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 Bobthehero wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidently they do work, otherwise they wouldn't use them.

They do work, not always.

No, I mean, have you seen how long it takes to create and train a Marine? If they lose that many transports before they even land, they would be extinct by now. They must work.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidently they do work, otherwise they wouldn't use them.

They do work, not always.

No, I mean, have you seen how long it takes to create and train a Marine? If they lose that many transports before they even land, they would be extinct by now. They must work.

Well, there's a reason people say you shouldn't take 40k lore to seriously, and that Marines have plot armour up the wazoo...

 djones520 wrote:

 Formosa wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:
And yet they were able to shoot down the pods aThere's absolutely no indicatiosn we can't spot the pod, I never saw any mentions of pods having stealth systems, and they're rather large and obvious things.

It might have a reinforced prow and what have you, missiles and AA defenses can pop and ours are pretty good.

very few if any pods get shot down during a planetary invasion, reaching a speed of 7456.4543mph (FW speed is 12000kph), our fastest jet built is 4,520 mph, so cannot intercept, and our fastest missile is 6,200 mph, so that wont be able to catch up either, then we have an assumed orbit for the marines of 1,240 miles from earth, so if my maths is correct (I'm not great at this) we would have 9 : 58 seconds, so not fast enough to intercept, add to this we don't know what it is, if its multiple pods, we would assume a meteor shower, if just the one, we just wouldn't know, then we have the assumption that our radar can actually pick up the object falling from space onto the location, and again an assumption our level of tech can destroy the pod, lets say for arguments sake it can, so we have an unknown object heading towards an airbase, at a speed that we cannot intercept with aircraft, that we can possibly or possibly not detect, a lot of uncertainty to what the object is, permissions needed to actually fire upon it if it is deemed hostile somehow, and we have to hope that any AA around the airbase (never ever seen any in any of the airbases I have been on over the years... which is odd now I think of it) can get the right angle to try to intercept (pod is faster, but can still be done) with a missile.

all that in under 10 min, from orbit, highly unlikely.

Surface to Air missiles come from the ground.

Drop Pods come from the sky.

"catching" wouldn't be the issue.

I covered that already, correct trajectory and assuming they are even present in the air base, and again your assumption we would know it's a hostile craft.

Bur ignore most of my post to pick out something I've already covered if you like lol, I don't mind


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 djones520 wrote:

 TheCustomLime wrote:
One must imagine drop pods have some kind of countermeasures to foil SAM missiles. Perhaps some kind of electronic warfare suite to jam the guidance systems?

Missiles that operate on an IR band, would be pretty hard to fool those. An object burning through the atmo at 7k MPH is going to leave a hell of a heat signature.

And don't forget rail guns. A 25lb Tungsten bullet travelling at 4500mph... There isn't an object on earth that it wouldn't carve in half.

Are there any math whizzes here who could figure out the momentum that would have?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidently they do work, otherwise they wouldn't use them.

Yeah, cause GW's fluff is impeccable. Remember, these are the guys who said a Land Raiders armor was 3/4 that of a modern day Leopard tank.

We don't have railguns defending anything yet, so that's not a factor, I agree about the missile however, but still leaves the issue of permissions to fire and knowing it's an enemy object.

In terms of AA on military bases, you aren't going to see it. There is kind of a point in that.

In terms of "permissions to fire". If A Space Marine Battle Cruiser shows up in our orbit, you can absolutely guarantee our military would be on the highest alert. It will also be very easy to tell the difference between a ship approaching on peaceful terms, and a couple dozen drop pods coming in on a military strike. I won't argue that are systems are sophisticated enough to destroy all of them, or even half. Casualties would be sustained though.

Going back to being on maximum war footing, I feel a Chapter would stand zero chance in taking even the US, let alone the whole world, baring orbital bombardment.

