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So, a modern airport is kinda necessary. We have lots of large planes that require landing strips, and having a centralised place where planes land and take off makes it easier to regulate the flow of people and materials.

However, most modern militaries can quickly construct a serviceable airfield to handle all but the largest planes.

Now, it appears that most landing craft in the 41st Millennium have VTOL capabilities, making the need for large landing strips even less important.

So why are starports so important in the background lore? The Siege for Vraks makes mention of the Dark Angels sacrificing 200 battle brothers to destroy the starport. Why? Couldn't anyone wanting to land troops or supplies still do so easily anywhere there was a flat surface? Couldn't ships still land and take off wherever they please? Starports always seem to be hotly contested objectives in 40K narratives, and I really can't figure out why.

Ocean-ports are important. Well, in settings that place importance on water based travel, anyway. They're important because they have docks and things, and are deep enough and sheltered enough so that ships can actually dock there and be built and repaired there.

I can understand how using an established starport would be convenient, what with transport to and from the port, storage and communications facilities being in place already, but is it really worth all that bother?

All I have to go on are the free I have seen described in Dark heresy, but to me its shear convenient. A star port gives you and era made to land on, its often in a prim location and has the built in infrastructure to support star travel. Owning one or taking one from the other guy gives you a huge advantage in troop movement and control of the era.

It's like asking why there are ports for ships when most of a coastline could suffice. Ports are centers of travel and transit, providing travel to-and-from the location in an organized fashion. I also imagine they have equipment to unload supplies and what not, you can't roll giant cranes to a middle of a desert where a landing ship decided to go.

As for the Dark Angels numbers, that's from a FW book. Forgeworld understands military scale and tactics a bit better then GW (albeit in its own ridiculous 40k setting) so the numbers there are a bit more believable. Whereas GW might think 1,200 men is a lot for a Regiment, a FW one will have 200,000.

I suppose it also depends a lot on what you are trying to land. Whilst dropships can land anywhere, there are also much larger ships around - as per the Battlefleet Gothic rules, starships of transport and escort class (which means anything up to frigates) are capable of landing, and as this is 40k, those vessels are massive. So large that you couldn't just set them down anywhere. So, unless you wish to spend many days and lots of fuel ferrying cargo or troops back and forth using small landers and drop craft, you'll require a flat area that is capable of supporting the ship's weight, and ideally have a series of beacons that enable pinpoint touchdown on this area. On top of this, a starport would have facilities to support a relatively quick drop-off and loading of cargo or passengers, together with the necessary services for passenger check-in and servicing (and customs/quarantine inspection for civilian traffic) capable of catering to several thousand people simultaneously. The ship may also require refueling and maintenance as well as stocking up on consumables.

Most importantly, a proper starport could likely service several such vessels simultaneously, which makes force protection and perimeter guarding much easier than if you were to disperse your transports across the region wherever they'd be able to land, possibly with many kilometers of terrain between these zones. Plus, the starport will likely be equipped with helpful sensor suites and anti-air batteries providing further assistance against potential enemy raids that would disrupt unloading.

Thinking on the issue, I could imagine vast fields of grid-supported ferrocrete one or more meters thick to prevent ships many hundred meters in length from sinking into the ground, possibly even involving archaic gravity-dampening fields, huge tanks holding fresh water etc.
Even if you just want to drop down with landers, shuttles and lighters, the starport will enable you to bring them down orderly, efficiently and close to one another on an easily defendable position. And during a proper Imperial Guard campaign involving several regiments, there will be lots of such air traffic.

Larger transports may need prepared landing surfaces that can bear their weight and not melt under the heat of their thrusters.
This is true even of current generation VTOL craft like the F35, which need an asbestos mat on the marine assault ships to avoid melting the landing surface.

Also, a starport has facilites and equipment that allow for repair, refueling and logistics. You can empty and turn around the bulk landers much faster with cranes, transport trucks and refueling craft. Control towers have the radar and communications to keep incoming and outgoing craft from hitting one another on ascent/decent. "Quick Launch" ramps for interceptors, as well as larger boost ramps to accelerate the bulk carriers to escape velocity faster may also be present.

