Space Marines vs Earth

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**Justicar_Thunderflanks**

How many space marines would it take to conquer the world?
A tactical Squad?
A company?
A chapter?
More?
Your opinion and explanation in the comments. Question was made with vanilla marines in mind, but feel free to include opinion on your favourite chapter.

**motyak**

Please no...these threads never end well. I know that is pessimistic and unhelpful, but really...have you ever seen one end well?

**psychadelicmime**

I'd say 2 companies if it was a surprise attack with no 1st company support, if we knew they were coming, I'd say 3 companies. If 80 or so terminators, vanguard, and sternguard total with thunderhawks hit, they would take over. There would be pockets of resistance, but, all effective leadership would be gone.

**DarknessEternal**

psychadelicmime wrote:
but, all effective leadership would be gone.

A lot of people tend to ignore that is all Space Marines ever do. The Imperial Guard is for conquering.

**BlaxicanX**

With a ship in orbit any number of space marines could probably conquer us pretty easily.

On the ground, though, if they can't rely on deepstriking/teleporting into important places (read: the pentagon, various capitals etc), they eventually just get killed to death by superior firepower.

Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

**Kaldor**

BlaxicanX wrote:
With a ship in orbit any number of space marines could probably conquer us pretty easily.

Yeah, a few Chapter serfs could conquer Earth, if they were in a strike cruiser.

**AndrewChristlieb**

Ya one Strike Cruiser and it would all be over :/ assume a single company in that case.

**AlmightyWalrus**

BlaxicanX wrote:

Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Just curious, what do you think a Bolter would do to a helicopter. Because it sure as gak wouldn't be pretty.

As has been said though, the question is moot, Strike Cruisers win the day, not to mention Battle Barges. They probably have more firepower on those things than all our nukes put together, considering the size of their torpedoes...

**-Loki-**

BlaxicanX wrote:
Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Depends on the helicopter. A 0.5cal round to the rotor assembly is going to end its life pretty quickly. And Space Marines fire 0.75cal explosive rounds, so that helicopter better be a Hind.

**Wight Lord**

They'd have to be smart, because if an A-10 caught them in the open, they're done.

No question that Space Marines would be a good force multiplier, and excellent surprise execution team for leaders. I dont think they could conquer it all however. Unless maybe they were able to recuit or press native forces to fight for them...

**Compel**

There's a Gav Thorpe story in 'Tales of Heresy' about the Dark Angels which is essentially 'Space Marine legion invades a modern day -not-Earth.'

If my memory is correct, Tanks are the only assorted things that hurt the marines, then the Deathwing teleport into the UN and kill everyone.

**Formosa**

We would win... they have Alpharius... we have Batman!!

**Apple fox**

I think this can only realy be personal opinion, and more factor in where you stand on personal marine ability. The lore in this swings between rule of cool and rule of fanboyist and makes it realy hard to judge but I would think it also stands at is it and invasion or a geniiside.
Going for the first I would think that even a chapter would find it impossible, but the second would be more up to the intelligence thay could gather and best use of there ships weapons which removes the marines a fair bit.
Thinking of environments on earth some would be deadly for a space marine but relatively easy for a normal human to get passed.
But I also do think in the lore they do use the IG to take worlds with the marines as a elite units doing the suicide missions. So I think it sorta gives its answer with that.

**AlmightyWalrus**

Formosa wrote:
We would win... they have Alpharius... we have Alpharius!!

Fix'd.

**DeffDred**

Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote:
How many space marines would it take to conquer the world?
A tactical Squad?
A company?
A chapter?
More?
Your opinion and explanation in the comments. Question was made with vanilla marines in mind, but feel free to include opinion on your favourite chapter.

Please use the Search Bar. You would have your answer and a huge pile of debate to read over.

**Ratliker**

If tasked with capturing/conquering earth, marines need some display of power on local level, then contact one of our superpowers and say "dudes, want to be in charge there (in the name of the emperor that is)? we lead/kill enemy command, you hold territories. Deal?"
Be the earthly party in question russia, china or usa they would imo readely agree, and the conquest will steamroll all oposition, with 3 countries bowing down and joining conquest without fight for every one crushed. untill and unless pissed-of oponent superpower would launch nukes and we happily make exterminatus to ourselves.
Marines would need 1 company with means of deploiment and (more importantly) 1 diplomacy-capable captain. So Ultramarines for the win.