Our Air Force/Navy will maintain aerial dominance, given to sheer weight of numbers. A chapter is going to have a couple dozen atmospheric aircraft, at the most. Our hundreds of F-22's, F-35's, F-15's, F-16's, and F-18's will deal with those, and at that point the war is over.

Tactical Armor is powerful, sure, but it's not going to stand up to a GBU/TOW/Javelin. Given GW's published numbers, their 30ish tanks in their Armory will be wrecked in the first engagement with our armor/aircraft. Given their "fluff" capabilities, they'll be quickly immobilized by loss of track, and infantry will deal with them then.

The only real edge they'll have is Terminator armor, and I've gotta questions its ability to stand up to a GAU-8 Avenger.

In the end, the sheer lack of numbers, just won't get the job done. Casualties sustained by defending forces will be horrendous, initially, but as soon as the air battle is done, it's game over.

Now again, this is all just based on the idea of a conventional assault. We don't have the capabilities to deal with their dominance of space. As such, it'll just end in exterminatus for us.

Considering an M1 Abrams has 3-4 times more effective armour than a Land Raider. It doesn't look that great for the space marines. Ork shootas are a threat to them so .50 cals should be moderately effective against marines and our air forces would have no problem blowing up land speeders and thunderhawks.

So what will the marines do when they have no air support and earths vastly superior tanks and ground attack aircraft comes? They might be able to take a city temporarily while the military mobilize but 1000 marines have absolutely no chance of holding it.

Rogal Dorn said it best. "Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops"

Space marines are good, but it's laughable to think they can take over a planet with just 1000 men.

 djones520 wrote:
In terms of AA on military bases, you aren't going to see it. There is kind of a point in that.

In terms of "permissions to fire". If A Space Marine Battle Cruiser shows up in our orbit, you can absolutely guarantee our military would be on the highest alert. It will also be very easy to tell the difference between a ship approaching on peaceful terms, and a couple dozen drop pods coming in on a military strike. I won't argue that are systems are sophisticated enough to destroy all of them, or even half. Casualties would be sustained though.

Going back to being on maximum war footing, I feel a Chapter would stand zero chance in taking even the US, let alone the whole world, baring orbital bombardment.

Our Air Force/Navy will maintain aerial dominance, given to sheer weight of numbers. A chapter is going to have a couple dozen atmospheric aircraft, at the most. Our hundreds of F-22's, F-35's, F-15's, F-16's, and F-18's will deal with those, and at that point the war is over.

Tactical Armor is powerful, sure, but it's not going to stand up to a GBU/TOW/Javelin. Given GW's published numbers, their 30ish tanks in their Armory will be wrecked in the first engagement with our armor/aircraft. Given their "fluff" capabilities, they'll be quickly immobilized by loss of track, and infantry will deal with them then.

The only real edge they'll have is Terminator armor, and I've gotta questions its ability to stand up to a GAU-8 Avenger.

In the end, the sheer lack of numbers, just won't get the job done. Casualties sustained by defending forces will be horrendous, initially, but as soon as the air battle is done, it's game over.

Now again, this is all just based on the idea of a conventional assault. We don't have the capabilities to deal with their dominance of space. As such, it'll just end in exterminatus for us.

I've been on many an airbase I'd have seen them, but that's here, not there, so don't know, like I said, bit odd.

I agree that a chapter can't take and hold a world, but they can cripple it to the extent that the guard would take it, but that's the point of Marines, they are shock troopers, imagine a few tactical squads dropping into new York where air cover can t be guaranteed to be effective, the built up area would make it horrific to drive them out.

In regards to Air superiority through numbers, I don't know, they have better pilots, better tech and are more manoeuvrable... Theoretically, as sadly the aircraft are designed by people who don't know how they work, but seeing as how Ork heavy calibre guns can down a Marine aircraft, it's safe to assume our tech could possibly down them.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidently they do work, otherwise they wouldn't use them.

They do work, not always.

No, I mean, have you seen how long it takes to create and train a Marine? If they lose that many transports before they even land, they would be extinct by now. They must work.