There may also be defensive weapons to protect landed craft while they unload, along with bunkers to store unloaded equipment safely from long range artillery strikes. Some starports may be like the Fang or a Hive Spire with a stardock at the top or an orbital elevator and a terminal. Alternatively, they may have supplementary boosters for orbital insertion to aid deep strike attacks.

Durandal wrote:
Also, a starport has facilites and equipment that allow for repair, refueling and logistics. You can empty and turn around the bulk landers much faster with cranes, transport trucks and refueling craft. Control towers have the radar and communications to keep incoming and outgoing craft from hitting one another on ascent/decent. "Quick Launch" ramps for interceptors, as well as larger boost ramps to accelerate the bulk carriers to escape velocity faster may also be present.

Not only does the starport have support functions, it's situated in the middle of an infrastructure that keeps all that support working while allowing traffic to come and go planetside. Landing off the beaten track would create not one but two traffic problems. Not only do you need to get your invasion troops moving out but you also need to keep resources coming in. If you have to spend some of your bulk landers on bringing in supplies for your makeshift port you're slowing down your invasion - which is already slowed down by being in the middle of nowhere instead of in the middle of the planetary railroads, highways etc.

I'm thinking it's an infrastructure problem more than a landing space problem; drydocks, spare parts, refueling systems, the like. Fuel alone probably makes them absurdly valuable.

 Harriticus wrote:
It's like asking why there are ports for ships when most of a coastline could suffice.

Well, there's the main difference I guess. A port needs to be deep so you can get large ships into it, and sheltered from weather, and usually has construction and maintenance facilities incorporated. You literally can't just set up a port anywhere.

AnomanderRake wrote:Fuel alone probably makes them absurdly valuable

I guess, but I think most starships run off some kind of handwavium reactors of (effectively) limitless power.

 Lynata wrote:
I suppose it also depends a lot on what you are trying to land. Whilst dropships can land anywhere, there are also much larger ships around - as per the Battlefleet Gothic rules, starships of transport and escort class (which means anything up to frigates) are capable of landing, and as this is 40k, those vessels are massive. So large that you couldn't just set them down anywhere. So, unless you wish to spend many days and lots of fuel ferrying cargo or troops back and forth using small landers and drop craft, you'll require a flat area that is capable of supporting the ship's weight, and ideally have a series of beacons that enable pinpoint touchdown on this area. On top of this, a starport would have facilities to support a relatively quick drop-off and loading of cargo or passengers, together with the necessary services for passenger check-in and servicing (and customs/quarantine inspection for civilian traffic) capable of catering to several thousand people simultaneously. The ship may also require refueling and maintenance as well as stocking up on consumables.

Most importantly, a proper starport could likely service several such vessels simultaneously, which makes force protection and perimeter guarding much easier than if you were to disperse your transports across the region wherever they'd be able to land, possibly with many kilometers of terrain between these zones. Plus, the starport will likely be equipped with helpful sensor suites and anti-air batteries providing further assistance against potential enemy raids that would disrupt unloading.

Thinking on the issue, I could imagine vast fields of grid-supported ferrocrete one or more meters thick to prevent ships many hundred meters in length from sinking into the ground, possibly even involving archaic gravity-dampening fields, huge tanks holding fresh water etc.
Even if you just want to drop down with landers, shuttles and lighters, the starport will enable you to bring them down orderly, efficiently and close to one another on an easily defendable position. And during a proper Imperial Guard campaign involving several regiments, there will be lots of such air traffic.

These seem like the most sensible explanations. Massive gravity dampening fields, reinforced ferrocrete landing pads and so on making it possible to land ships that simply couldn't land elsewhere.

When you try to land something that weighs thousands of tons and has trusters capable of actualing propeling it into space, then a mere airfield simply won't suffice.
Normal ground would neither endure the pressure ( General...erm, sorry to tell you but dropship 31/64 toppled over because the ground gave away ) nor the heat.

