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The kick from that rifle would make it more unwieldable than a bolter.

That aside, I guess it all depends on what fluff you read.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Doesn't change my opinion that the faction we would stand the best chance against is orks

 raiden wrote:
Orks really aren't good at fighting, -on an individual scale-. Boyz can't shoot the broad side of a barn, they work off instinct and rely on overpowering foes in melee. As they fight and get experience this changes, but boyz are, IMO, not much better at "fighting" than a guardsman.

But they are, though. We're not talking about "individual scale" here. We're talking one army fighting another army. Not that it matters. On both scales 2K human soldiers are just as fethed. One soldier with a rifle and a combat knife vs. a Boy with a shoota and a choppa... without some tremendous luck, is fethed. Our army vs. an Ork army, is fethed.

It actually is a caliber used in some sniper rifles. It'd be even worse to fire than an M14 unless it has an exceptional recoil mitigation system. Although the grip does appear to fit some sort of gas system.

Since we're now at a point of comparing 2k Terran armaments to 40k Imperial armaments, if you've cited a weapon caliber for comparison (autogun, stubber, etc.), I'd like to see your citation for that.

And for the record, a 7.62mm round strikes with enough kinetic force to blow a limb apart. Even with both hard and soft kevlar plates, the kinetic force of one round hitting your chest is enough to pulp your internal organs. Nevermind that, it has enough penetrating power to go in one side of an armored M113 and out the other side.

A .50 cal would be hitting with the power of a heavy bolter, I'd reckon. And if you've never carried a belt of .50 cal ammunition (note: not .50 Action Express, I'm talking .50 BMG) before, you're delusional to think that the standard Imperial autogun is a larger caliber than that. The autogun on the end of page 7 would maybe fit eight rounds in that magazine and weigh like a brick.

To those unfamiliar with firearms, yes, the size of a round matters, but there's a reason why 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds are so much more powerful and destructive than 9mm rounds. It's not size that matters.

Its how you use it?

 Enigwolf wrote:
Since we're now at a point of comparing 2k Terran armaments to 40k Imperial armaments, if you've cited a weapon caliber for comparison (autogun, stubber, etc.), I'd like to see your citation for that.

And for the record, a 7.62mm round strikes with enough kinetic force to blow a limb apart. Even with both hard and soft kevlar plates, the kinetic force of one round hitting your chest is enough to pulp your internal organs. Nevermind that, it has enough penetrating power to go in one side of an armored M113 and out the other side.

A .50 cal would be hitting with the power of a heavy bolter, I'd reckon. And if you've never carried a belt of .50 cal ammunition (note: not .50 Action Express, I'm talking .50 BMG) before, you're delusional to think that the standard Imperial autogun is a larger caliber than that. The autogun on the end of page 7 would maybe fit eight rounds in that magazine and weigh like a brick.

To those unfamiliar with firearms, yes, the size of a round matters, but there's a reason why 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds are so much more powerful and destructive than 9mm rounds. It's not size that matters.

No, size does matter. 9x19mm is utterly pathetic compared to 9x57mm Mausers. Also, to my knowledge 7.62mm doesn't actually strike with enough force to literally explode a limb, but rather blow it off. There'll still be some distinctive bits left, or even a significant part of the limb left. Russian ammo tends to create one or two multiple cones, while 5.56 fragments and litters the tissue with shrapnel.

Also, Imperial Armor books state some autogun calibers to be "8.5mm long". While probably not packing the exact amount of gunpowder as a sniper round, I'd imagine it'd be comparable to Austrian 8x56mmR or 8mm Lebel. Something like a battle rifle version of the PKP.

 Wyzilla wrote:

No, size does matter.

Ah, my apologies. My point was that size wasn't all that mattered, but I couldn't resist a "It's not size that matters" joke at the end of that, but it screwed up the entire meaning of that sentence.

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

No, size does matter.

Ah, my apologies. My point was that size wasn't all that mattered, but I couldn't resist a "It's not size that matters" joke at the end of that, but it screwed up the entire meaning of that sentence.

To be fair, scientifically the correct sentiment would be "Area, Volume, and Mass matters".

 Wyzilla wrote:
9x19mm is utterly pathetic compared to 9x57mm Mausers.

