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Hello readers

I was curious to know if there have been any documented situations where armies in 40k that have engaged in naval warfare?? if so maybe they should add it into the 40k game rules...

I know vast swathes of battlefields in the 41st millenium are dust bowls and trash heaps, but there ought to be a few worlds out there with some form of liquid that doesn't corrode admantium the moment it comes into contact.

My theory why not is they probably just use skimmers instead of deploying boats but anyway.

Should they implement some rules for this in 40k or not - GW seem to be releasing models of giant walkers and flyers lately, moving onto AA now. Maybe boats should be next...

Isn't this more of a Background section question? It seems you're not really proposing much here, and we've already had two threads over there in the past few days: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/552234.page

aha now that i look at it yes, I was wondering if someone had already posted about it.

In the far distant future naval warfare has been discarded because everyone got sick of hearing that joke, what's long, hard and full of sea...

 DrSchwartz wrote:
Hello readers

I was curious to know if there have been any documented situations where armies in 40k that have engaged in naval warfare?? if so maybe they should add it into the 40k game rules...

I know vast swathes of battlefields in the 41st millenium are dust bowls and trash heaps, but there ought to be a few worlds out there with some form of liquid that doesn't corrode admantium the moment it comes into contact.

My theory why not is they probably just use skimmers instead of deploying boats but anyway.

Should they implement some rules for this in 40k or not - GW seem to be releasing models of giant walkers and flyers lately, moving onto AA now. Maybe boats should be next...

surely there is naval warfare in 40k, but remember that it would be very particular to each and every world it is on. Only worlds with large oceans, fairly dense fluids, and fairly high gravity would likely see ships. Submarines would be common as well. Im not sure GW should make boats or ships, but i am sure that they exist somewhere in the 40k universe.

Easy ground to space travel renders sea travel pointless.

Boats would make for good, cheap logistics. But 40k doesn't care one whit about logistics - where are the buckets of ammo on each Space Marine for instance?

In the audiobook 'Dead in the water' Caiphas Cain spends most of his time aboard an Imperial PBR doing 'Apocalypse now'

References are made in other novel to dredgers (huge floating manufactoria which sift the sea bed of the open ocean for resources) So for PDF and Arbites, if the planet has water, chances are they'll have boats, and even a huge sea battleship is more economical to operate than a small space cruiser for planetary operation. The administratum as a whole may be inefficient, but planetary governors still have budgets

 Kain wrote:
Easy ground to space travel renders sea travel pointless.

there is always a way to make things cheaper and there are worlds in the imperium that still have pre industrial revolution levels of technology. There are definitly boats on some worlds.

Naval warfare would be more akin to long range artillery duels or air strikes - not particularly suited for 40K game mechanics, though there is no reason to assume it wouldn't happen in the fluff.

Boarding actions would of course, rock!

 Kain wrote:
Easy ground to space travel renders sea travel pointless.

+1 for this. The 40k universe has spaceships that can travel through reality, boats are really quite obsolete militarily by this point.
I'm sure on some worlds they may be used by the local militia/defense force but in the grand scheme of things the question would be why assault by sea....when you can just bomb it from orbit and/or fly over all the obstacles in your way.

According to BL there are, in fact, (surface) warships for the IoM, these are typically used on worlds which are mostly ocean and have little landmass to provide fire support for IG. As far as conventional battle lines, I'd imagine that would be resolved by lance strikes.

sure there are boats in 40k but hell when a strike cruiser can say HI!!! with a orbital strike whats the point lol

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Easy ground to space travel renders sea travel pointless.

+1 for this. The 40k universe has spaceships that can travel through reality, boats are really quite obsolete militarily by this point.
I'm sure on some worlds they may be used by the local militia/defense force but in the grand scheme of things the question would be why assault by sea....when you can just bomb it from orbit and/or fly over all the obstacles in your way.

this ignores the fact that in 40k we still have ground based artillery and fixed gun emplacements.

Naval artillery always trumps land based artillery as it can move(slowly, but yes it can move) and can better handle recoil. The water around a ship makes for an excellent damper to absorb the recoil created by launching a shell out of a gun. Land based guns must have much larger recoil dampers to be able to transition from the gun to the fixed land. Because of this naval guns for the same cost can always be larger, longer ranged, and more powerful.

If we are to believe that in 40k there are huge fixed gun emplacements on planets used to bombard distant targets on the surface and engage spacecraft then there would certainly be Naval Batteries as well.

 Exergy wrote:

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Kain wrote:
Easy ground to space travel renders sea travel pointless.

+1 for this. The 40k universe has spaceships that can travel through reality, boats are really quite obsolete militarily by this point.
I'm sure on some worlds they may be used by the local militia/defense force but in the grand scheme of things the question would be why assault by sea....when you can just bomb it from orbit and/or fly over all the obstacles in your way.

this ignores the fact that in 40k we still have ground based artillery and fixed gun emplacements.

Naval artillery always trumps land based artillery as it can move(slowly, but yes it can move) and can better handle recoil. The water around a ship makes for an excellent damper to absorb the recoil created by launching a shell out of a gun. Land based guns must have much larger recoil dampers to be able to transition from the gun to the fixed land. Because of this naval guns for the same cost can always be larger, longer ranged, and more powerful.

If we are to believe that in 40k there are huge fixed gun emplacements on planets used to bombard distant targets on the surface and engage spacecraft then there would certainly be Naval Batteries as well.

Don't get me wrong here, the 40k universe is expansive, beset with varying levels of technology and full of many diverse planets/ planes of reality. So with this in mind I agree with you, I'm sure there are settings which contain traditional 'naval' infrastructure and fleets.

Also I agree that artillery based on the water could be effective. But remember:

The Imperial Navy as it stands in the fluff covers spaceships, not sea faring vessels. Also following your original logic, artillery in space would be even better than artillery based on water. So for the most part I still believe it would be obsolete within the imperium.

On industrializing worlds, or ones with no knowledge of space travel, I'm sure naval power could still be prominent however.

Well, just remember folks, any real military tactic, if insufficiently grimdark, has been forgotten, somehow.

 Big Blind Bill wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

stuff I said

Don't get me wrong here, the 40k universe is expansive, beset with varying levels of technology and full of many diverse planets/ planes of reality. So with this in mind I agree with you, I'm sure there are settings which contain traditional 'naval' infrastructure and fleets.

Also I agree that artillery based on the water could be effective. But remember:

The Imperial Navy as it stands in the fluff covers spaceships, not sea faring vessels. Also following your original logic, artillery in space would be even better than artillery based on water. So for the most part I still believe it would be obsolete within the imperium.

On industrializing worlds, or ones with no knowledge of space travel, I'm sure naval power could still be prominent however.

I dont think these boats are going to be part of the Imperial Navy. I think they would likely make up part of a planetary defense force.

Artillery in space would be more effective. As they could be yet bigger and cheaper. But they would also be in space. Having an atmosphere and a magnetic field to help protect you from lasers and projectiles fired from space is a definite advantage. Being able to be resupplied directly from the surface without a space craft is another advantage.