Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I cant beleive no one has pointed out that marines can only hit our fliers on sixes....

davou wrote:
I cant beleive no one has pointed out that marines can only hit our fliers on sixes....

QFT; Epic Win

 Gargantuan wrote:

So you're saying our heavy tanks are about as tough as an ork buggy or killa kan and that this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M829_(munition)#Variants.23M829A2 can't penetrate terminator armour?
I think you're severely overestimating Imperial gear.

Well... You can disable a modern MBT with normal fragmentation grenades only. Frag grenades in the 40k verse = S3. So the weakest point of the Abrams should be around AV9. Actually, I would say that the AV should be less than 9, as you can immobilize (penetrate) a modern MBT with frag grenades rather easily.

So personally, I don't think that our MBTs would be that tough as an Ork buggy or killa kan .

 AtoMaki wrote:

Well... You can disable a modern MBT with normal fragmentation grenades only.

Not really, not without physically clambering about the vehicle and stuffing it in somewhere very specific to explode, like tearing open an armored engine covering and putting grenades in there to explode inside. The "saving private ryan" stuff you see in movies is mostly fantasy, and modern MBT's are leagues more difficult to disable or destroy than old WW2 tanks, with frontal armor roughly equivalent in many cases to over a meter of tempered steel in terms of protection (for reference, a WW2 Tiger had frontal armor protection about 1/10th of that) and treads that are significantly thicker and tougher.

[Frag grenades in the 40k verse = S3. So the weakest point of the Abrams should be around AV9. Actually, I would say that the AV should be less than 9, as you can immobilize (penetrate) a modern MBT with frag grenades rather easily.

Frag grenades were S4 when used in tanks assaults last edition, either way, you're not going to immobilize, much less penetrate, a modern MBT with fragmentation grenades, at least not without strapping half a dozen to detonate simultaneously to a single section of tread.

So personally, I don't think that our MBTs would be that tough as an Ork buggy or killa kan .

An Ork Buggy...an open topped quad with a gun platform...? Really?

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not really, not without physically clambering about the vehicle and stuffing it in somewhere very specific to explode, like tearing open an armored engine covering and putting grenades in there to explode inside. The "saving private ryan" stuff you see in movies is mostly fantasy, and modern MBT's are leagues more difficult to disable or destroy than old WW2 tanks, with frontal armor roughly equivalent in many cases to over a meter of tempered steel in terms of protection (for reference, a WW2 Tiger had frontal armor protection about 1/10th of that) and treads that are significantly thicker and tougher.

I saw quite a lot immboilized-by-frag-grenades Abrams tanks in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was suprised too, like, I would think that a simple fragmentation grenade is useless against a modern MBT, but as it turned out, those little buggers are pretty dangerous in the hands of an experienced attacker. Ridiculous stuff like that just happens... So yeah, on the tabletop, I would vote a 11/11/10 for a modern MBT.

And we are even talking about MBTs now, and not about Mr. Wet-WC-Paper-Armour Stryker.

Marines could and would kill anything on earth. But the issue isn't with firepower or strength, but just the sheer fact that our population is huge, guardsmen would be better suited to the task.

217,212 new people are born every day, meaning that the marines would probably have to kill this many -per day- to start to reduce numbers.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Not really, not without physically clambering about the vehicle and stuffing it in somewhere very specific to explode, like tearing open an armored engine covering and putting grenades in there to explode inside. The "saving private ryan" stuff you see in movies is mostly fantasy, and modern MBT's are leagues more difficult to disable or destroy than old WW2 tanks, with frontal armor roughly equivalent in many cases to over a meter of tempered steel in terms of protection (for reference, a WW2 Tiger had frontal armor protection about 1/10th of that) and treads that are significantly thicker and tougher.

I saw quite a lot immboilized-by-frag-grenades Abrams tanks in Iraq and Afghanistan. I was suprised too, like, I would think that a simple fragmentation grenade is useless against a modern MBT, but as it turned out, those little buggers are pretty dangerous in the hands of an experienced attacker. Ridiculous stuff like that just happens... So yeah, on the tabletop, I would vote a 11/11/10 for a modern MBT.