Yes, true. That's why I'm saying that if you're just looking at the "shorthand" of a weapon's caliber (i.e. 9mm versus 9x19mm) you're not fully comprehending the full capability of the round.

Also, to my knowledge 7.62mm doesn't actually strike with enough force to literally explode a limb, but rather blow it off. There'll still be some distinctive bits left, or even a significant part of the limb left. Russian ammo tends to create one or two multiple cones, while 5.56 fragments and litters the tissue with shrapnel.

It really depends on where you hit. Remember that the "explosive" force comes from the spinning of the bullet, hence why exit wounds are huge and gaping compared to entry wounds. Hit a small enough person at the end of their limb and it'll look like it explodes. The only time I can imagine a lasgun hitting and causing a limb to explode is if the laser contains enough thermal energy to super-heat the area of impact so great to the point where flesh simply explodes. But in all the fluff I've read, las-weapons have always been a precision scalpel. Presumably, hitting something smaller like a bird with a hot-shot round (much smaller body to disperse heat buildup, large heat transfer) will cause it to explode.

Also, Imperial Armor books state some autogun calibers to be "8.5mm long". While probably not packing the exact amount of gunpowder as a sniper round, I'd imagine it'd be comparable to Austrian 8x56mmR or 8mm Lebel. Something like a battle rifle version of the PKP.

"8.5mm long"? That doesn't tell us anything about the actual caliber of the round since caliber measures the diameter of the round/bore.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

No, size does matter.

Ah, my apologies. My point was that size wasn't all that mattered, but I couldn't resist a "It's not size that matters" joke at the end of that, but it screwed up the entire meaning of that sentence.

To be fair, scientifically the correct sentiment would be "Area, Volume, and Mass matters".

Yes

Tyranids. They rule.

 KaptinBadrukk wrote:
Tyranids. They rule.

I think you misunderstood the question. The thread's question is what our military would be most likely to WANT to fight. Tyranids would be by far one of the factions our modern militaries would hate to face given their inability to be bargained with and the havoc/horror they would wreak.

I like how most people who have been in the military or are historians all basically have said. "It is suicidal to face the imperium."

The might of the imperium would crush within seconds.

First Mobility (Literally it takes them a hour to move from place to place). Entire postions would be fortified, portable shield generators protecting areas of interest. Being able to drop fortresses on the ground.

Second technology. (Space Technology for one) Our people right now would be wiped out rather quickly. AS we really don't have an answer to titans or orbitial strikes. Percision sstrikes would be useless to an all seeing enemy from space. Satellites and various technologies we had would be destroyed meaning we would be highly inaccurate with nuclear warheads.

Meaning we would have to rely on radio and logistically that would be a nightmare. Airplanes that gather information would be shot down.

 Enigwolf wrote:
Since we're now at a point of comparing 2k Terran armaments to 40k Imperial armaments, if you've cited a weapon caliber for comparison (autogun, stubber, etc.), I'd like to see your citation for that.

Imperial Armour VI, part 2.
It has the profile of the Agripinaa autoguns used by the Vraks traitor militia, altough it is also noted that this pattern is unusual amongst autoguns for having an oversized round and all kinds of mechanisms to compensate recoil.

 Enigwolf wrote:
And for the record, a 7.62mm round strikes with enough kinetic force to blow a limb apart. Even with both hard and soft kevlar plates, the kinetic force of one round hitting your chest is enough to pulp your internal organs. Nevermind that, it has enough penetrating power to go in one side of an armored M113 and out the other side.

A .50 cal would be hitting with the power of a heavy bolter, I'd reckon. And if you've never carried a belt of .50 cal ammunition (note: not .50 Action Express, I'm talking .50 BMG) before, you're delusional to think that the standard Imperial autogun is a larger caliber than that. The autogun on the end of page 7 would maybe fit eight rounds in that magazine and weigh like a brick.

Not true, a heavy bolter would be worse, considering that it actually fires HE rounds which are noted to be 'the size of a fist'. Even a regular bolter already is .60 or .75 cal (Horus Heresy I - Betrayal)

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Enigwolf wrote:
And for the record, a 7.62mm round strikes with enough kinetic force to blow a limb apart. Even with both hard and soft kevlar plates, the kinetic force of one round hitting your chest is enough to pulp your internal organs. Nevermind that, it has enough penetrating power to go in one side of an armored M113 and out the other side.

