and solve for X... The crew of the SSD would need to be 1,214,433 to be effective... about 4 times larger than the "stated" amount of crew.

 Graphite wrote:
I think a problem is that we're assuming a comparison between an aircraft carrier and a spaceship. A fairer comparison would be with something like a submarine, an enclosed airtight environment designed for extended periods away from base.

Say an Ohio class with a crew of 150, about 150m long, 12 wide and 10 tall. Lots of which is taken up with planetary bombardment weapons.

I beg to differ, in a sub it's even more cramped spaces than a carrier, so it's imo very poor comparison.

As other people have said, it doesn't really matter whether the fictional spaceship in one universe is supposed to be bigger than another. They're just pointless made-up numbers.

However, what's really important is that a Battlefleet Gothic battleship is around 7 inches long. FFG is about to sell a 24-inch-long super star destroyer for Armada. Advantage: Star Wars.

Oh yes!

The simple aspect of broad sides will eventually outgun the void shields faster on enemy ships with 12 km ship, than a 6 km ship, simple.

Slipspace wrote:

HexHammer wrote:

w1zard wrote:
Multiple Super Star Destroyers were manufactured over the course of the galactic civil war, but that doesn't change the fact that Super Star Destroyers supposedly having a crew of 300,000 is laughable. You can check my math if you want.

I agree, in all likelyhood that a Super Star Destroyer would probably need less people per unit of volume to run than a modern day navy ship due to automation. So lets redo the math again shall we?

Let's say that 90 PERCENT of an SSD's volume is unusable due to hangars, weapons, shields, engines, etc. And lets say that even accounting for that, that the usable space of an SSD is 50 TIMES less crowded than a modern day aircraft carrier.

That would mean that a super star destroyer would have a usable volume of 9,523,584,700 cubic meters and would need a crew of 2,228,521 to run effectively. Even being extremely generous the numbers still don't match up.

Equation: (9,523,584,700/X)=(85.47)*(50) and solve for X

SSD has much greater halls, passage ways etc than a carrier. Where a carrier has minimal interior space and a SSD has lavish interior space. So it seems the SSD has a factor of 8 of space per person to a carrier.

Only if the assumption of 90% of the space in the ship is non-useable, which is an absurdly inefficient way to design a ship (as w1zard has already said numerous times). No amount of extra lavish interiors can account for the huge volumes in a ship that size. It's pretty simple maths, with the problem being the scales are too vast to be easy to comprehend. To give you an example of how stupidly large the useable volume calculated above is, it's equivalent to the space taken up by the footprint of Greater London, to a height of around 6km above the streets (London is 1583000 sq/m). That's...insane. You can't account for such a low population density by saying the halls are a bit wider or taller. The maths is a bit more involved than I'm willing to do but I think to get the numbers to work your hallways would have to be the width of a motorway at the very least.

I'm really trying not to be condescending here, but if you're trying to justify these numbers it means you haven't understood the problem. It's not that surprising - the human brain doesn't do well when imagining distances over about a km or numbers more than a thousand, we're not really evolved for that kind of thinking.

It's not that 90% of the space us unusable, it's just filled with equipment, ammunition, primary, secondary, tertiary and point defence weapons, Shields, armour, life support, fuel, smaller spacecraft, food and other consumables, sublight engines, warp engines, geller field projectors, fire control, sensors, communications equipment and, if the crew are lucky, a few beds here and there. Oh, and structure. I would.imagine that the vast majority of the internal space is actually taken up with the ship superstructure to permit it to pull G's in any of 3 dimensions and to withstand the recoil of macrocannon batteries.

It's going to.get busy real quick.

One of my favorite bits about an imperial star ship was from a Gaunts Ghosts novel. His men we using the vast empty recesses between the armor and the “habitable” parts of the ship to perform cardio PT in.

HexHammer wrote:

 Graphite wrote:
I think a problem is that we're assuming a comparison between an aircraft carrier and a spaceship. A fairer comparison would be with something like a submarine, an enclosed airtight environment designed for extended periods away from base.

Say an Ohio class with a crew of 150, about 150m long, 12 wide and 10 tall. Lots of which is taken up with planetary bombardment weapons.