And we are even talking about MBTs now, and not about Mr. Wet-WC-Paper-Armour Stryker.

You mean the tanks that have survived RPG hits with only minor innocence?

Alone, the number of those tanks deployed by the American Military could easily defeat a force of Space Marines, but casualties would be high.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Huh? That's where they're actually at their most effective. Blast is what isn't going to affect things as much outside and atmosphere, the EMP is significantly more effective from a nuclear blast when it doesn't have an atmosphere to deal with.

No, really, without an atmosphere you won't get an EMP (at least not one dangerous to our technology, let alone that of Space Marines). You don't have any electrons to displace outside the atmosphere.

 blood reaper wrote:

You mean the tanks that have survived RPG hits with only minor innocence?

You can hammer certain sections of the front armour of an Abrams with nearly any kind of modern-day AT weapon and it will survive. Hit the weak points with some HMG bullets, and it will fall apart like a house of cards. Or at least that's how I heard it .

Are we talking fragmentation hand grenades? I've never heard/read anything on main battle tanks being damaged by fragmentation hand grenades, at least that weren't tossed into an open turret or the like. Hell even RPG's usually bounce off most modern MBT's in most locations.

We also have information from Forgeworld on relative Imperial armor thickness and capabilities, and they're nowhere near what modern tanks are if I'm remembering correctly.

Remember, 40k is more Space Fantasy than Science Fiction.

 AlmightyWalrus wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Huh? That's where they're actually at their most effective. Blast is what isn't going to affect things as much outside and atmosphere, the EMP is significantly more effective from a nuclear blast when it doesn't have an atmosphere to deal with.

No, really, without an atmosphere you won't get an EMP (at least not one dangerous to our technology, let alone that of Space Marines). You don't have any electrons to displace outside the atmosphere.

Only if we're talking deep space, anywhere near a planet with a decently strong magnetic field, especially anything that could be considered close orbit, the EMP will work wonderfully.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:

You mean the tanks that have survived RPG hits with only minor innocence?

You can hammer certain sections of the front armour of an Abrams with nearly any kind of modern-day AT weapon and it will survive. Hit the weak points with some HMG bullets, and it will fall apart like a house of cards. Or at least that's how I heard it .

Yes, a heavily armoured tank will be defeated by machine gun bullets.

I could imagine Bolters may have a chance, if the target are the tracks, the main turret or the rear, but other wise the tank will be able to score a few good shots that will probably kill a good proportion of the Space Marines.

 AtoMaki wrote:

 blood reaper wrote:

You mean the tanks that have survived RPG hits with only minor innocence?

You can hammer certain sections of the front armour of an Abrams with nearly any kind of modern-day AT weapon and it will survive. Hit the weak points with some HMG bullets, and it will fall apart like a house of cards. Or at least that's how I heard it .

You heard wrong...... If MBT could be pierced in any way by mere HMG bullets the designers would put it back to the drawing board., governments spent too much money on it for them to be that shoddy.. Leman russ battle tanks are not that different from tanks we have today because... really... theres not much to improve upon.... Unless the ceramite the LRBT's are made of are majorly superior to Steel then they are basically the same...

 Vaktathi wrote:
Are we talking fragmentation hand grenades? I've never heard/read anything on main battle tanks being damaged by fragmentation hand grenades, at least that weren't tossed into an open turret or the like. Hell even RPG's usually bounce off most modern MBT's in most locations.

It wasn't like super-duper effective damage, but small and annyoing damage. Like severed track links and shattered optics. While these kind of damage effects sound neglible, they are rather scary in a combat situation. Or at least thats how others said it to me, as I was only a rifleman and not a tank crewman.

 Vaktathi wrote:
We also have information from Forgeworld on relative Imperial armor thickness and capabilities, and they're nowhere near what modern tanks are.

Those numbers are funny .

40k does have nukes.