**juraigamer**

Flood the astartes with anime images and sounds, watch as some start to like them, the dark gods cause a splinter from them to occur, boom, horus heresy on earth. Oh wait.

**BlaxicanX**

AlmightyWalrus wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:

Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Just curious, what do you think a Bolter would do to a helicopter. Because it sure as gak wouldn't be pretty.

As has been said though, the question is moot, Strike Cruisers win the day, not to mention Battle Barges. They probably have more firepower on those things than all our nukes put together, considering the size of their torpedoes...

-Loki- wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Depends on the helicopter. A 0.5cal round to the rotor assembly is going to end its life pretty quickly. And Space Marines fire 0.75cal explosive rounds, so that helicopter better be a Hind.

A helicopter armed with light anti-armor or anti-armor rounds is going to have an easier time killing a Space Marine than a Space Marine would have trying to kill a helicopter.

**Lobokai**

BlaxicanX wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:

Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Just curious, what do you think a Bolter would do to a helicopter. Because it sure as gak wouldn't be pretty.

As has been said though, the question is moot, Strike Cruisers win the day, not to mention Battle Barges. They probably have more firepower on those things than all our nukes put together, considering the size of their torpedoes...

-Loki- wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Depends on the helicopter. A 0.5cal round to the rotor assembly is going to end its life pretty quickly. And Space Marines fire 0.75cal explosive rounds, so that helicopter better be a Hind.

A helicopter armed with light anti-armor or anti-armor rounds is going to have an easier time killing a Space Marine than a Space Marine would have trying to kill a helicopter.

Devastators = rubble of AH-64 parts... and once they get flak missiles, over quicker... and that's if the modern military can track marines at all.

**Lobokai**

Two posts by others a while ago. When I cut and pasted these into word docs, I lost the authors... not my words, but these do really really well in saying what I would want to say.

First one from an "invasion" discussion:

...Imperial Armour books give a much better overview of how marines fight than their codex or novels do. They are all about hit and run, shadow strikes, and sabotage. And they are very, VERY good at it. Their drop pod tech means you have NO defensive lines, you have to protect everything at all times against an enemy impervious to small arms fire. And we can't use most of our big guns in that situation.

The tabletop game only simulates one kind of warfare in 40k, small, up close battles where air superiority has not been achieved and heavy bombardment isn't an option. It isn't the most common type of warfare. You aren't even fighting full on battles, just a small portion of one battle for a short amount of time.

I just can't see us doing well against marines. It's not that I think a chapter could conquer our planet without orbital support, any more than a seal team could conquer the Victorian age British empire, they aren't built for it and don't have the numbers. But WE would be the ones at the receiving end of the guerilla warfare. Just think about it:
* They can launch a full scale assault anywhere on the planet at a moment’s notice with total impunity
* Their basic weapon will take out any of our solders in a single shot
* Our troops have to use AT weaponry on infantry to threaten them
* They can and do use advanced jamming technology, while we have no way to respond in kind
* they can typically be in and out before we can bring heavy weaponry to bear
* they can choose the battlefield at will, and will likely choose battlefields where we can't bring our heaviest weapons to bear anyways.

In an open field, I'll grant you, the marines are screwed. But, again, that is like saying 1800's Britain could beat us because they could take on navy seals in open field combat. It is a fact that in open field combat 5000 Red Coats with cannon support could defeat a special forces team. So the special forces would never fight that way.

And neither would the marines. Look how they act in Siege of Vraks. The IG is conducting siege warfare, the SM occasionally swoop in, perform surgical strikes, and dissapear within a half hour.

They couldn't conquer us, but we couldn't beat them.

And this one from a weapon based string

...honestly, I think a lot of people here are downplaying how tough Space Marines are supposed to be.

