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 Melissia wrote:
If you want to use FFG, I'd point out that it's quite easy to survive a heavy stubber round while wearing guard flak armor in those games, even if it was a direct hit to the head. You couldn't expect to survive a direct hit from a heavy machinegun IRL, regardless of your body armor (it would go through and liquidate your brain).

So your comparison still breaks down.

You can even survive that stubber round while being naked in FFG's games just like you can survive a direct battlecannon shell hit in 40k while being naked. On the other hand, the description in FFG's Only War makes it pretty clear: "...Many layers of ablative and impact absorbent material go into making each suit, enough to deflect or negate most low-level attacks such as small arms, shrapnel, and proximity blasts." Flak armour isn't designed to stop heavy weapons but to offer protection against small arms and shrapnell, just like modern bodyarmour.
This is pretty consistent with how flak armour is described in pretty much all of the fluff available to me.


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 Melissia wrote:
I
Furthermore, modern body armor would provide no protection against directed energy weapons. Flak armor, in comparison, provides quite adequate protection against them-- as proven by its effectiveness against multilasers and lasguns.

Do we have any direct energy weapons to compare the level of protection? Certainly not.

 Melissia wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
drop a penny on it from orbit and it's a smoking crater (which is all it would really take

That would only be true if the penny was traveling a non-insignificant fraction of the speed of light. Which gravity alone would be incapable of doing, and even magnetic weapons would have a hard time doing (once you get close enough to the speed of light, accelerating more starts to take more energy than you would be able to get if you freaking converted all the mass of the object in to energy directly with 100% efficiency). And with something as small as a penny, there's no guarantee that there'd be enough mass left upon impact to get through the void shields and armor to inflict significant damage.

I'm not arguing that walkers are the ultimate war machine, only that your example is nonsensical.

In reality it is a rod that is fired at the surface, and actually busts the hell out of pretty much everything that would otherwise be impervious to other known weapon systems. The penny was more, albeit poor, analogy of what you are shooting at the planet vs the cost of what a walker that size would be.

http://www.orbitalvector.com/Tactical%20Weapons/Railguns/RAILGUNS.htm

http://www.cracked.com/article_16477_5-famous-sci-fi-weapons-that-theyre-actually-building.html

http://www.livescience.com/7463-navy-tests-incredible-sci-fi-weapon.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kinetic_bombardment

Yes everyone isn't packing railguns, just that weapons that can vaporize a titan are not far fetched (plans go back as far as 1944 at least for railguns). It's cheap (outside of power, but that is a moot point given the power sources of 40k given we know we can do it today), basically impossible to defend against, and pretty much makes slow, large targets silly. Raw kinnetic armored bunker busting power ='s dead target. Skipping that go for things like Durendals and older bunker piercing munitions, DPU rounds, etc.

The point being, it doesn't have to make sense from a game or fantasy perspective. Melee doesn't have to make sense if you enjoy the game and the fluff.

I'm an avid comic reader, I can willingly suspend disbelief when Superman picks up a battleship or aircraft carrier. Even though if you could apply that much force over that small an area it would likely tear clean through the hull (or Hulk lifting a mountain and it some how working despite the focal point being the size of his hands).

It should be pointed out that Titans are equipped with multiple Void Shields. While ground-based armaments and non-Titan vehicles certainly exist that are capable of killing a Titan... there's a fethload of shields to shoot down, first, and the Titan is not likely to offer you a second chance.

because despite all the massive technological advances , the average marksman is as accurate as Wikipedia ....and let's face it that's not very accurate.

but failing piss poor shots, anyone can bludgeon the enemy to death, especially with an ax ...with a chainsaw blade.

and any good and well rounded army can adapt to various situations or else it isn't a good army, hence Close combat units in races like the eldar.

as far as the tau?

we don't talk about them.

KingDeath wrote:
Flak armour isn't designed to stop heavy weapons but to offer protection against small arms and shrapnell, just like modern bodyarmour.
This is pretty consistent with how flak armour is described in pretty much all of the fluff available to me.

I don't think you understand. It's designed to be effective against 40k small arms.

Not modern small arms, which are pretty tame in comparison to the things used by, say Orks-- Ork shootas are hideously overpowered guns, that make modern assault rifles look like peashooters. Yet flak armor protects against it quite damned well.

KingDeath wrote:
IDo we have any direct energy weapons to compare the level of protection? Certainly not.