I beg to differ, in a sub it's even more cramped spaces than a carrier, so it's imo very poor comparison.

Well, if we assume that it's a nuclear missile launch sub then a huge part of it will be taken up with areas that the crew just don't go. Because I assume that you don't want lots of guys wandering around near Armageddon in a can. So the areas where the crew actually go are not going to be spacious, at all.

In Lords of Silence by Chris Wraight, released this month, on p. 21-22 the Cornius later renamed Repulsive class is described as having a crew of over thirty thousand ratings. The BFG rules show a Repulsive class grand cruiser is shown to have 10 damage points. Andy Chambers' guideline of 1.5-2k per damage point yields 20,000. So saying 30,000 a 50% increase over that, but still far from the magnitude of hundreds of thousands or millions that some have been claiming.

The pedantic might try to argue that "more than 30,000" does not explicitly rule out hundreds of thousands or millions, but then the writer (who is one of BL's better ones) could then have written "more than 300,000" or whatever. The fact 30,000 was chosen seems to at least indicate the crew size magnitude is in the tens not hundreds of thousands.

You've got to wonder what proportion of these ships is

a) Space Hulk size corridors

b) Vast open air cathedrals

If you look at a Gothic miniature, 1/3 of it is engine. If that really is all engine, the 90% unusable space thing seems fair. But it also seems fair to say that the number of people you CAN fit in a ship is less than the number of people you NEED in a ship, and the massive overcrowding of people sleeping in a gun turret is a more related to the fact that the Imperium doesn't care about peoples comfort, but very much does care about them not having to walk for half an hour from hypothetically spacious crew quarters to the big chain they pull to make the gun turn.

 Crimson wrote:

 ArbitorIan wrote:


Or you're having the wrong conversation. Again, the point is not 'how many people CAN FIT on an Imperial Battlehip' but 'how many people are needed to run one'

Spoiler:

Have you ever seen the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook? Everything in these ships are operated by huge cadres of people. They're not some super automated things where a single crew member could wander in empty corridors for days without meeting anyone. These ships are depicted in art as being filled with people, but the numbers do not even remotely add up.

Those pictures actually prove how fething HORRIABLE comparing a modern sea ship to a 40k ship are.

Modern ships tend to be cramped affairs, with small narrow passageways etc. with low ceilings. 40k ships from the interior clearly have very high ceilings and wide corridors.
I'm not saying crew sizes are too alrge, or too small or that they're just right, but you CANNOT compare modern sea ships to 40k ships.

And there may be good reason for it. You need air, so either you have very efficient air filtration units that can scrub out the CO2 at a sufficient rate to keep your crew of tens of thousands breathing, or you have big inefficient filters (or greenhouses!) and lots of air so that the percentage of CO2 never reaches problematic levels.

And food. Assume you're going to be in deep space, by yourself, for YEARS. Either grow it or store it.

And ammunition. You need somewhere to keep those skyscraper sized torpedos.

W1zard is right, at the same crew density (or a 10th of it) as a modern ship crews would be massive. But there may be logistical reasons that you actually need massive empty areas of the ship.

Also, don't forget that there may be no reason at all for the empty space. The Imperium uses technology it doesn't understand to build things it doesn't need, so it's entirely possible that the ships are that size because it's the only way the Imperium knows how to build them. The resulting product is probably highly inefficient and poorly organized.

Personally, I think the explanation is both that the lore writers fail to understand the problem of scale and that the Imperium's space ships operate with a different set of concerns than a 21st-century naval vessel.

 Graphite wrote:
You've got to wonder what proportion of these ships is

a) Space Hulk size corridors

b) Vast open air cathedrals

If you look at a Gothic miniature, 1/3 of it is engine. If that really is all engine, the 90% unusable space thing seems fair. But it also seems fair to say that the number of people you CAN fit in a ship is less than the number of people you NEED in a ship, and the massive overcrowding of people sleeping in a gun turret is a more related to the fact that the Imperium doesn't care about peoples comfort, but very much does care about them not having to walk for half an hour from hypothetically spacious crew quarters to the big chain they pull to make the gun turn.

