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Well range weapons use ammunition / power sources and require a great deal of maintenance. Not to mention there are units out there with force field and reinforced armour - if you want to cut metal these days, you don't use a flame thrower.... you get up close with a high powered blow torch - same thing in the future.

If I was cut off and surrounded without resupply and my gun was damaged..... I'd sure want some kind of CC weapon over nothing at all.

Has there EVER been an army that HASN'T trained for close combat? Will there ever be one?

I doubt it. I did hear a while back (Although don't quote me on this one) that the US Army had dispensed with formal bayonet training back in 2010 (Whether or not that has been reinstituted since is a different matter), but it's still a very, very viable method of eliminating enemy combatants. Bayonet charges have never been so much about the physical effects, rather the sheer psychological effect of seeing a group of adrenaline-hyped, professionally trained killers, screaming at the top of their lungs and charging straight at you with over a foot of sharpened steel - it's f*****g terrifying I'd guess. A little like this guy (plus extra screaming )



I fully expect that scariest thing on this planet is an enraged British soldier charging you with a foot long length of steel pointed in your direction (Extra rage added if he happens to be suffering from chronic tea deprivation - then the faeces really hits the rotary air oscillater )

 gossipmeng wrote:
Well range weapons use ammunition / power sources and require a great deal of maintenance. Not to mention there are units out there with force field and reinforced armour - if you want to cut metal these days, you don't use a flame thrower.... you get up close with a high powered blow torch - same thing in the future.

If I was cut off and surrounded without resupply and my gun was damaged..... I'd sure want some kind of CC weapon over nothing at all.

This is what I kept saying.


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 Warpig1815 wrote:
I doubt it. I did hear a while back (Although don't quote me on this one) that the US Army had dispensed with formal bayonet training back in 2010 (Whether or not that has been reinstituted since is a different matter), but it's still a very, very viable method of eliminating enemy combatants. Bayonet charges have never been so much about the physical effects, rather the sheer psychological effect of seeing a group of adrenaline-hyped, professionally trained killers, screaming at the top of their lungs and charging straight at you with over a foot of sharpened steel - it's f*****g terrifying I'd guess. A little like this guy (plus extra screaming )



I fully expect that scariest thing on this planet is an enraged British soldier charging you with a foot long length of steel pointed in your direction (Extra rage added if he happens to be suffering from chronic tea deprivation - then the faeces really hits the rotary air oscillater )

What am I looking at? 0_o

That is either stupid or awesome.


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 amanita wrote:
Has there EVER been an army that HASN'T trained for close combat? Will there ever be one?

Nope. All armies have practiced hand to hand combat to date, and they will continue being trained in hand to hand combat, until such time when soldiers have been genetically engineered to secrete explosive poop.

There's quite a difference between being trained in basic hand-to-hand and bayonet combat and spending x years training to become a proficient swordsman.

 Vaerros wrote:
There's quite a difference between being trained in basic hand-to-hand and bayonet combat and spending x years training to become a proficient swordsman.

Which is not what IG do. The officers do have swords, but that's mostly for leadership reasons. I doubt most of the "swordsmen" in the IG ranks have much more experience than "hit them with the bladed part"
The fact that the Company Commander probably has the time and money to learn swordsmanship, however. It's still most likely just for show / self defense in case of bad things in the rear rank.
What do you think is more inspiring, a sword, or a gun? And don't today's US army officers have a sword? Admittedly it's for show and not battle, but it's the same idea.

Space Marines can get away with having extensive melee training, because they have the years for it. Also might have to do with the fact that Space Marines, unlike the IG, rather not get butchered when engaged in Close Combat since they are the emperor's finest and very, very expensive.
That and the whole knights in space thing.

I was not issued a bayonet in AF, but I did receive a tomahawk from a friend.

BTW - shooting someone at extreme close range is a highly effective CC technique.

- J

 necrondog99 wrote:
I was not issued a bayonet in AF, but I did receive a tomahawk from a friend.

BTW - shooting someone at extreme close range is a highly effective CC technique.

- J

This. It is why the US adopted the Colt 1911 as a side arm in roughly 1911. They wanted a way to kill at short range crazed psycho warriors hoped up and wanting in your face. The 9mm they were using didn't cut it vs the zealots that were getting into trenches and so the 1911 came about as a side arm.

