Are SM the best use of Power Armour?

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**Melissia**

Xenomancers wrote:
Flak armor is basically kevlar...it is close to useless against laser weapons.

Incorrect. Flak armor is not kevlar. It's an advanced weave of multiple kinds of ablative, impact-absorbent, and cut-absorbent material. Flak armor is fine against infantry-grade energy weapons like lasguns (bearing in mind lasguns are actually ridiculously high power by modern standards, more powerful than modern assault rifles, and only weak by 40k standards). It's against energy weapons that overwhelm its ablative aspect, like lascannons or plasmaguns, that flak armor fails. If a modern army adopted flak armor they'd cut the losses their soldiers take massively while also reducing the weight they have to carry to get that kind of protection.

In a modern setting, flak armor would be a miracle armor and would necessitate a massive surge in weapons technology to counter it.

**G00fySmiley**

G00fySmiley wrote:The optics alone on thier rifles cost more than a dozen service rifles.

You need to stop reading Tom Clancy books. Also your description of body armour is the description of most standard issue body armour, albeit somewhat over stating the capabilities. While SF are obviously going to get certain perks, I think you have a wildly over optimistic impression of what they have access to.

Have never read a tom clancy novel in my life, but I have been working with building firearms for going on 30 years, A basically drop proof waterproof fogproof nightvision/infrared optic is still in the $10-15k range. Standard issue M4 costs ~$700 .... so. though the newer rifles they are goign with, the M27 runs ~1300 per rifle, so closer to 10 of them for a top of the line optic.

I will say though the ore I think about power armor or better armor for infantry level imperial guardsmen I do wonder how much the "this is what the Emperor issued us when our planet was brought into compliance" applies

**bouncingboredom**

Sgt_Smudge wrote:
bouncingboredom wrote:
However, some of the functions of power armour (enhanced strength...) are doubly effective on a Space Maine, because they amplify what is already good
I'm going to save myself the effort of going through the rest of your post by simply pointing out that based on this sentence it's clear you don't understand how a power assisted suit would work in practice and this is likely what's causing you to make so many wild claims. You need to understand that in a power assisted suit there will be a point where the strength of the Marine is insufficient and the armour will have to take over completely. 100%. The suit has what is for all intents and purposes an inexhuastable supply of power connected to it. There is literally no reason, none, for a SM not to use the PA 100% of the time to do all the work, thereby making the vast majority of his implants/upgrades entirely redundant and pointless.

This is caused by GW being horribly at writing.

G00fySmiley wrote:A basically drop proof waterproof fogproof nightvision/infrared optic is still in the $10-15k range
As a rule spec ops guys are not running around with super advanced sights on their weapons. The bulk of the photos/videos we see show them using what are basically the same optics as everyone else. You'd like to think a government would pour funding into supporting their special forces, and indeed just their general forces, but the reality of the world is that this very seldom happens because it's simply not efficient to do so.

**oldravenman3025**

John Prins wrote:
Sgt_Smudge wrote:

Additionally, the guardsman is more likely to die of old age - far earlier than the Marine.

Not just die of old age, but a guardsman's combat efficiency will drop sharply past the age of 40, so you get at best a good 25 years (assuming recruitment at 15), though anybody surviving 25 years in the guard is a canny soldier. OTOH, a Space Marine doesn't decline much with age at all, and even if they do it's after centuries of warfare.

Most Guardsmen won't live to see 40, unless they are recruited at that age. The average life expectancy of a replacement in the combat zone is fifteen hours. That's why IG Veterans are so highly valued, organized into their own units, and get special equipment from the Munitorum (though many reject the nicer carapace armor and hellguns for standard issue IG gear). They beat the odds and have years of combat experience, without the fancy gear and top-flite training of the Militarum Tempestus. They are also the few Guardsmen that tend to get away with killing Commisars/officers, threatening Inquisitors, and being less than worshipful of Astartes.

The truth about the Astartes is that they do tend to die in droves, even with their better equipment. Especially against serious opponents, like the Necrons or Tyranids. And in the age of the Cicatrix Maledictum, they were being hard pressed. The threat level in the Imperium after Cadia 's fall was enough that Guilliman activated the Primaris project to meet the challenge. That's one indication that the old school Astartes are no longer the absolute cream of the crop.