For the last time... my calculations take into account wide open corridors and massive cathedrals. Usable Space is usable space, regardless of whether you use that for tiny cramped corridors or massive stories high cathedrals. In fact, massive open internal space might make the ship feel LESS crowded because it gives people more space to move around and means less internal space dedicated to airtight bulkheads and compartmentalization.

Let me put it this way. You can still put just as much people on an aircraft carrier designed with 2 or 3 massive corridors running the length of the ship as you could a traditional aircraft carrier designed with twisty, small, cramped spaces. The only difference is you can see everyone on the 2 or 3 massive corridors aircraft carrier vs the traditional one where you cannot.

Yes. I understand that. But the fact that there's a 3 cubic kilometre empty space cathedral in the middle of the ship isn't going to make Joe the Rating, sleeping in his bunk with a hundred other people in a gun turret with the hatches sealed shut because the navy wants to keep people contained where they work at all times feel less crowded.

Heck, the inside of the thing could be like Babylon 5, one massive open area, but if you never get to go there then the place you live and work is going to feel very crowded.

Your golfballs in an airliner analogy is good, but if the transport safety rules state that all golfballs in that airliner must be contained in one eggbox then the eggbox will be crowed while most of the airliner is completely empty.

The Machine Spirit demands big open spaces!

Thing to remember about SW ships is the amounts of automated systems the ships should have, along with the Storm Trooper complements they would be carrying.

We could also give them the benifit of the doubt and assume they aren't taking Pilots and Flight Crew into account for crew sizes. We could go further and say they probably don't count the Imperial Intelligence personnel and ISB on the crew either. So then we go with the number given as the base needed to run the ship with the rest of the personnel space being taking up by Ground Troops, Intelligence, ISB, Pilots and the Support Crews. To support my thinking this, they do have Gunners listed separately from the Crew for the Imperial-II Class Star Destroyer.

We could apply that to the 40k ships as well, that their numbers are just those crew required for the ship to work, but not everyone on board.

Sure it doesnt help much, but looking at it that way helps abit in my mind.

Personally for some of the ships the Empire uses, I think the crew requirements are too high for something with that level of automation available to the people that make it. Thats only for the smaller side of things, for the 19km Executor or even the 3km Resurgent Class I dont know what to tell you.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
And lets not get started on the Rebels, whose 1.2km long MC80 is listed as only requiring 5k Crew maximum, vs the Empire's 1.6km Imperial-II needing a 5k minimum crew and a 36k maximum.

true, minimum crew is differant from actual crew, If I wanted to sail a nimitz class from point a to point b I bet I could do it with 100 people or less

Someone needs to draw a chart of the largest ship in imperial navy so we can better see for ourselves.

 Graphite wrote:
Yes. I understand that. But the fact that there's a 3 cubic kilometre empty space cathedral in the middle of the ship isn't going to make Joe the Rating, sleeping in his bunk with a hundred other people in a gun turret with the hatches sealed shut because the navy wants to keep people contained where they work at all times feel less crowded.

Heck, the inside of the thing could be like Babylon 5, one massive open area, but if you never get to go there then the place you live and work is going to feel very crowded.

Your golfballs in an airliner analogy is good, but if the transport safety rules state that all golfballs in that airliner must be contained in one eggbox then the eggbox will be crowed while most of the airliner is completely empty.

The calculation was also assuming 90% of the overall space of the interior of the vessel was unusable.

Look, you can be generous as you want thinking up excuses like "large amounts of internal space dedicated to equipment", "automation", and "listed crew not counting auxiliary personnel". Even with all of those excuses the listed crew is still off by a factor of 5 at BEST, and off by a factor of 500 or so at WORST.

My argument is that large amounts of internal space are dedicated to nothing. They're just gaps.

Look at the Endevour pattern light cruisers. These things have a prow and gun deck, and an engine and bridge section. Between the two is a narrow corridor flanked by two massive armour plates. They don't seem to have any performance issues with a huge chunk of their internal space being, well, space.

The design basis that these ships work on is not the same as a modern surface ship or submarine. You're not trying to make it small - once you get above a certain level of displacement (The jump from escort to capital ship) you aren't any easier to target until you get to be truly, space hulk size massive.