Hellfire missiles are explicitly nuclear in nature, albeit each missile has a yield of 610 gigatons (Each warhead having a yield of 5 gigatons, with 122 warheads total). A single warhead is 50 times more powerful than Tsar Bomba.

 Vaktathi wrote:
A nuclear missile packing half a dozen multi-megaton warheads on MIRV launcher the size of a commuter car would be significantly more dangerous.

No it wouldn't. Hellfire missiles are stated to possess 610 gigatons of firepower each. We could not begin to hope to match 40k firepower, our nukes would be useless against 40k ships.

 Void__Dragon wrote:
40k does have nukes.

Hellfire missiles are explicitly nuclear in nature, albeit each missile has a yield of 610 gigatons (Each warhead having a yield of 5 gigatons, with 122 warheads total). A single warhead is 50 times more powerful than Tsar Bomba.

What are Hellfire missiles from? I don't recall them specifically. Are they cyclonic torpedoes? The Tsar Bomba was reduced in yield intentionally due to fear of starting a tectonic event, 610 Gigatons is a planet killing weapon, 60 gigatons (1/10th as strong) would be a weapon powerful enough to leave a crater a couple hundred miles across, and 610 gigatons is about 1,220 times as powerful as the Tsar Bomba which was a mere 50 megatons.

And I never said 40k didn't have nukes, I was rather explicit that they did and they were still very powerful.

 AtoMaki wrote:

Those numbers are funny .

indeed, like Chimeras matching King Tiger tanks for weight

 Vaktathi wrote:

Only if we're talking deep space, anywhere near a planet with a decently strong magnetic field, especially anything that could be considered close orbit, the EMP will work wonderfully.

E1s won't occur at all due to the lack of atmosphere, E2s are easily defeated by a mere lightningrod. I'll give you E3s though, but there's no reason at all to suspect that a spacefaring vessel capable of travelling through the galaxy wouldn't have some sort of protection against magnetic fields interfering with their electronics.

If it came to a ground war, the Marines are boned. Flat out boned.

But why would it ever come to a ground war? They have vastly superior firepower in the form of the Strike Cruiser they used to get here. They simply make a demonstration (let's say they level a few cities to make a point) and then make their demands. Either we comply, or they continue to level cities until either we do comply, or we're all dead.

If I were in command, I'd order all people on the planet to make their way to evacuation points where they'd be loaded into massive transports and sent off as workers for industrialised planets, then I'd import settlers from somewhere else and turn Earth into an agri-world.

Honestly, there'd really be no reason for Marines to even turn up. We're not going to present the sort of fight that they'd be useful in. We'd cave almost instantly, and then it would just be a case of mopping up pockets of resistance and clearing out pockets of people who refused to comply with the evacuation orders.

 Kaldor wrote:
If it came to a ground war, the Marines are boned. Flat out boned.

But why would it ever come to a ground war?

Because there is no point in discussing whether Space Marines with a Strike Cruiser for backup could take over Earth. We all know the answer is yes.

Dunno how this is on page 3. In a ground war 1000 space marines with no air support would get rolled by Earth's military. With air support they would win.

Kaldor wrote:If it came to a ground war, the Marines are boned. Flat out boned.

But why would it ever come to a ground war? They have vastly superior firepower in the form of the Strike Cruiser they used to get here. They simply make a demonstration (let's say they level a few cities to make a point) and then make their demands. Either we comply, or they continue to level cities until either we do comply, or we're all dead.

A Strike cruiser itself isn't capable of annihilating every major city in short order and could be struck back at, and history has shown that bombardment of cities typically does not force capitulation, if anything it generally stiffens resistance.

Honestly, there'd really be no reason for Marines to even turn up. We're not going to present the sort of fight that they'd be useful in. We'd cave almost instantly, and then it would just be a case of mopping up pockets of resistance and clearing out pockets of people who refused to comply with the evacuation orders.

Methinks you're missing the history of the human race for most of the 20th century. That's been tried. It's typically failed.