 Harriticus wrote:
It's like asking why there are ports for ships when most of a coastline could suffice. Ports are centers of travel and transit, providing travel to-and-from the location in an organized fashion. I also imagine they have equipment to unload supplies and what not, you can't roll giant cranes to a middle of a desert where a landing ship decided to go.

As for the Dark Angels numbers, that's from a FW book. Forgeworld understands military scale and tactics a bit better then GW (albeit in its own ridiculous 40k setting) so the numbers there are a bit more believable. Whereas GW might think 1,200 men is a lot for a Regiment, a FW one will have 200,000.

Bingo.

A port is a centralized location with all the necessary facilities to handle incoming and outgoing traffic. It has the infrastructure designed to handle that traffic, and disperse it to where it needs to go.

I mean, sure you can land a space ship anywhere flat. Now what if it needs maintenance, or supplies, or needs to offload things? Where are the trucks, cranes, mechanics, etc going to come from? And that's just to start.

 Harriticus wrote:
Forgeworld understands military scale and tactics a bit better then GW (albeit in its own ridiculous 40k setting) so the numbers there are a bit more believable. Whereas GW might think 1,200 men is a lot for a Regiment, a FW one will have 200,000.

Neither Forge World nor Games Workshop give any level of command between Company and Regiment, with that in mind a 1,200 man regiment is akin to the US armies abandoned Pentomic structure which was workable but inefficient. The notion of a 200,000 strong Regiment without any Battalion, Brigade, Division and Corps level command being able to use any sort of "tactics" is laughably ludicrous.

SerQuintus wrote:Neither Forge World nor Games Workshop give any level of command between Company and Regiment, with that in mind a 1,200 man regiment is akin to the US armies abandoned Pentomic structure which was workable but inefficient. The notion of a 200,000 strong Regiment without any Battalion, Brigade, Division and Corps level command being able to use any sort of "tactics" is laughably ludicrous.

That would be like a self-fulfilling prophecy then, wouldn't it? Current GW fluff says that Guard regiments are sized according to some sort of battle efficiency value, with units that are deemed weaker by the Munitorum (be it due to insufficient training, physical prowess or equipment and supplies) grouped into larger regiments than the more elite armies - compare Valhallans to Cadians, for example. This means that, beyond a certain threshold, large regiments need even more men to achieve the same results as smaller formations. Deliciously ironic and grimdark.

On a sidenote, the 5E Guard Codex gave 120.000 men as an example for big infantry formations, in this case the Valhallan 18th Light Infantry.

The established starports are important because logistics are king in the IOM. Fuel, cattle, other food-stuff, new recruits, ammo, raw materials of all kinds will be need to be brought onboard any ship, and then shipped off to the larger ships in orbit. That is a tremendous undertaking. Sure I guess a larger ship can land and maybe even take off from a planet, but the IOM hates wasting anything (and landing a larger vessel than a Frigate on a planet likely will upset the envirnmoent, and lead to a very changed planet, which for obvious reasons is not good). Just thinking of the storage means you need a few million inhabitants crewing that place to get it all together, and then you need to import more sophisticated stuff, and it grows even more. Remember, for every frontline warrior, 7-8 is in logistics, and that's just in the military.

A starport will have all the equipment necessary alreayd in place. Refueling equipment, loading cranes and ramps, etc...

Its much easier then building it from scratch.

Plus some transport ships might not be able to land on anything but the flattest of ground, which may not exist on the planet.

What if it was a planet that was nothing but craggy mountain ranges? Narrow rocky valleys with high wind speeds. The handful of cities on the planet have carved off the top of some of the mountains to make space ports.

The Dark Angels in your example may also have had another reason to take the spaceport - not just to use it themselves, but to deny it to the enemy.

Space Marines are designed as a rapid-reaction force, and thus will be far less dependent on starports and other support facilities then most of their opponents. But denying their enemy the use of those same facilities would still be a worthwhile goal, even if the the Dark Angels wouldn't get a huge amount of benefit from them themselves.