We do; ours are inefficient and ineffective in comparison. But more importantly, modern body armor is not designed to be effective against directed energy weapons. And it isn't effective against directed energy weapons.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
The penny was [... a] poor, analogy

That was my entire point. As I said, I don't necessarily disagree on the lack of viability of walkers.

 Vaerros wrote:

No ship a boarding action would be taking place in would have a hull that's vulnerable to small arms fire.

All ships are vunerable to small arms fire in a universe where small arms include melta/plasma/fusion weapons.

I tend to think the other reason the Astartes in particular have a preference for melee combat is one of logistics. How many bolter rounds can a Legionnaire carry? Adding a chainsword or an axe to his combat loadout allows him to fight for much longer between resupplies. It also makes for easy conservation of ammunition when fighting foes who would be pointlessly and messily overkilled by bolter fire.

Why waste one of the 160 bolter rounds you stepped off the drop pod with to kill a starving, crazy human cultist when you can punch his head off his shoulders, or hack him in two with a gladius?

Also, the armor is so reliant against most small arms fire that many forces don't carry enough additional ammunition to allow them to use their small arms very often without running low on supplies. A sword to the neck fixes that.

IMO:

The inherent disadvantage to close-combat weapons is that you have to close a distance.

But the 40K universe via drop pods, teleporting, etc. overcomes that dis-advantage.

best way to beat all that shiney 30k technology is some good 40k chain sword disruption. Very combined arms tactics.

 MajorStoffer wrote:

To use a historical analogy, during the Satsuma Rebellion in Japan in 1871, the rebelling Samurai of the aforementioned region managed to inflict enormous casualties on the advanced Imperial Army by use of terrain, allowing them to close without overt exposure to cannon and rifle fire; each swordsman can kill several times his number of ranged combatants if he can close. By use of terrain and advanced technologies, Marines of both Loyalist and Traitor variety can use their super-human abilities to their fullest extent in close combat, but even then, most marines spend more time using their boltguns than a chainsword.

I blame you for making me want to play Shogun 2 now.

^ exalted.

Swabby wrote:

 Vaerros wrote:

No ship a boarding action would be taking place in would have a hull that's vulnerable to small arms fire.

All ships are vunerable to small arms fire in a universe where small arms include melta/plasma/fusion weapons.

Boarding actions are generally executed against crafts designed to take at least some punishment from ship-mounted weapons. Deliberate effort aside, a boarding party isn't going to be piercing a hull easily.

What is the source for the power of an ork shoota?

Because blood for the blood god.

The actual reason is very simple.

To make the game of 40K exciting.

It is also why killing foes in CC is far more effective to morale than shooting them is. It forces action to happen for a game.

The lore of 40K is built around the game.


A futuristic combat scenario would make for a terrible game. Think about playing the US military in a game today.

An unmanned drone flies over the target. Sometimes the drone has a missile. Target defeated. Otherwise, someone ELSE just fires a long range missile. Target defeated.

But, tanks! Enjoy combat without movement. Because the range at which a tank can engage a target makes movement as a game mechanic pointless.

This leaves only house to house small unit actions as the only playable game for the modern US military.

Now just add 50 years of technology. Or 100. Think how far military tech increased from 1900 to 1950.

Add 20,000 years.

The ONLY reason 40K works as a game is utterly and completely ignoring this concept.

 Mattlov wrote:
The actual reason is very simple.

To make the game of 40K exciting.

It is also why killing foes in CC is far more effective to morale than shooting them is. It forces action to happen for a game.

The lore of 40K is built around the game.


A futuristic combat scenario would make for a terrible game. Think about playing the US military in a game today.

An unmanned drone flies over the target. Sometimes the drone has a missile. Target defeated. Otherwise, someone ELSE just fires a long range missile. Target defeated.

But, tanks! Enjoy combat without movement. Because the range at which a tank can engage a target makes movement as a game mechanic pointless.

This leaves only house to house small unit actions as the only playable game for the modern US military.

Now just add 50 years of technology. Or 100. Think how far military tech increased from 1900 to 1950.

Add 20,000 years.

The ONLY reason 40K works as a game is utterly and completely ignoring this concept.

That's a fair point. However, would extended, infinite total war not force armies to revert into some more primitive, yet sustainable, warfare style? Drones, supertrained high-tech soldiers, clever missiles and jet-tanks are not cheap and easy things to create and maintain, not in big, unending masses for sure.