BlaxicanX wrote:
Dunno how this is on page 3. In a ground war 1000 space marines with no air support would get rolled by Earth's military. With air support they would win.

Even with air support, 1000 marines isn't going to beat anything unless we're talking a fleet or tens of thousands of aircraft killing anything they can see flying all the time. 1000 troops, no matter how powerful, can be isolated, surrounded, and destroyed in just a few hours, there aren't enough of them to hold anything or prevent encirclement, and unless there's such air supremacy that the ground troops are effectively meaningless and your goal is simply to destroy opposing forces.

 Vaktathi wrote:
A Strike cruiser itself isn't capable of annihilating every major city in short order and could be struck back at

Arguably.

 Vaktathi wrote:
What are Hellfire missiles from? I don't recall them specifically. Are they cyclonic torpedoes?

“Four Gothic-class cruisers–Intolerable, Invincible, and Righteous Force–awaited four parsecs from target. Each ship carried 100 Hellfire nuclear missles. Each missle 122 warheads, each with a firepower of 5 GT. If boarding action fails, nuclear missles will turn a ship to dust.” Space Hulk Rulebook, p.3 - Scenario Book

Has nobody realised that Marines get Land Raiders, Predators and Vindicators. I bet we'd really struggle to deal with them.

OK, we presume that crappy governments try to send peace treaties whilst the Strike Cruisers advance. We are ignored and they attack. We would have no chance of taking out Drop Pods.

1000 marines deployed with Land Raiders, Thunderhawks etc would take some beating.

Humans are weak. We care about innocent people, we would try search and rescue missions instead of just carpet bombing the place.

Eventually we could drag them down but it would take a long time.

 FinalAnswer wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
What are Hellfire missiles from? I don't recall them specifically. Are they cyclonic torpedoes?

“Four Gothic-class cruisers–Intolerable, Invincible, and Righteous Force–awaited four parsecs from target. Each ship carried 100 Hellfire nuclear missles. Each missle 122 warheads, each with a firepower of 5 GT. If boarding action fails, nuclear missles will turn a ship to dust.” Space Hulk Rulebook, p.3 - Scenario Book

On the other hand, Intolerable, Invincible and Righteous Force are three cruisers. Where's the fourth?

 FinalAnswer wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
What are Hellfire missiles from? I don't recall them specifically. Are they cyclonic torpedoes?

“Four Gothic-class cruisers–Intolerable, Invincible, and Righteous Force–awaited four parsecs from target. Each ship carried 100 Hellfire nuclear missles. Each missle 122 warheads, each with a firepower of 5 GT. If boarding action fails, nuclear missles will turn a ship to dust.” Space Hulk Rulebook, p.3 - Scenario Book

Ah, ok, either way however, gigaton range weapons are annihilation weapons, and nobody is debating about their ability to *destroy* earth, but you couldn't really use such weapons if you wanted to *conquer* earth, 122 5 GT warheads would be more than enough to destroy the atmosphere hundreds of times over and spew enough radiation and heat to kill everything that survived blasts in days, assuming tectonic events don't kill everything first.

 phantommaster wrote:
Has nobody realised that Marines get Land Raiders, Predators and Vindicators. I bet we'd really struggle to deal with them.

Going by what Forgeworld has stat'd them out as, not really actually, any MBT designed in the last 30 years would be markedly superior.

Either way, unless they're able to be resupplied, which is doubtful once they make planetfall with a force that small, they're done after a couple hundred miles or one/two days good fighting when they run out of fuel, and we're talking a couple dozen tanks at most here?

OK, we presume that crappy governments try to send peace treaties whilst the Strike Cruisers advance. We are ignored and they attack. We would have no chance of taking out Drop Pods.

Possibly not, however how do they know where to strike, and can they deliver enough marines to enough locations to do much of anything other than be scary?

1000 marines deployed with Land Raiders, Thunderhawks etc would take some beating.

