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Quick question to help me with a fluff piece I'm writing...

Do IN vessels have escape pods or Lifeboats? Or not? In the same way Parachutes weren't given to ww1 pilots because of fears they would use them instead of fighting.
If they do have them would they have enough for the whole crew or select specialists?

How did the TS captain from the HH book battle for the abyss escape his doomed ship again? I've only ever read about people running to shuttle bays to escape in skiffs and the like. It's 40k grimdark, so I'm guna go with no.

This is assumption on my part, but I imagine they would have at least a few escape pods for officers and specialists (ie tech priests, astropaths). They might even carry lots of pods (to give the important people a better chance of escaping while the enemy blows up the unimportant pods). I can't see them carrying enough pods for the entire crew - after all, lives are the single most expandable resource in the grimdark of the 41st millennium.

After a quick search I found whispers of life pods and salvation pods/boats. They're very vauge...shh I'm talking!...but they all seem to agree that vessels do have them and only in limited numbers. I think the navigator and choir sort of live in a life pod, at the least it can be jetersoned from the ship to protect the crew from any warp spawned madness that may crawl out from within.

In Death or Glory, by Sandy Mitchell, Ciaphas Cain escapes his doomed ship on an escape pod. Pretty sure escape pods are mentioned at least once in the Night Lords trilogy as well.

As noted a number of novels have saviour pods - I think it was mentioned in BFG but not sure of hand.

Also I seem to recall mention of Ork/chaos/dark eldar fighter pilots using saviour pods for target practice.

The crew members who work in the bridge and the techpriests probably have access to life pods, and most of the big ships (Cruisers and larger) will have some sort of lander craft that a few desperate crew would try and press into service as escape shuttles that wouldn't work if they weren't in close orbit or close to another ship that would take them in

The crew does not need escape pods..they just hold their breath and know the emperor will save them from space...to believe otherwise is heretical.

And the command crew and other "important" personell know the escape pods are all hidden behind doors marked with "restricted acess, authorized for Gamma 10 level only, violators will be violoated immediatly" signs, of course the first thing they teach you in command school is there is no such thing as gamma 10..or is there.

Better to just go down with the ship.

There are escape pods and lifeboats yes, I've seen them mentioned in a few sources. That being said, obviously the serfs and servitors are unlikely to enjoy that luxury...

 Eetion wrote:
Quick question to help me with a fluff piece I'm writing...

1. Do IN vessels have escape pods or Lifeboats? Or not? In the same way Parachutes weren't given to ww1 pilots because of fears they would use them instead of fighting.
2. If they do have them would they have enough for the whole crew or select specialists?

1. In Battle of the Fang, one of the scout vessels had all surviving hands abandon ship in escape pods. If small scout ships have them, then surely larger capital ships have them.
2. Since the Titanic, OSHA and Marine Safety regulations require enough life boat space for everyone on board. This has carried forward to the 40th millennium. (Honestly, I'm not sure.)

but survivors will have the cost of the lost craft deducted from their pay..and the pay of all descendants and relatives...gotta make up the bottom line.

Yeah, they have them. I'll also bet that they don't have enough for all members to escape. They are most likely clustered around the bridge and the main holds, with other banks scattered about.

I'm just intrigued that you feel life pods would be of any use "if the worst happened". Given the grimdarkness of the background"the worst" is pretty damn bad and probably involves a total protonic reversal or something (maybe due to the door swinging both ways?)

However, in answer to you question, imperial ships do have life pods, for when something only marginally bad happens

Many battles will happen around planets or other important areas and as long as some ships survive, crew may well be retrieved.

 Mr Morden wrote:
Many battles will happen around planets or other important areas and as long as some ships survive, crew may well be retrieved.

And then executed for deserting their posts

They've got escape pods. They're mentioned several times in the novels. Talos from the Night Lords series actually rode one down in the last book.

In the dan abnett book, can't remember the name, the lightnings and thunderbolts had ejector seats.

 andtheyshallknownofear wrote:
In the dan abnett book, can't remember the name, the lightnings and thunderbolts had ejector seats.

They were the Phantine air corps ,book #5 IIRC (And for the world they were pretty fething useless), besides the OP was asking about void ships such as the luna class cruiser etc