A .50 cal would be hitting with the power of a heavy bolter, I'd reckon. And if you've never carried a belt of .50 cal ammunition (note: not .50 Action Express, I'm talking .50 BMG) before, you're delusional to think that the standard Imperial autogun is a larger caliber than that. The autogun on the end of page 7 would maybe fit eight rounds in that magazine and weigh like a brick.

Not true, a heavy bolter would be worse, considering that it actually fires HE rounds which are noted to be 'the size of a fist'. Even a regular bolter already is .60 or .75 cal (Horus Heresy I - Betrayal)

Yeah, I won't lie, I think I was pushing it with the heavy bolter comparison. Bolters are, for all intents and purposes, micro rocket launchers on rapid fire.

When Ghazzy was just a simple normal Boy he took a .75 caliber exploding shot to his head which obliterated a big portion of his skull and brains. He stood back up. The other Boyz took him Dok Grot. Ghazzy is now a galactic terror.

For a single planet civilization like Earth. There is no such thing as a 'small Waaaaagh' what you describe is raiderz. Waaaaagh! are described as racial planetary and in some cases multi system wide migrations. A small Waaaaagh as you put it is another planet's worth of Orks coming, big Waaaaaghs like the one hitting Armegeddon have Orks streaming in from many many systems while the same is being done with the Imperials whom have a 1000 light yr radius recruitment craze going on to fuel the attrition at Armegeddon.

Orks don't just charge in with axes. They have aircraft and know to gain air superiority first by taking out enemy interceptors before bringing out the bombers, they have artillery and antiaircraft ranging from conventional to things we couldn't possible understand, they have jump pack hordes that drop down into key locations from Kargo Kraft, they have tanks which again fires all kinds of things from convnetional to down right wtf?!?!, they have orbital kroozers space hulks for orbital bombardment of roks, some of those roks are fortresses with tellyporta arrays feeding millions of more troops and vehicles to the surface below, walkers a whole family range of them from Killa Kans to Gargants bristling with weapons that again range from conventional to holy crikey did you see that! Trukks, buggies, trakks, deffkoptas, bikes, units specializing in sneaking behind enemy lines, units specialized in routing out cover with promethium burners far more advanced then our flamethrowers, units specializing in raining a hail of support fire, Ork who stable other Orks heads back on and they jump right back into the fight, Orks that shoot green beams out of their eyes that melt metal and vomit great big clouds of green that melt infantry into pools of goo, missile launchers, bomb squigs, kustom mega blasters, grotzookas, deffguns, snazzguns, shock attack guns, and tellyport blastas.

I'm not sure if I covered enough to make the point that Orks aren't just axe wielding melee chargers. Not enough variety of weapons to convince you that they use combined arms forces? Most of these things are beyond the understanding of even advanced races like Eldar in the 41st millenium let alone Earth circa 2015AD. There's a reason for that, no one (save Yarrick it seems) can pick up the weapons of a dead Ork and figure out why it even works let alone how. For all logical reasoning none of it should work at all. All of that in the hands of a race that won't bargain, won't show mercy, has no racial understanding of fear, won't cease fire on the population even after the main defenders are defeated and finds pain curious and entertaining. Earth isn't ready for that.

Our chances with any of the races above is going to be whether we can negotiate before the fighting starts, whether we can steal, use and copy enemy tech when the fighting starts, or whether they are willing to let us surrender and join them if we are defeated. Orks don't fall into any of this. I mean seriously, they are ancient in the extreme and have been a spacefaring race long before the first species on Earth crawled out of the oceans onto land. They've been around since the Eldar were in their prime and thrived and still persist in the Milky Way as the most prolific race in the galaxy. More the just axe wielding chargers.

Longevity=/ advanced or awesome.


Orks thrive because of their biology. They literally grow their own food. They can land on a barren, almost non atmospheric asteroid and bring life to it, their tech is military only. Many orks don't know how even the somewhat logical ork tech works, with mek boyz and larger warbosses knowing. They are just told it works, and beleive it works. Ork logic is very simple. Fight, fight fight fight. They rarely do anything that doesn't including gathering scrap to fight with, planning to fight, or fighting. Most often orks "charge headlong axe in hand" along side buggies and trukks.