Lets say a couple of dozen real tanks and several dozen rhino/razorback type vehicles. Thunderhawks are gigantic and easily intercepted and destroyed and there aren't that many in a chapter, perhaps 20-50. Compared to the worlds major air forces capable of fielding tens of thousands of actual fighter aircraft made for air to air combat (unlike thunderhawks), even if somehow the Thawks kill their foes 10-1, (though would be lucky to manage 1:1 odds) they'd still be swept from the skies very quickly.

Humans are weak. We care about innocent people, we would try search and rescue missions instead of just carpet bombing the place.

Hahaha you clearly have not been paying attention to world events. We'd like to think care about innocent people, but in reality, no major world government would hesitate to obliterate an area where such a force was located, innocent people or not. And that's assuming the marines landed anywhere anyone cared to save in the first place.

Eventually we could drag them down but it would take a long time.

Not really. A small tactical nuclear weapon would do it in minutes, a few squadrons of aircraft coupled with infantry and armor could do it in a couple of days. Marines work in a Space Fantasy setting, they do not work once inserted into anything realistic.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Ah, ok, either way however, gigaton range weapons are annihilation weapons, and nobody is debating about their ability to *destroy* earth, but you couldn't really use such weapons if you wanted to *conquer* earth, 122 5 GT warheads would be more than enough to destroy the atmosphere hundreds of times over and spew enough radiation and heat to kill everything that survived blasts in days, assuming tectonic events don't kill everything first.

They could probably use their arsenal to cow Earth's nations into surrendering by demonstrating their capabilities on something we can observe, namely the Moon, or perhaps Mars.

Right, but then it's not really about the Space Marines ability to defeat anyone at that point, it's about the choice between arbitrary annihilation without any sort of defense on an unimagineable scale, and surrender. You don't need a Space Marine for that

We would fare better with the marines, than we would if an ork Roc hit here xD

 Vaktathi wrote:
Right, but then it's not really about the Space Marines ability to defeat anyone at that point, it's about the choice between arbitrary annihilation without any sort of defense on an unimagineable scale, and surrender. You don't need a Space Marine for that

Well, I'm part of the crowd that doesn't believe that Space Marines without some support are capable of conquering Earth by themselves, unless our reaction to a galaxy-spanning empire would do the work for them. In a conventional fight with our military against a chapter, we could probably stomp them. The only way their ground forces could beat us is to quickly decapitate our leadership in acts of shock and awe, then teleport back to their impenetrable strike-cruiser. Our lack of ability to counter-act this, along with the mass hysteria that would go through our population, would probably be enough to break Earth's morale, but even then, the Space Marines would probably need help from the local population to effectively conquer the planet, else they just be left with a world now in anarchy.

But, like it's been said several times, the Marines are not a conquering force by themselves. That's the Imperial Guard's job.

 Vaktathi wrote:

 FinalAnswer wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:
What are Hellfire missiles from? I don't recall them specifically. Are they cyclonic torpedoes?

“Four Gothic-class cruisers–Intolerable, Invincible, and Righteous Force–awaited four parsecs from target. Each ship carried 100 Hellfire nuclear missles. Each missle 122 warheads, each with a firepower of 5 GT. If boarding action fails, nuclear missles will turn a ship to dust.” Space Hulk Rulebook, p.3 - Scenario Book

Ah, ok, either way however, gigaton range weapons are annihilation weapons, and nobody is debating about their ability to *destroy* earth, but you couldn't really use such weapons if you wanted to *conquer* earth, 122 5 GT warheads would be more than enough to destroy the atmosphere hundreds of times over and spew enough radiation and heat to kill everything that survived blasts in days, assuming tectonic events don't kill everything first.

610 gigatons won't "destroy the atmosphere hundreds of times over". The Chicxulub impact was more than a hundred times stronger than that, and while it caused a mass extinction it didn't destroy the atmosphere even once.

And the entire point is that that is their anti-ship torpedoes, which means that the only thing our nukes will do is scratch the paintwork, if we even get through the Void Shields. Sure, 610 Gigaton per missile is a ridiculous number fetched by the authors from God knows where, but IIRC you said something about 40k being SciFantasy?