Close combat training isn't useless, and nor are close combat weapons. It's just when that is how you expect to go around fighting all the time it doesn't bode so well.

SEAL/SAS/etc all train for CQC or CQB, but a lot of that training also involves shooting people up close, not bashing them over the head with the rifle butt as the main way to use the rifle.

Which is what the IG do in the setting.

The whole "40k is about hitting people with swords!" concept is an exagerration. The only armies that are really into melee / close quarters fighting are Orks, Nids, Chaos Daemons, Dark Eldar and possibly CSM.

There are melee specialists, but those have very specialized roles, usually with a bit of logical fluff to back it up.

@Maniac_nmt - I think that's the key part people are missing. Close Combat isn't strictly limited to fencing with the enemy - it's more a brutal combination of firearms drill and rare chances (or in a 40K context - liberal) of direct hand to hand. CC isn't the kind of Napoleonic death or glory type dueling - even IRL it's grimdark.

This scene from starship troopers explains it perfectly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNhYJgDdCu4

Otto Weston wrote:
This scene from starship troopers explains it perfectly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNhYJgDdCu4

Be smart. Don't bring a sword to a gunfight.

It's because people are lazy and would rather kill it with fire than with muscle. However, the truly crafty and skilled see the lethality in close combat and can use it devastate squishy armies. There is another thread just like this going on in Tactics. ;>>

Case in point: You could shoot me to all hell. Especially if you're the Tau. But if I get in close combat, I'm probably going to win it, you're probably not fearless, I probably have fear, and you're going to run, I'm going to catch you and I'm going to kill the whole squad outright. +__+

THAT is the catch with Assault. You've just got to get in, is the problem.

2cents from a new player.

 necrondog99 wrote:
I was not issued a bayonet in AF

Half the Air Force guys I met didn't even know where their weapons were kept. One of my Lance Coolies had to show a bunch of zoomies how to put their vests together when they arrived in country. I had to laugh when he told me where he'd been.

And don't today's US army officers have a sword?

Swords are solely for formal dress occasions, and the training with it is limited to the drill movements. You could say that officers (and Marine NCOs) "have a sword", but a cake is about the only thing that's ever going to get cut with it.

if you want to cut metal these days, you don't use a flame thrower.... you get up close with a high powered blow torch

Who the heck would bother with a blowtorch in combat? You breach reinforced walls and doors with demolition charges, rockets, tanks, or aerial munitions.

Because armor often surpasses firearms in warhammer 40k. The very bolters marines carry are easily shrugged off their own armor. However melee weapons have better penetration. So if your gun cant go through enemy armor and theirs cant punch through yours, and you have a sword more than capable of slicing through, what are you going to do?

shooting is by far the most popular, as it should be,

epic battle descriptions usually dwell on the CC part, because its more epic and visual to have hero x beat villan y in HTH reather then hero x just shooting the guy, wiping his hands, and walking away.

in the game, and the "reality" of the fluff, shooting is vastly more dominant.

CC will always have a role in combat, even with the best gun in the world, is useless in a REAL melee (ie freind and foe everywhere aroundyou, all pushing against each other, not simply being 10 ft away, or being spread out enough to reliable shoot at the enemy while not hitting friendlies)

 easysauce wrote:
shooting is by far the most popular, as it should be,

epic battle descriptions usually dwell on the CC part, because its more epic and visual to have hero x beat villan y in HTH reather then hero x just shooting the guy, wiping his hands, and walking away.

in the game, and the "reality" of the fluff, shooting is vastly more dominant.

CC will always have a role in combat, even with the best gun in the world, is useless in a REAL melee (ie freind and foe everywhere aroundyou, all pushing against each other, not simply being 10 ft away, or being spread out enough to reliable shoot at the enemy while not hitting friendlies)

^

That's about right. Despite what people may think, CC isn't that common in Wh40k. In fact, most of the imperial armies in game favor shooting with only a very few CC oriented units, and those have a very specific role in fluff.
Hell, even the armies that favor CC have a fair bit of shooting as well.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

And don't today's US army officers have a sword?

Swords are solely for formal dress occasions, and the training with it is limited to the drill movements. You could say that officers (and Marine NCOs) "have a sword", but a cake is about the only thing that's ever going to get cut with it.