Or marines are actually extinct. 1000 is a VERY small number.

Maybe we are missing somthing here, the fluff says they can, so they can, but our conventional warfare attitude cannot conceive of how they are able to do so, from our point if view its just not possible for them to do so, yet in the fluff they do, and often smash world's, with a single company somtimes.

Maybe it's plot armour, maybe handwavium, but it still happens, so while the abrams has better armour when compared to the data sheets put out years ago, than a Land raider, the land raider is so advanced that we simply don't know how it's so tough to the insane weaponry of the 40k universe, ans thus, impervious to our weaponry.

Just a thought

 Formosa wrote:
Maybe we are missing somthing here, the fluff says they can, so they can, but our conventional warfare attitude cannot conceive of how they are able to do so, from our point if view its just not possible for them to do so, yet in the fluff they do, and often smash world's, with a single company somtimes.

Maybe it's plot armour, maybe handwavium, but it still happens, so while the abrams has better armour when compared to the data sheets put out years ago, than a Land raider, the land raider is so advanced that we simply don't know how it's so tough to the insane weaponry of the 40k universe, ans thus, impervious to our weaponry.

Just a thought

Well, the fluff says they can, because the rest of the galaxy fights warfare with a 1914 mindset. GW's ability to write convincing warfare is atrocious. Even when they do try to do it right, they get it wrong.

Hell, if we want to go with GW's fluff being "convincing", all it takes to kill an Eldar Wave Serpent is a small child with a rock.

godking wrote:
]The Tau wona war against space marines by short cirtuiting their armor with a EMP.

Ahahaha what's that in? Tau make Marines look like chumps way too often.


On a more on-topic note; without orbital bombardment I don't see it working on modern day earth. However as previously noted in 40K as in most sci-fi there generally are a small number of important areas on a planet and if you take or destroy them the planet is yours. This mitigates the small number of Space Marines issue.

Guys, it's just 1,000 Space Marines. At some point, they have to get out of their metal bawkses. When that happens, they become vulnerable to shotgun, stubber, heavy stubber, krak grenade and demolition charges. At some point, a billion PDF beats a thousand Marines.

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Bobthehero wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Evidently they do work, otherwise they wouldn't use them.

They do work, not always.

No, I mean, have you seen how long it takes to create and train a Marine? If they lose that many transports before they even land, they would be extinct by now. They must work.

Often, not always, like pretty much every other strategy out there. Its a reliable strategy, for sure, not a 100% guarantee.

The US is testing laser based fighter weaponry and railguns on battleships. If the space marines invaded they would have no intel on the planet and it would be easy to put prototype weaponry into action. These are just the things they acknowledge right now. There are rumors of some sort of strange new jamming tech pod technology on the F-35 that is described as a weapon. If so conventional EWAR in air space doesn't work that way.

There is only one force which can plot armor its way through any other force. MERIKA! I'm a Canadian who watches a lot of movies. I know this stuff. Those poor Space Marines don't stand a chance. They would probably even be stupid and invade on independence day.

The modern military fights like a 1000x more annoying and effective Tau Empire force. We all seen what happened the last time the Space Marines just to bro fist their way down to a Tau planet.

Your average Imperial citizen is a moron. Your average Earth citizen is (mostly) not.

 Gamgee wrote:
Those poor Space Marines don't stand a chance. They would probably even be stupid and invade on independence day.

I think this will keep me smiling till bed time.

 Gamgee wrote:

The modern military fights like a 1000x more annoying and effective Tau Empire force. We all seen what happened the last time the Space Marines just to bro fist their way down to a Tau planet.

The modern military is also incredibly reliant on satellite communications. I do wonder what the redundancies are.

If we're talking a chapter, or even a reinforced company, we're talking about a fleet of starships. Orbital supremacy could mean all sorts of things for the marines, like wipe out all the satellites. Any of our fancy weapons that use GPS lose effectiveness. Or it could mean that they bombard every hangar they can find, and there goes any hope of an air war, and any air support for a ground war.