A bullet penetrates armor through sheer velocity; it dumps enough kinetic energy on a small enough space to punch through what it's aimed at. But it's actually pretty simple to prevent that.

Look at a Space Marine model, or pictures of them in the fluff. See how their armor is made? Barrel chest that slopes away to the sides, rounded arms and legs, big round pauldrons. I doubt GW knows much about armor design, but they got that mostly right actually. Those curved plates will shed bullet like raindrops. A curved piece of metal/ceramics/what have you doesn't have to absorb all the kinetic energy of a bullets impact. Instead, it only absorbs part of the energy; enough to deflect the round to the side,, where it continues flying at reduced speed. I think if you opened up on a Space Marine with a .50 cal machine gun you would see a lot of sparks and maybe some surface scarring or cracking on the power armor (depending on the hardness of what it's made of), but you'd have to get quite lucky to actually penetrate the armor and injure him.

This, by the way, is why most modern anti-tank munitions use methods OTHER than kinetic impact to achieve a kill; the armor of a modern tank is designed to ricochet projectiles away rather than absorbing the full force of the impact. If you want to kill a Space Marine, you need to think of him as a tank. Even if you assumed Power Armor was no tougher than modern composites, look at how thick it is; he's WEARING as much armor as a tank!

That being so, the only way to kill him with a pure kinetic projectile would be to either a) use a round so big or fired so fast that it blew through the PA with only a fraction of it's kinetic energy, or b) hit him in one of the non-curved parts of the armor. Now, PA does seem to have quite a few 'bullet traps' in it; a shot that hit one of the eyepieces could do something, the place where the pauldrons meet the chest-plate might be vulnerable, the knee-joints seem somewhat exposed when the Space Marine's legs are bent. But it's an open question how powerful a round you'd need to get one through the armor even in one of those weak spots; I tend to think it would have to be quite powerful, because, well, an M2 is not going to be able to shoot through the armor of an Abrams. . . and I think that's roughly the level of protection PA provides. Perhaps a direct hit on an eyepiece could punch through.

Then you have to contend with the fact that a Space Marine is simply much, much tougher than an ordinary human. Most people, if they took a .50 caliber machine gun round to the shoulder or knee, would be totally disabled or killed outright. A Space Marine? He's not going to go into shock, he's not going to be disabled by the pain, and he's not going to bleed out, so if he's not dead when he hits the ground he's still fighting. Remember, these guys get into drop-pods and are literally FIRED at their target; that alone would shatter every bone in a normal man's body, and Space Marines do it routinely. If you DO get a round through an open knee-joint, you will only slow him down; and it isn't that likely that you will, since while he's a bigger target than a man he's also faster and more agile, with much better reflexes. Not to mention that your fire will likely be somewhat suppressed by the stream of precisely aimed RPG rounds he's firing back at you.

You need to either use heavy, specialized AT weapons, or literally fill the air with high-caliber machine-gun rounds and play the averages. Normal small arms and grenades will do nothing; Anti-materiel rifles might, but only if you hit him in exactly the right spot. A sniper weapon MIGHT, but once again, only if you hit him in precisely the right place, and even once you pass through the armor most of your shots will only wound him. A radar or laser-guided AT missile will most likely kill or seriously injure a Space Marine, but very little short of that has anything like a good chance.

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Space Marines wouldn't conquer earth, they'd make sure our leaders understand that compliance is the only option. Pockets of resistance/dissension would be wiped out brutally, and once the magnitude of the Imperium combined with the brutality of the Marines would be revealed to Earth, its would be surrender and submit time. The Imperium doesn't really do conquer and occupy with Marines. They are the shock and awe with the Adeptus Administratum and IG/PDF following up to support and hold.

**Alkasyn**

Compel wrote:
There's a Gav Thorpe story in 'Tales of Heresy' about the Dark Angels which is essentially 'Space Marine legion invades a modern day -not-Earth.'

If my memory is correct, Tanks are the only assorted things that hurt the marines, then the Deathwing teleport into the UN and kill everyone.

They still lose some Battle Brothers even to that technologically inferior peoples. And that was just an outpost.