Which is what I typed; it's NOT for battle. Swords historically have been associated with authority. It's no different in the 41 millennium.
Just because a model has a sword, does not mean it is meant to use it in game. Or in fluff.

I wouldn't put it so drastically in the favor of shooting . Considering the fact that orks are the most common species in the galaxy and that Nids are quickly infecting the galaxy, I wouldn't put CC as drastically more dominant (I would certainly argue it beats out CC in commonality as most CC units have some form of shooting no matter how minor and pathetic it is). Also, I would find it a bit odd for certain regiments (some being rather popular) to so carefully hone their CC skills for bayonet charges. (also psssht hop into the chaos daemon codex. Have fun finding the small bits of shooting we have most of it being spells!)
In the grimdark future that is 40k,, grimdark is the language and Sci Fantasy is the name of the game. Magic, sopious amounts of close combat, and a good volley of fire are all mixed together into a lovely little mess of "creative borrowing" that we have all grown to love

Were it to be "realistic" close combat would actually play a much smaller role. The genre also would normally decree that it play a much smaller role as well. The reason it does it that GW emphasizes the heroic battle in close combat with the heroic scale models and customized fluff. In order to add this to the gaming table, they give it a much higher importance than would normally be there.I just go with the flow on it.

Alright, I didn't read through all the posts so I don't know if this was mentioned but I am going to bring a "proper" sci-fi game into this to demonstrate that melee is always a feasible way to do battle and their are circumstances, even in the future when we have advance firepower: Mass Effect. I don't know how anyone else plays but when I play Mass Effect, I use melee...probably a lot more than I thought I would in a shooting game because sometimes shooting something doesn't take it down and you are going to need to know how to take it down in close quarters. It could be that there are tight quarters or in the chaos of battle you couldn't stop the enemy from advancing but it does come in handy and when playing proper sci-fi games, I still find melee quite useful.

It IS useful and it is highly effective. However, On a battlefield, it should be hard to get into combat and the soldiers should consider it their last option (only after the guns have failed).Luckily, earlier editions of 40k 5 on back, required you only rush across the field for the win. Whoever had more close combat guys and less guns auto won the game. Now it is more in keeping with realism and the fluff where actual strategy and tactics come into play and are needed to win whether it be with guns or claws/swords.

Just like pre WW1 and Pre WW2 a lot of our military thinking and planning is based purely on theory. Because weapons have changed so much but without conventional wars to test them out we dont actually know how a "real war" with "fair odds" is gonna turn out. So expect the next full conventional war to start off with a lot of needless casualties and failed concepts. So relating 40k Melee combat and modern day Combat is pretty hard to do considering they are both theories.

But it can be summed up pretty easily as its cerimonial for some factions, entertainement for some and a neccessity for some. But if you got enemies geared up and designed to get up and close youd have to counter arm and train your men to counter this otherwise they could suffer provided the enemy are able to get close.

In a battle for land just shooting and using support doesnt work like it does on the movies and games. In the past armies tried shelling and bombing the enemy repeatedly even for days on end, but it doesnt move motivated or prepared defenders. It comes down to a soldier advancing. Im not saying this will result in Hand to Hand combat but thats the reason fighting up close will always happen. Another point is bullets arent unlimited and standing there and shooting uses up bullets very fast.

Same concept in paintball. Amatuers are always the ones that find a spot and shoot from it the whole game. They always acheive nothing and use their ammo, the ones who k now what they are doing are always moving trying to get closer and pushing them back using very little ammo. I imagine this would be exhaggerated in all aspects in a real war.

But as i said at the start its all based on assumption and looking at the past, history always repeats.

 EVIL INC wrote:
Were it to be "realistic" close combat would actually play a much smaller role. The genre also would normally decree that it play a much smaller role as well. The reason it does it that GW emphasizes the heroic battle in close combat with the heroic scale models and customized fluff. In order to add this to the gaming table, they give it a much higher importance than would normally be there.I just go with the flow on it.

Honestly the biggest reason it is so big is because they grabbed sci fi and then jammed it with fantasy to create... Fantasy in SPACE! Realistically, almost no unit would get into cc. Really only a few would be capable of making it there (since many armies are super fast I4 and 5) and at least from our opinion, guns = more shots, if they get too close shoot more and or dagger to finish off. A question could be made of the quality of armor in comparison to dakka perhaps....