Of course, this doesn't mean that everybody needs to go Waterloo in the 41st Millenium, but leaves some decent place for regressive tactics and, ultimately, strategies. And there is also some niche there for hacking & slashing with chainsaws.

 BlaxicanX wrote:
What is the source for the power of an ork shoota?

In tabletop, Shootas have the same strength as a boltgun, but less penetrative power. That's right-- shootas do generally similar damage as a .75 cal shell which explodes after penetrating its target. And it does it without necessarily having the explosive aspect of it-- it's just an oversized, overpowered gun. In Black Library fiction, they're described as hideously overpowered weapons, often "crude bolters" (Ciaphas Cain series) and other similar descriptors.

Crude, oversized, and absurdly powerful. The Orky way.

 Melissia wrote:
Crude, oversized, and absurdly powerful. The Orky way.

And at least in FFGs Rogue Trader perfectly usable for anyone, though for some funny reason they tend to be unreliable if not used by an Ork.

That's not just in FFG. That's pretty much universal in canon.

It works perfectly in the hands of an Ork, but it's unreliable in the hands of a non-Ork.

Spetulhu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Crude, oversized, and absurdly powerful. The Orky way.

And at least in FFGs Rogue Trader perfectly usable for anyone, though for some funny reason they tend to be unreliable if not used by an Ork.

That's because it's the Orky gestalt psychic field that keeps it functional on some sort of reliable level. In the hands of any non-Ork, however, it's not as stable, and prone to malfunction. This is why you have to be an Ork to get a red one to go faster.

 Deadshot wrote:
DE for the same reason Joker in Batman uses a knife.

That line made my night.

 Psienesis wrote:

Spetulhu wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
Crude, oversized, and absurdly powerful. The Orky way.

And at least in FFGs Rogue Trader perfectly usable for anyone, though for some funny reason they tend to be unreliable if not used by an Ork.

That's because it's the Orky gestalt psychic field that keeps it functional on some sort of reliable level. In the hands of any non-Ork, however, it's not as stable, and prone to malfunction. This is why you have to be an Ork to get a red one to go faster.

Iz becuz yoo 'oomies too klumzy to 'andle sofistikated Orkish taknolagy. Yooz not got da touch.

 Melissia wrote:

 Maniac_nmt wrote:
drop a penny on it from orbit and it's a smoking crater (which is all it would really take

That would only be true if the penny was traveling a non-insignificant fraction of the speed of light. Which gravity alone would be incapable of doing, and even magnetic weapons would have a hard time doing (once you get close enough to the speed of light, accelerating more starts to take more energy than you would be able to get if you freaking converted all the mass of the object in to energy directly with 100% efficiency). And with something as small as a penny, there's no guarantee that there'd be enough mass left upon impact to get through the void shields and armor to inflict significant damage.

I'm not arguing that walkers are the ultimate war machine, only that your example is nonsensical.

Maybe he was thinking of a Rods from God - style weapon, but yeah, dropping a penny from earth orbit and disregarding any atomsphere gives it roughly a staggering 0,00000003 kiloton in kinetic energy...or put otherwise, 30 kJ, which equals the calorific value of about 24 Snickers bars. I'm pretty sure i could eat that without turning into a crater. Alternatively, it's the kinetic energy of a 3-ton truck...going at jogging speed. Huh. And again, thats on a vacuumed earth.
Tl,dr: Check your physics, kids!

 Vaerros wrote:

Boarding actions are generally executed against crafts designed to take at least some punishment from ship-mounted weapons. Deliberate effort aside, a boarding party isn't going to be piercing a hull easily.

So you are saying the majority of ships in the 40k universe have hulls built to withstand a hit from a macro battery and have absolutely no weak points where a stray melta shot could cause an issue?

Swabby wrote:

So you are saying the majority of ships in the 40k universe have hulls built to withstand a hit from a macro battery and have absolutely no weak points where a stray melta shot could cause an issue?