Orks are the only race that won't either instantly wipe us out, or out maneuver by having orbital ships hovering in our atmosphere. Our fortifications will actually be of use, as that is where the good fight is.

Its "what army does our military have the best chance against" quite simply, its orks.

 raiden wrote:
Longevity=/ advanced or awesome.


Orks thrive because of their biology. They literally grow their own food. They can land on a barren, almost non atmospheric asteroid and bring life to it, their tech is military only. Many orks don't know how even the somewhat logical ork tech works, with mek boyz and larger warbosses knowing. They are just told it works, and beleive it works. Ork logic is very simple. Fight, fight fight fight. They rarely do anything that doesn't including gathering scrap to fight with, planning to fight, or fighting. Most often orks "charge headlong axe in hand" along side buggies and trukks.


Orks are the only race that won't either instantly wipe us out, or out maneuver by having orbital ships hovering in our atmosphere. Our fortifications will actually be of use, as that is where the good fight is.

Its "what army does our military have the best chance against" quite simply, its orks.

Our fortifications? Pray tell, what great fortifications do we have?
There is a good reason fortifications are outdated in present military doctrine, as they quite simply can't stand up to modern weapons. What makes you think they could stand up to the even heavier and more advanced Ork weapons?
Also, it is a stupid mistake to think that most Orks simply charge without thinking. Ork tactics are usually quite simple, but usually also rather effective, and at times completely brilliant. The fluff is full of Imperial and even Eldar commanders being outmanoeuvred and outsmarted by Orks.
The Orks will outnumber our military by a vast margin, and with their superior manoeuvrability they will be everywhere at once. Their first strike will come as a complete surprise to us and wipe out our military before it can get organised (being the best chance for a good fight means they will be targeted first) and afterwards the Orks will proceed to kill everyone else on the planet just for fun. The more of a defense the remaining humans will put up, the more Orks will come, therefore making resistance pointless. In fact, our best bet would be to not resist at all and hope the Orks get bored and leave before killing the entire world population.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 raiden wrote:
Longevity=/ advanced or awesome.


Orks thrive because of their biology. They literally grow their own food. They can land on a barren, almost non atmospheric asteroid and bring life to it, their tech is military only. Many orks don't know how even the somewhat logical ork tech works, with mek boyz and larger warbosses knowing. They are just told it works, and beleive it works. Ork logic is very simple. Fight, fight fight fight. They rarely do anything that doesn't including gathering scrap to fight with, planning to fight, or fighting. Most often orks "charge headlong axe in hand" along side buggies and trukks.


Orks are the only race that won't either instantly wipe us out, or out maneuver by having orbital ships hovering in our atmosphere. Our fortifications will actually be of use, as that is where the good fight is.

Its "what army does our military have the best chance against" quite simply, its orks.

Our fortifications? Pray tell, what great fortifications do we have?

The Great Wall of China... It has the word "Great" in it!

As much as I enjoy threads like this, there's really no point to it. While real life measurements are quantifiable and reproducible, Warhammer fluff is completely contradictory. On a scale of 1-10, you can have the same weapon or vehicle be ANYWHERE from 1-10 depending on the author, or even the point in the novel.

People who frequent the Background section might remember all the debate about what can kill a Primarch (One guys take a Titan-level plasma shot or two, while another one is afraid of being pulped by the errant Bolter round).

This becomes even less effective when you add in physics, since the vast majority of BL writers have no idea what they're talking about. You think any Imperial, Ork, etc. vehicle can fly because "it has strong enough engines"? Throw those badboys in a wind tunnel and tell me how well that goes. Now try changing their delta or AoA. Without proper aerodynamics, those enginers are just plunging you into the ground even faster.

People try and make up for this with handwavium and the like, but it's hopeless. This is a hobby where our imaginations and pride rule. It is *required* that you fill in a plethora of gaps for things to make sense, as a player/reader, and we always want to imagine our armies, or even the universe in some grand and powerful sense. Think of the rule of cool here and how easily and readily that explains things. Lasguns are AWESOME, right? Not like those stupid M-16's!

Fact is: Half of what is in the WH40k universe wouldn't work in real life, if not more. No matter what magic-techno babble you have going on.