So imagine a modern military without satellite communications, and without aircraft. Marines then have orbital and air superiority. With air superiority they can land wherever our army isn't. And if they know where our army is, they can hit it from space, and there would be nothing we could do about it.

I'm not saying that they would necessarily win in this scenario, it all depends on what their objectives are. But orbital supremacy trumps an air force (planes have to land) in a total war, and they can make coordination more difficult by knocking out satellites and surface communications hubs.

1000 guys couldn't even take a large city more than likely.

Martel732 wrote:
1000 guys couldn't even take a large city more than likely.

aye, 1000 troops, no matter how superhuman, can only cover so much ground. 1000 troops could cover a neighborhood perhaps. A large or even medoum sized city would be beyond their ability to properly clear, pacify, or hold from amy realistic perspective, an entire planet would be totally laughable. There just arent enough bodies to be in enough places.

Marines have a fundamental problem regardless of how powerful you make them. As presented on the table top, they could never carry out anything from the fluff. Fluff marines, or movie marines, pass the "Ogre limit" or the limit at which strategic weapons become viable for use.

But either way, 1000 guys can't begin to touch a planet. All space marine chapters put together would be pushed to the limit. Marines only make sense if they numbered 10,000,000 per chapter because of scaling.

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
1000 guys couldn't even take a large city more than likely.

aye, 1000 troops, no matter how superhuman, can only cover so much ground. 1000 troops could cover a neighborhood perhaps. A large or even medoum sized city would be beyond their ability to properly clear, pacify, or hold from amy realistic perspective, an entire planet would be totally laughable. There just arent enough bodies to be in enough places.

That's true, but that's just not how they operate. Space Marines are more likely to demonstrate their threat level (by bombarding from orbit or landing on your command center), and then give you the option of surrender to the Imperium. If you don't surrender immediately, then they just bombard you more, from orbit, and take apart your defensive capability until you surrender, or drive you back into the stone age.

In the Imperium, they continue this until the IG show up, and let them do the holding and pacification. But the deal is the same, surrender or they raze everything to the ground.

Martel732 wrote:
Marines have a fundamental problem regardless of how powerful you make them. As presented on the table top, they could never carry out anything from the fluff. Fluff marines, or movie marines, pass the "Ogre limit" or the limit at which strategic weapons become viable for use.

But either way, 1000 guys can't begin to touch a planet. All space marine chapters put together would be pushed to the limit. Marines only make sense if they numbered 10,000,000 per chapter because of scaling.

Thing is, I don't need to nuke a city to take out a Tacmarine.

All I need are the existing IEDs and MANPADs. If I can take out a MRAP or helo, I can take out a Space Marine.

I doubt 1,000 SMs could take Afghanistan, even with their metal bawkses for support.

The only reason a SM Chapter is dangerous is because it has naval assets for bombardment. Without the ships, the SMs are nothing.

Aye, Space Marines chapters work on a LOTR Fantasy scale, where an army of 50,000 Uruks is almost unstoppably large. There, 1000 super soldiers can work. Thats really where Space Marines come from. Outside of that, they dont function in any sort of reality.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
1000 guys couldn't even take a large city more than likely.

aye, 1000 troops, no matter how superhuman, can only cover so much ground. 1000 troops could cover a neighborhood perhaps. A large or even medoum sized city would be beyond their ability to properly clear, pacify, or hold from amy realistic perspective, an entire planet would be totally laughable. There just arent enough bodies to be in enough places.

That's true, but that's just not how they operate. Space Marines are more likely to demonstrate their threat level (by bombarding from orbit or landing on your command center), and then give you the option of surrender to the Imperium. If you don't surrender immediately, then they just bombard you more, from orbit, and take apart your defensive capability until you surrender, or drive you back into the stone age.