For me those nations from the story mentioned were more from the times of the cold war.

**BlaxicanX**

BlaxicanX wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:

Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Just curious, what do you think a Bolter would do to a helicopter. Because it sure as gak wouldn't be pretty.

As has been said though, the question is moot, Strike Cruisers win the day, not to mention Battle Barges. They probably have more firepower on those things than all our nukes put together, considering the size of their torpedoes...

-Loki- wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Depends on the helicopter. A 0.5cal round to the rotor assembly is going to end its life pretty quickly. And Space Marines fire 0.75cal explosive rounds, so that helicopter better be a Hind.

A helicopter armed with light anti-armor or anti-armor rounds is going to have an easier time killing a Space Marine than a Space Marine would have trying to kill a helicopter.

A slow moving devestator squad isn't going to do anything but die fighting a helicopter that can just shoot a TOW missile at it from 500 yards away while simultaneously strafing out of the Squad's line of fire.

Also, how many devastator marines are there in a chapter? How many helicopters with giant ass guns on them are there in the world?

Exactly.

**Lobokai**

BlaxicanX wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
AlmightyWalrus wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:

Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Just curious, what do you think a Bolter would do to a helicopter. Because it sure as gak wouldn't be pretty.

As has been said though, the question is moot, Strike Cruisers win the day, not to mention Battle Barges. They probably have more firepower on those things than all our nukes put together, considering the size of their torpedoes...

-Loki- wrote:
BlaxicanX wrote:
Space Marines are deadly against a squad of dudes armed with small arms, but a single helicopter armed with armor piercing weaponry would make short work of a Space Marine. We have way more helicopters, and jets, and artillery, and basically weapons that can one-shot a Marine, than a chapter has marines.

Depends on the helicopter. A 0.5cal round to the rotor assembly is going to end its life pretty quickly. And Space Marines fire 0.75cal explosive rounds, so that helicopter better be a Hind.

A helicopter armed with light anti-armor or anti-armor rounds is going to have an easier time killing a Space Marine than a Space Marine would have trying to kill a helicopter.
A slow moving devestator squad isn't going to do anything but die fighting a helicopter that can just shoot a TOW missile at it from 500 yards away while simultaneously strafing out of the Squad's line of fire.

Also, how many devastator marines are there in a chapter? How many helicopters with giant ass guns on them are there in the world?

Exactly.

You gonna read all the posts, or just cherry pick? How many helicopters can deploy to populated zones, government offices, and vital infrastructure in time to do any good against a Drop Pod/Teleport alpha strike with aerial and orbital support? How many would survive coming in ignorant and with civilians in a mix against technologically superior warriors with 100s of years of experience in regular combat zones almost identical to the one they're in? You do realize that we've lost helicopters to homemade rpgs in the last 10 years and even a stealth fighter to eastern bloc nerds with an outdated soviet missile and a cell phone? What on earth are we going to do against signums, camo cloaks and krak missiles?!

A million helicopters don't do a lick of good if they can't get to the combat zone in time to matter and have to deal with urban combat gods with technological, doctrine, awareness, tactical, and local support superiority. Your helicopter is at best an AV 10 flyer with 2 hull points, some krak missiles, and a heavy stubber. We know (now) that the marines have flakk missiles. Your IG StormTalon isn't that scary... and that's against Table Top marines, Black Library Marines just eat your modern helicopters for lunch... if anyone is even aware of a marine strike until after its just dust and rubble and confusion at the target.

**Davylove21**

Just because his armour is curved, doesn't mean he is infallible - I'll never believe that a tactical squad is going to make all of its saves against the Avenger cannon on an A10 Thunderbolt for example.

That's 4200 rounds per minute of highly accurate, depleted uranium anti-tank fire against a group of men that Orks can pull apart in CC. It's also effective at 1200 meters. There have been 716 A10's built.

Then there are HESH rounds fired at a range of 5 miles. Slap that onto a dreadnought or a rhino and it's gone. Helicopters need to be within 3-4 KM to be able to rain death on you.