The other half, if IA measurements are any indication, performs worse than modern day gear.

You can almost make a legitimate case for Necron and Tau stuff since that's supposed to just plain be beyond our understanding. But the majority of Ork, Guard, Space Marine, etc. stuff just doesn't keep up.

 Ferros wrote:
But the majority of Ork, Guard, Space Marine, etc. stuff just doesn't keep up.

Like caseless ammunition for weapons that have ejection ports and shell casings flying out

Ork weapons aren't supposed to make sense even to the wh40k universe and their fantasy form oh physics let alone real world physics. Ork stuff just simply shouldn't work at all fantasy or not. That IS their fluff. Non one can steal from them because it's pointless useless junk. But in the hands of Orks and their gestalt psychic waaaagh they work as intended. Again it's never going to work if you try to use human logic to understand or explain Ork tek.

 ProwlerPC wrote:
Ork weapons aren't supposed to make sense even to the wh40k universe and their fantasy form oh physics let alone real world physics. Ork stuff just simply shouldn't work at all fantasy or not. That IS their fluff. Non one can steal from them because it's pointless useless junk. But in the hands of Orks and their gestalt psychic waaaagh they work as intended. Again it's never going to work if you try to use human logic to understand or explain Ork tek.

See, we've even had HUGE threads on the validity of that, with quite a few people arguing its just the Imperium's ignorance and that they totally DO work and we just don't understand why.

Again, Warhammer logic collapses in on itself. You simply can't argue the merits of something that can be whatever it wants to be at any given moment.

Maybe true but again you point out that a 41st millenium galactic civilization can't figure out how Ork tek works, I don't think Earth will have an easier time figuring out how Orks blindly tellyport and not end up in wrong places or in solid matter but seem to end up right where they want to go, or figure out how their Kustom Force Field works, or figure out how their mega blastas function etc.... Either way we are still facing a galactic scale army who can't be bargained with, can't be surrendered to and can't be reverse engineered. On the flip side, for some reason, not matter how compicated and advanced the tek is, the Orks figure out how to loot it and make it work sometimes in some very clever, simple, eloquent ways that would never occur to a human.

To be fair that problem is in practically all science-fiction, authors simply don't understand even basic science.

And especially so in situations where the Author specifies the stuff can't be understood even within the Author's created universe (carte-blanche creative liscence).

 Tyran wrote:
To be fair that problem is in practically all science-fiction, authors simply don't understand even basic science.

That is why they are authors, not scientists.
They are just there to write good, entertaining stories, not scientific treatises on on how potential future tech might function. Usually, the more technical and scientifically accurate an author tries to make his work, the more boring it becomes. Let us be happy sci-fi authors don't understand science, otherwise sci-fi likely wouldn't even exist in the first place.

You're still all wrong. While our modern militaries might be able to combat (for awhile, anyway) Orks, that's not the army that they're going to *want* to fight.

They will most want to fight the Squats, because the Squats are all dead, and the risk profile of a deceased enemy is greatly diminished.

 Psienesis wrote:
You're still all wrong. While our modern militaries might be able to combat (for awhile, anyway) Orks, that's not the army that they're going to *want* to fight.

They will most want to fight the Squats, because the Squats are all dead, and the risk profile of a deceased enemy is greatly diminished.

Not the Squats... If we get dead Squats here on Earth, that will mean that which killed them is here as well...

 Psienesis wrote:
You're still all wrong. While our modern militaries might be able to combat (for awhile, anyway) Orks, that's not the army that they're going to *want* to fight.

They will most want to fight the Squats, because the Squats are all dead, and the risk profile of a deceased enemy is greatly diminished.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have a winner.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Psienesis wrote:
One thing I've always wondered about the Tau...

... how the feth do they learn to speak some new variant of Low Gothic with every new Imperial world they encounter? Low Gothic is hardly a universal tongue, the residents of one planet cannot necessarily speak with the residents of a planet two systems over, what permits the non-psychic Tau to do so?

Tau have psyker xenos allies capable of ripping information from somebody's head. They can simply send one down to basically download the contents of somebody's brain and work with that information from there.

They also have auto-translators, and with the tau's technology, I'm sure they could get a general understanding of what people are saying.