In the Imperium, they continue this until the IG show up, and let them do the holding and pacification. But the deal is the same, surrender or they raze everything to the ground.

Except, at no point are the SM needed for this. Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard are more than sufficient.

And all of that presumes a lack of planetary defenses. If the planet is well defended with volcano cannon, marco lasers, etc, then the SMs might lose a Battle Barge in the process...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Vaktathi wrote:
Aye, Space Marines chapters work on a LOTR Fantasy scale, where an army of 50,000 Uruks is almost unstoppably large. There, 1000 super soldiers can work. Thats really where Space Marines come from. Outside of that, they dont function in any sort of reality.

Well, that's because it's Fantasy, and 40k is Space Fantasy / Fantasy in Space...

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
1000 guys couldn't even take a large city more than likely.

aye, 1000 troops, no matter how superhuman, can only cover so much ground. 1000 troops could cover a neighborhood perhaps. A large or even medoum sized city would be beyond their ability to properly clear, pacify, or hold from amy realistic perspective, an entire planet would be totally laughable. There just arent enough bodies to be in enough places.

That's true, but that's just not how they operate. Space Marines are more likely to demonstrate their threat level (by bombarding from orbit or landing on your command center), and then give you the option of surrender to the Imperium. If you don't surrender immediately, then they just bombard you more, from orbit, and take apart your defensive capability until you surrender, or drive you back into the stone age.

In the Imperium, they continue this until the IG show up, and let them do the holding and pacification. But the deal is the same, surrender or they raze everything to the ground.

The problem is in most SM fluff this is not how it goes. Most SM fluff is writtwn with Marines getting stuck in and winning the day by themselves, even in stuff like attritional siege warfare. They dont wait for the IG, they dont just blast wverything to smithereens from orbit. They get stuck in

And, if that was how they operated...how do they magically know where the enemy command centers and defense systems are, and how are they landing with impunity? More to the point, what is the point of needing those expensive super soldiers when you can just invest in more ships and conventional troops that you dont have to worry about running off doing their own thing with?

Also, what happens when the planet has antiorbital defenses and extensive aircraft capabilities?

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
1000 guys couldn't even take a large city more than likely.

aye, 1000 troops, no matter how superhuman, can only cover so much ground. 1000 troops could cover a neighborhood perhaps. A large or even medoum sized city would be beyond their ability to properly clear, pacify, or hold from amy realistic perspective, an entire planet would be totally laughable. There just arent enough bodies to be in enough places.

That's true, but that's just not how they operate. Space Marines are more likely to demonstrate their threat level (by bombarding from orbit or landing on your command center), and then give you the option of surrender to the Imperium. If you don't surrender immediately, then they just bombard you more, from orbit, and take apart your defensive capability until you surrender, or drive you back into the stone age.

In the Imperium, they continue this until the IG show up, and let them do the holding and pacification. But the deal is the same, surrender or they raze everything to the ground.

This absolutely will not work with other highly advanced species, however. Marines in this context are a bully unit, and nothing else. We are back to 20 Riptides being able to exterminate an entire chapter because MCs OP.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Except, at no point are the SM needed for this. Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard are more than sufficient.

And all of that presumes a lack of planetary defenses. If the planet is well defended with volcano cannon, marco lasers, etc, then the SMs might lose a Battle Barge in the process...

I'm just giving response to the scenario given. "Can one Space Marine conquer a planet?" Which got turned into "Space Marines vs. earth." So the assumption is that Guard aren't around. The problem is that people seem to be mistaking this for a scenario in which Space Marines make landfall and then start the fight, as opposed to using their full range of assets available.

If we're expanding this to a planet with orbital defenses, just think it through. If there's only one cannon, then Space Marines park their starships on the other side of the globe, then approach it planetside. Or maybe they launch Drop Pods from beyond it's range or arc of fire, and storm the complex. Or maybe they Pod into the governors palace instead and hold it hostage. It all depends on the setup, and the devil is in the details.