So you work out the size of the systems, and unlike a sub or carrier you armour it as you expect it to take hits.

Then you add the crew you need to make the thing work. The systems these ships use are enormous, so crew space is an infinitesimal proportion of the used space. Unlike modern ships, where miniaturisation means that the crew will often be the largest component.

So yes, an Imperial cruiser could have massive areas of parkland, recreation decks, luxurious cabins and transportation systems. It could be a fantastic, airy place to live and work. No doubt in the Dark Age of Technology, when a lot of these things were built, it was like that. Presumably Eldar ships still are.

But the Imperium doesn't care about your comfort or personal space. So in all this potential luxury you're crammed into a bunk the size of a coffin.

Grimdark, isn't it?

w1zard wrote:

 Graphite wrote:
Yes. I understand that. But the fact that there's a 3 cubic kilometre empty space cathedral in the middle of the ship isn't going to make Joe the Rating, sleeping in his bunk with a hundred other people in a gun turret with the hatches sealed shut because the navy wants to keep people contained where they work at all times feel less crowded.

Heck, the inside of the thing could be like Babylon 5, one massive open area, but if you never get to go there then the place you live and work is going to feel very crowded.

Your golfballs in an airliner analogy is good, but if the transport safety rules state that all golfballs in that airliner must be contained in one eggbox then the eggbox will be crowed while most of the airliner is completely empty.

The calculation was also assuming 90% of the overall space of the interior of the vessel was unusable.

Look, you can be generous as you want thinking up excuses like "large amounts of internal space dedicated to equipment", "automation", and "listed crew not counting auxiliary personnel". Even with all of those excuses the listed crew is still off by a factor of 5 at BEST, and off by a factor of 500 or so at WORST.

You assume 40k/SW ships "have to have same crew density per dimensions as IRL to be effective". Who says they have to? Less crew needed, more empty space just for reasons because STC told them to build it like that with original intention forgotten(maybe storage space for humongous warmachines in dark age of technology for example)

tneva82 wrote:
You assume 40k/SW ships "have to have same crew density per dimensions as IRL to be effective". Who says they have to? Less crew needed, more empty space just for reasons because STC told them to build it like that with original intention forgotten(maybe storage space for humongous warmachines in dark age of technology for example)

Again, look at the numbers. Even assuming 90% unusable internal space and 50 TIMES less crowded than modern day naval vessels (3 people on an entire submarine for reference) the numbers are still about 5 times too few.

Let me put it this way, if we wanted to fill a entire Super Star Destroyer to a capacity that is comparable to a Nimitz it would require 1,114,260,524 people. 1 BILLION PEOPLE, currently one eighth of the population of earth. Feel free to check my calculations if you wish.

w1zard wrote:
Even assuming 90% unusable internal space and 50 TIMES less crowded than modern day naval vessels (3 people on an entire submarine for reference) the numbers are still about 5 times too few.

I'm sure it's due to the Machine Spirit needing space, 'nuff said!!

HexHammer wrote:
Maybe I rely on outdated data, but to my understanding the max imperial ship are only 6 km long? In Star Wars the Super Star Destroyer Vader has are 12 km, that doesn't make sense when everything else in 40k universe are super duper extra bonus ultra light classic plus now with citrus flavor OP large!!!! Craft Worlds, titans, space critters etc etc!

...what went wrong?!?!

Yeah but Imperial ships go far above that like the furious abyss. Those dwarfed Emperor and Gloriana ships, plus there is the Phalanx that can dock battleships in its deck. It even had its own echosystem, its far larger than any star wars ship. The max is not 6km at all though, on average the largest are 6km.

A super star destroyer is said to be 19KM long.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor-class_Star_Dreadnought/Legends

w1zard wrote:
A super star destroyer is said to be 19KM long.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Executor-class_Star_Dreadnought/Legends

in fairness the crew figures where given during the height of the "8 mile fallacy"

Remember that a normal ISD, albeit a crashed one, has sufficient gigantic gaps in it to fly a light freighter inside. At speed.

These ships are big because they're EMPTY.

Plus the OP got it wrong, the lore states that battleships are 'generally' 6km-12km long.