I don't see how tabletop Marines can cope with the weight of fire we can bring down. We basically are the Imperial Guard, and the IG codex did pretty good in 6th. BL Marines don't count, because they're written to impress children.

**Dunwich**

It would only take a single Space Marine tactical squad drop podding onto Holy Terra Earth for the loyal god-emperor fearing citizens of dakka to rise up and take this world in His name.

**DarknessEternal**

Davylove21 wrote:
Just because his armour is curved, doesn't mean he is infallible - I'll never believe that a tactical squad is going to make all of its saves against the Avenger cannon on an A10 Thunderbolt for example.

That's 4200 rounds per minute of highly accurate, depleted uranium anti-tank fire against a group of men that Orks can pull apart in CC. It's also effective at 1200 meters. There have been 716 A10's built.

Then there are HESH rounds fired at a range of 5 miles. Slap that onto a dreadnought or a rhino and it's gone. Helicopters need to be within 3-4 KM to be able to rain death on you.

Why would the marines be standing anywhere such weapons could come to bear?

We don't keep any of our important things out in wide open fields. Marines have drop pods and teleportation, for which we have no defense. They would only ever be exactly where our important stuff is.

**Davylove21**

Well teleport enough and you'll scatter onto some rocks and die. They don't have to be in the open to be shot and I don't see why rapid deployment of very small yet highly powered squads wins the war for Earth. Especially if we know they're coming.

We, as a race, are far superior to anything in the Space Marine mythology when it comes to killing humanoids. We kill stuff insanely well. The most powerful weapons of the Imperial Guard are basically described as nuclear weapons. We got 'em by the bucket load.

And if it's a fight for survival planet-wide and 5 Terminators DS into the White House (which would mean nothing anyway) they would have about two minutes to TH everything to death before a cruise missile/fast response jet melted them.

Troop vs troop, we're screwed, but 1000 Marines is too small a number to bring down the planet. It's probably enough to take the USA, Russia or China - in my view any one of those nations could defeat a chapter alone. There are 7 Billion of us to subdue, after all.

**Anfauglir**

Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote:
How many space marines would it take to conquer the world?

As it always does in topics like these; it depends.

If any element of the Astartes Navy is involved - zero Marines.

Otherwise - all of them... and they still probably wouldn't do it. They'd wipe out all of the civilised areas and turn the planet into a husk, sure. But we'd help them along by making sure they're stopped, so they wouldn't win, not ultimately.

**Vaktathi**

Justicar_Thunderflanks wrote:
How many space marines would it take to conquer the world?
A tactical Squad?
A company?
A chapter?
More?
Your opinion and explanation in the comments. Question was made with vanilla marines in mind, but feel free to include opinion on your favourite chapter.

Not counting the ability to perform Exterminatus?

In all honesty the Space Marines wouldn't last very long. The world's largest militaries have tens of thousands of aircraft and hundreds of thousands of artillery guns combined and tens of millions of soldiers and probably a hundred thousand tanks all told to engage them with, they'd be wiped out in hours. Starships can be engaged with nuclear missiles and 40k has shown they are still potent and forbidden weapons, and the marines are highly limited in number, extremely vulnerable to being surrounded and cut off, have limited aircraft and even more limited AA defense, no heavy artillery, etc. We could engage them from the seas once the SM's landed and they'd have no defense from carrier based aircraft.

Hell, even just a ground war, there's so few that they'd be extremely easy to surround in a pocket and simply blast to pieces with artillery.

Space Marines are Fantasy Knights in Space. From any realistic perspective they just do not function. You cold throw all 1 million space marines at earth and they'd likely all be killed.

DarknessEternal wrote:

Why would the marines be standing anywhere such weapons could come to bear?

We don't keep any of our important things out in wide open fields. Marines have drop pods and teleportation, for which we have no defense. They would only ever be exactly where our important stuff is.

And they'd know all of that how? And be able to hit all of it simultaneously with sufficient force and speed...how? Drop pods are all well and good, but without knowing where to put them and being able to put enough of them in enough places, they quickly become isolated units easily destroyed through air assets and artillery.

**Gargantuan**

50000-80000 marines might be able to do it.