But given their history, they've probably done it before too. It's literally their job.

 Vaktathi wrote:
The problem is in most SM fluff this is not how it goes. Most SM fluff is writtwn with Marines getting stuck in and winning the day by themselves, even in stuff like attritional siege warfare. They dont wait for the IG, they dont just blast wverything to smithereens from orbit. They get stuck in

And, if that was how they operated...how do they magically know where the enemy command centers and defense systems are, and how are they landing with impunity? More to the point, what is the point of needing those expensive super soldiers when you can just invest in more ships and conventional troops that you dont have to worry about running off doing their own thing with?

Also, what happens when the planet has antiorbital defenses and extensive aircraft capabilities?

Well, some of the fluff is very comic-bookey, it's true. But some of it more serious, too, and from those examples we can get a more "realistic" picture.

Codex Space Marines 3rd. Ed. Appendix, pg 44. "MODUS OPERANDI

". . .A typical offensive against a rebel or alien-held planet begins with the arrival of strike craft which engage and clear away defending system ships and may establish a hidden base located within an asteroid field or on a small moon if a protracted campaign in being undertaken. Their strike craft then move on to neutralize any orbital defenses, ground-based defense laser silos and missile bunkers. Orbital defenses are boarded and captured [...] and then turned against ground defenses or simply destroyed. Surviving ground defenses are sabotaged by scout forces or captured by main force assault troops inserted via drop pods. By preference, if system defenses are weak or still under friendly control, the Space Marines will deploy directly into the midst of a decisive engagement to take advantage of the considerable shock of their arrival."

There's no magic involved, it's easy to assume that they have sophisticated scanning equipment that tells them where things are (think Star Trek). Or they intercept enough communications and have the means to bypass encryptions, or can just figure out where the loci are, and can infer the location of C&C infrastructure. Our own satellites are very good at spying, but as backwards as the culture may be, Marine starship scanning technology might be magnitudes better.

As for why the Marines themselves? I think the fluff is that only their physiques can handle drop pod assaults. That's a hefty part of their strategy.

Edit:

Martel732 wrote:

This absolutely will not work with other highly advanced species, however. Marines in this context are a bully unit, and nothing else. We are back to 20 Riptides being able to exterminate an entire chapter because MCs OP.

Grav is your friend. The Skyhammer Annihilation force is considered broken for a reason.

I don't know if you guys have ever seen a drop pod but those things have a sizeable engine pointed upward.

They are not just dropping, they are being boosted down (with the smaller floor engines used to somewhat arrest that fall).

No wonder only Marines can take it, and no wonder ground defenses have problems intercepting that kind of velocity.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

Except, at no point are the SM needed for this. Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard are more than sufficient.

And all of that presumes a lack of planetary defenses. If the planet is well defended with volcano cannon, marco lasers, etc, then the SMs might lose a Battle Barge in the process...

I'm just giving response to the scenario given. "Can one Space Marine conquer a planet?" Which got turned into "Space Marines vs. earth." So the assumption is that Guard aren't around. The problem is that people seem to be mistaking this for a scenario in which Space Marines make landfall and then start the fight, as opposed to using their full range of assets available.

If we're expanding this to a planet with orbital defenses, just think it through. If there's only one cannon, then Space Marines park their starships on the other side of the globe, then approach it planetside. Or maybe they launch Drop Pods from beyond it's range or arc of fire, and storm the complex. Or maybe they Pod into the governors palace instead and hold it hostage. It all depends on the setup, and the devil is in the details.

But given their history, they've probably done it before too. It's literally their job.

And yet, sometimes, that fails. There are spaces where the Imperium fails to go, due to strong space defenses.

Heck, I doubt the SMs could come close making landfall on the Tau homeworld at this point, what with the sheer amount of mass driver hyper-velocity rail weaponry now available. And the Tau are a very minor power in the grand scheme of things.