Think about how scary good ECM will be 40,000 years in the future when nearly half of the species in the setting have the ability to generate a fully sentient artificial intelligence/network. Basically if it's not line of sight and very, very short range, it has to go through the warp. The EM spectrum is just clobbered with passively broadcast extremely high power malicious code, everywhere, all the time. That's why you don't just have like cruise missile autocannons or whatever. When you are limited to inside-the-horizon strike or traditional artillery barrages for the most part (outside of airpower which can't be datalinked together so is constantly stuck in about a Vietnam level of tactical effectiveness) and the main armies in the setting seem to use the 'grab them by the belt buckle' method of avoiding being obliterated by the rapetastic artillery of the 41st millenium, I can see how a reality disrupting broadsword starts too look more attractive.

I think one thing that is happening here is that people are underestimating the usefulness of melee combat in a modern and beyond as well as overestimating just how much melee is actually in 40k. To me, the meta game seems to have been favoring killing from a distance vs. taking things into CC. As well, as not many forces relying on just melee to win a battle. Do Eldar have Banshees? Yeah but that is one specialized unit. The Eldar still pack a lot of firepower. Assault Marines may have melee weapons but they have pistols as well and a way to get into CC to shock and awe their enemy. Only Terminators with Storm Shields and Hammers can be considered pure melee. The GK say screw it and decide to have both on at their disposal.

That being said, I think that some wisdom from Tolkien is in order. When asked why he wrote about fantasy and not modern, he answered saying that guns ruined the romance of war.

No one is dissing the usefulness of close combat at all. The fact is that it should only be a small part of the game. A part that comes into play when all else has failed or when someone has intelligently (or luckily) use strategy and tactics to sneak close enough to use close combat oriented troops against someone who is unprepared and that is/should be a dangerous gambit.

Aren't humans the only race on Earth that has ranged weaponry? Isn't that why we are the dominant species?
We can basicaly kill whatever animal we want with practicaly zero risk and without engaging in actual combat.


A single human with an assault rifle can kill dozens of tigers. A single tiger can kill dozens of humans without a ranged weapon.

Nope. Snakes can spit poison.

Also, a Tiger can still murder a human with a rifle. You can only kill something if you can hit it, and it's really hard to hit something when it's eating your arm.

There also the fact that humans have no natural predators, barring micro organisms and parasites.

Why is melee combat so popular in the 40k universe? Because there are super-soldiers who can shrug off small arms fire with power armor, while still pulping a human body with no more than a leg lift or a punch to the face.

On top of that, you're dealing with far greater threats that utilize close combat prowess (like the Tyranids) who will get in your face whether you like it or not. Once again, this is where the super-soldiers come in, with the strength, skills and equipment to deal with something like that.

Close combat isn't dead. We're just not very effective as a species with it. However, when power armor is invented and it shrugs off anti-personelle fire, you'll see power weapons come right along with it to punch out that power armor.

For every new weapon, there is a new defense and for every new defense, a new weapon.

I like this supposition though; that combat is something to be admired and adhered too. Otherwise, why figure this stuff out in real life with actual combat?

Like another poster suggested earlier; "All we have is combat theory. When the battlefield changes, so does the tactic." Talking about the modern battlefield of today and the fact that standing armies no longer exist the way that they did prior to WW2.

Broly wrote:
A single human with an assault rifle can kill dozens of tigers. A single tiger can kill dozens of humans without a ranged weapon.

A tiger against a prepared and ready man with a knife is unlikely to come out okay even if the man dies. A tiger against a dozen humans could simply be kicked to death. The main problem is the tendency for predators to ambush, prey on the weak and the fear of the prey. Take those out of the equation and it becomes much more even; though there will still be an advantage to the tiger if the person is unarmed.

I'd say mankind is dominant more due to the fact that we're intelligent, organised and capable of overcoming our fear on a much more consistent basis than other large animals. We learn what animals do what and so there are less unknowns to be wary of . A house cat can scare a bear up a tree because the bear doesn't know what it is. Without ranged weaponry we'd still be dominant.

CthuluIsSpy wrote:There also the fact that humans have no natural predators, barring micro organisms and parasites.

That's only because humans have consistently wiped out predators which prey on them, leading the remaining ones being very wary of targeting them.

And spitting poison is no way near the same level as a firearm.