On the hull? I'd say no. Near the reactor or gellar field generator or some such it might do significant damage but that'd be well inside the ship.

people seem to forget, that it is entirly possible to have a CC enemy be up in your face before you even know they are there,

at close range, your guns are pretty much worthless, can injure your own comrades, and a deft close combat weapon can simply turn the barrel away from your target, or damage the weapon.

within 10' or so, melee beats pistol, many cops have training courses just to imprint that fact on them, you just cannot draw, aim and shoot that fast.

and while most modern weapons are certainly CAPABLE of shooting up to 1km, most engagments are at sub 300m, and it is much harder to hit a moving target at any range then you think... MUCH MUCH MUCH harder...

dont believe me? set up a laterally running target at 50m, moving 5-7 clicks, and see how long it takes you to hit it. Its not as easy as you think.


some foes atttack in such #'s, that you run out of ammo before you run out of foes, so while your bolter has a 30 rnd clip in it, your sword keeps going until you get tired (which for some characters, is days and days)


modern times, the emphasis is definetly on ranged, but there are plenty of real world, modern examples of battles or engagments where CC was very important to the outcome.

in a future where armour, and the means to get up close are much improved, it makes perfect sense to see more melee.

Swabby wrote:

 Vaerros wrote:

Boarding actions are generally executed against crafts designed to take at least some punishment from ship-mounted weapons. Deliberate effort aside, a boarding party isn't going to be piercing a hull easily.

So you are saying the majority of ships in the 40k universe have hulls built to withstand a hit from a macro battery and have absolutely no weak points where a stray melta shot could cause an issue?

I think your position here is based on the notion that melta guns are just really damned powerful weapons, which is of course accurate if we're talking about tanks on the ground. The problem with this is, I would expect ship weaponry capable severely outclassing a man-portable melta weapon, and typical ship armor to be appropriately robust(again, this is in the context of crafts that would be targets of boarding actions in the first place).

Multiple, well-aimed melta gun shots against such hulls could work, but regardless, that's not an argument against use of ranged weapons in general during a board action.

Swabby wrote:

 Vaerros wrote:

Boarding actions are generally executed against crafts designed to take at least some punishment from ship-mounted weapons. Deliberate effort aside, a boarding party isn't going to be piercing a hull easily.

So you are saying the majority of ships in the 40k universe have hulls built to withstand a hit from a macro battery and have absolutely no weak points where a stray melta shot could cause an issue?

Once the void shields fail they don't withstand hits, they penetrate the hull and tear their way through the decks. The reason they survive the hit is because the ships are so damn big it takes a lot of shots to seriously cripple them.

 easysauce wrote:
within 10' or so, melee beats pistol, many cops have training courses just to imprint that fact on them, you just cannot draw, aim and shoot that fast.

Yes, but that's because police aren't allowed to carry their guns drawn at all times and call in an airstrike on anything that looks vaguely threatening. The guy with a knife is only really a threat because the cop has to wait until he's has crossed the legal line. That isn't a problem in 40k, where even the Tau are perfectly willing to shoot first and ask questions later once the shooting begins.

and while most modern weapons are certainly CAPABLE of shooting up to 1km, most engagments are at sub 300m, and it is much harder to hit a moving target at any range then you think... MUCH MUCH MUCH harder...

Sure. But 300m would be 12.5 feet at true 28mm scale. That's significantly longer range than a tank's main gun in 40k rules-wise. Which just demonstrates what I said earlier: melee only works in the tabletop game because weapon ranges and movement speed are not to scale.

some foes atttack in such #'s, that you run out of ammo before you run out of foes, so while your bolter has a 30 rnd clip in it, your sword keeps going until you get tired (which for some characters, is days and days)

But that's just stupid tactics. If you have a horde of a million orks you nuke it and kill them all with a single bomb. You don't send in a bunch of guys with rifles and swords. Which is problem #2 with the tabletop game, GW doesn't accurately represent the firepower of heavy weapons and WMDs.

 Trondheim wrote:
Because many armies like Nids and Orks are almost without numbers, and tends to swarm their enemies. When dealing with such foes you need to be abel to figth in close combat. That and the fact that combat is rittualized, and battels can be won or lost with the outcome of a single duel between leaders or champions.

I like the point about the Leaders outcomes and how important a 1v1 duel is so important.
I learned this the hard way.

My Tyranid friend threw his swarm lord at my Warboss with the insta kill powerklaw nd I didn't make the wound. The swarm lord killed he Warboss and finished off my Lootas and ork boys...

@Peregrine

I agree on the bit about Heavy Weapons but WMDs in 40k are called Exterminatus, ie, blow the planet up. Which is bad because you need the planet. As stated.

Even a modern nuclear warhead would leave the area inhospitanle without Radiation gear which is too expensive to waste on lowly grunts and workers. Hence, you lose irreplacable land which you can't afford.