 Insectum7 wrote:
[

 Vaktathi wrote:
The problem is in most SM fluff this is not how it goes. Most SM fluff is writtwn with Marines getting stuck in and winning the day by themselves, even in stuff like attritional siege warfare. They dont wait for the IG, they dont just blast wverything to smithereens from orbit. They get stuck in

And, if that was how they operated...how do they magically know where the enemy command centers and defense systems are, and how are they landing with impunity? More to the point, what is the point of needing those expensive super soldiers when you can just invest in more ships and conventional troops that you dont have to worry about running off doing their own thing with?

Also, what happens when the planet has antiorbital defenses and extensive aircraft capabilities?

Well, some of the fluff is very comic-bookey, it's true. But some of it more serious, too, and from those examples we can get a more "realistic" picture.

Codex Space Marines 3rd. Ed. Appendix, pg 44. "MODUS OPERANDI

". . .A typical offensive against a rebel or alien-held planet begins with the arrival of strike craft which engage and clear away defending system ships and may establish a hidden base located within an asteroid field or on a small moon if a protracted campaign in being undertaken. Their strike craft then move on to neutralize any orbital defenses, ground-based defense laser silos and missile bunkers. Orbital defenses are boarded and captured [...] and then turned against ground defenses or simply destroyed. Surviving ground defenses are sabotaged by scout forces or captured by main force assault troops inserted via drop pods. By preference, if system defenses are weak or still under friendly control, the Space Marines will deploy directly into the midst of a decisive engagement to take advantage of the considerable shock of their arrival."

which would generally appear to be an exception to most portrayed SM battles and still relies on a foe having largely limited defensive and intelligence capabilites however, and the SM's magically knowing where to strike.

There's no magic involved, it's easy to assume that they have sophisticated scanning equipment that tells them where things are (think Star Trek).

Even in Star Trek it was almost a running joke of continuous Hand-wavium

Or they intercept enough communications and have the means to bypass encryptions, or can just figure out where the loci are, and can infer the location of C&C infrastructure.

most of this isnt mentioned at all however, and even in the modern world is hugely resource intensive and error prone (such as the recent US airstrike on Syrian military forces during a ceasefire). Imagine an SM ship arriving in orbit and blasting the biggest transmitters it finds.

"Well...ESPN just went dark and the SETI labs appear to be unavailable...but the missile silos and the Pentagon are just fine"

Even if they could decrypt and locate everything, analyzing it all is a tremendous endeavor. Looking at Earth, or even just the US, if youre just sponging all electromagnetic communications, good luck deciphering 40 billion facebook messages, WAN gaming traffic and car GPS signals from military communications and their infinite variety of functions.

Deciphering and analyzing that all is difficult. There's a russian station that has been broadcasting in the clear for decades and nobody has figured out what its messages mean because theres no context to them.

Our own satellites are very good at spying, but as backwards as the culture may be, Marine starship scanning technology might be magnitudes better.

Sure, but we also know what we are looking for and general areas for most stuff fed by other intelligence sources, and have tens of thousands of people devoted to pouring over that information back by gargantuan telecom infrastructure, none of which is true of the Space Marines in ships which use indentured slave crews to mechanically turn gun turret and load shells

We also still get it wrong a huge amount of the time. Having the worlds most powerful intelligence and surveillance capabilities didnt stop the Serbs in the 90's from tricking NATO into throwing most ordnance dropped into dummy targets and emtpy locations (and the Iraqi's too in many instances).

As for why the Marines themselves? I think the fluff is that only their physiques can handle drop pod assaults. That's a hefty part of their strategy.

Right, but if the point is that you are mostly just blasting stuff from orbit and waiting for the big numbers of IG anyway...seems like needing drop pods would be a largely trivial capability in a strategic sense if you have to set them up as autonomous nobility who report only to themselves and fleets of their own

 Ashiraya wrote:
I don't know if you guys have ever seen a drop pod but those things have a sizeable engine pointed upward.

They are not just dropping, they are being boosted down (with the smaller floor engines used to somewhat arrest that fall).

No wonder only Marines can take it, and no wonder ground defenses have problems intercepting that kind of velocity.

We have missile systems that can track and engage targets moving at such speeds today, and the RIM-161 Block II is capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 15 itself.

You wouldnt even need to destroy the pod in the air. Minor damage or tossing off the trajectory could cause reentry failure or a crash, and even a minor course change could result in a landing dozens or hundreds of miles from the drop zone.

 Vaktathi wrote:

. . . "no way man, that's impossible". . .

Nevertheless that's how they roll. The narratives we have give the Space Marines the capacity to find important strategic objectives, I'm just filling in the blanks with theory. You can knock away at the theory 'til your face turns blue, but it's beside the point. We know they can track that information down. You say magic, I say high-tech. ("indistinguishable from magic," yadda yadda.) It's millennia in the future, and they can do what they can do.

 Vaktathi wrote:

We have missile systems that can track and engage targets moving at such speeds today, and the RIM-161 Block II is capable of reaching speeds in excess of Mach 15 itself.

You wouldnt even need to destroy the pod in the air. Minor damage or tossing off the trajectory could cause reentry failure or a crash, and even a minor course change could result in a landing dozens or hundreds of miles from the drop zone.

Earlier quote: "pods are hard to detect". Conversely, missile launches are easy to detect, travel an even more predictable path and for a much longer time. They are also covered as the "missile bunkers" in the quote I gave above.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:

And yet, sometimes, that fails. There are spaces where the Imperium fails to go, due to strong space defenses.

Heck, I doubt the SMs could come close making landfall on the Tau homeworld at this point, what with the sheer amount of mass driver hyper-velocity rail weaponry now available. And the Tau are a very minor power in the grand scheme of things.

Sure, sometimes what the SM bring to the theater isn't enough. Or sometimes they don't have the luxury of standing off and pounding away because of time constraints. I'm just putting out a broader picture of what they can do beyond "Huur chainsword!" which is really the most simple way of interpreting the fluff. Dig deeper and you get more interesting stuff, and therefore more interesting scenarios.

 Insectum7 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

. . . "no way man, that's impossible". . .

Nevertheless that's how they roll. The narratives we have give the Space Marines the capacity to find important strategic objectives, I'm just filling in the blanks with theory. You can knock away at the theory 'til your face turns blue, but it's beside the point. We know they can track that information down. You say magic, I say high-tech. ("indistinguishable from magic," yadda yadda.) It's millennia in the future, and they can do what they can do.

But thats kind of exactly the whole thing here. They're portrayed as doing all sorts of stuff (like taking and holding entire planets, engaging in attritional siege warfare, etc) that they obviously have neither the numbers nor capabilities to actually carry out once looked at critically without just chalking it all up to plot armor or inventing suppositions

Earlier quote: "pods are hard to detect".

I guess I missed that, but even modern day systems would have no problem detecting and tracking something like a drop pod, it'd light up every radar, microwave, thermal, and acoustic sensor station within hundreds of miles.

There's nothing even remotely stealthy about them and we certainly can detect and track meteors a fraction of the size going several multiples more than a Drop Pod's stated 12000 km/h speed today.

Conversely, missile launches are easy to detect, travel an even more predictable path and for a much longer time.

Probably less so than a drop pod hurtling through the atmopshere with all the subtlety of a meteor I would wager. Trying to actually maneuver a pod in flight and stay on course would be far more difficult to accomplish than for a missile.

They are also covered as the "missile bunkers" in the quote I gave above.

which assumes the SM's know where they are and can engage them before/without being engaged back and that they arent mobile, none of which would necessarily be true, but which is just automatically assumed so by whoever wrote the passage, or more likely, never really thought about in detail.