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 Ashiraya wrote:
Ceramite is notoriously heat-resistant. I am pretty sure he'd survive the re-entry if the armour is intact.

As for the ground impact, it depends on how he lands. On his neck? He's dead. On his feet? A Marine has survived falling through an elevator shaft in the kilometres before. He'll break his legs, but it's merely a setback.

Well, Ceramite may be heat-resistant, but it can conduct it to the Space Marine inside, cooking him in his own armor.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ceramite is notoriously heat-resistant. I am pretty sure he'd survive the re-entry if the armour is intact.

As for the ground impact, it depends on how he lands. On his neck? He's dead. On his feet? A Marine has survived falling through an elevator shaft in the kilometres before. He'll break his legs, but it's merely a setback.

The plating might survive, but the joints? Less likely. There is a reason that all re-entry heat shields are basically a solid, unjointed slab of ablative. Those joints are not designed to withstand anything near the amount of force or heat that the plates are, as to do so they'd either need to be made of a much more flexible material with the same protection characteristics (in which case why bother with the bulky, impractable plates?) or would be so stiff and bulky as to prevent all movement.

Now during combat this doesn't matter as the marine can protect them from gunfire by positioning himself but he doesn't have that luxury when falling. If he's falling headfirst then his neck joint is gonna be getting very hot, feetfirst and his leg joints and arm joints etc.

Also, due to the non-aerodynamic shape of the marines power armour (especially those massive shoulder pads) he'll end up with potentially large forces on some parts and minor ones on others. These force differentials could just rip the armour (and the marine inside) apart well before impact.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
No. No living thing can survive re-entry from space without some spacecraft designed to protect it.

Mycetic spores and certain other Tyranid bioforms can, so it's not "no living thing". Plus, I wouldn't call drop pods "spacecraft", and I'm sure a sufficiently advanced civilisation could make something like a suit or even wrist-mounted device that'd work. Imagine sky-diving from orbit in the far, far future!

I'd give a Lychguard a slim chance of survival. A Space Marine, no. I could see a Marine surviving a massive fall after his drop pod/transport malfunctions, though. The plating might be in fairly reasonable condition (or rather, it might be surprisingly recognisable), but the Marine inside would have been cooked long before. This is how I rationalise Marines dying to heat-based weapons that don't penetrate their armour: the armour attempts to regulate internal body temperature, and though the ceramite can withstand great heat before it truly starts to be damaged, the wearer cannot. So the internal temperature would rise beyond the armour's ability to regulate it, and the wearer would die. That, and I imagine that the armour itself would be torn apart by the forces at work; the inner layer that connects the plates is not made of ceramite and is not as hardy.

The Lychguard, on the other hand, would be constantly regenerating throughout the process. I'd imagine their limbs would be torn off, and they'd likely crash as nothing but a vaguely ball-shaped lump of scorched necrodermis. But they can regenerate from that, can't they?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ceramite is notoriously heat-resistant. I am pretty sure he'd survive the re-entry if the armour is intact.

As for the ground impact, it depends on how he lands. On his neck? He's dead. On his feet? A Marine has survived falling through an elevator shaft in the kilometres before. He'll break his legs, but it's merely a setback.

The plating might survive, but the joints? Less likely. There is a reason that all re-entry heat shields are basically a solid, unjointed slab of ablative. Those joints are not designed to withstand anything near the amount of force or heat that the plates are, as to do so they'd either need to be made of a much more flexible material with the same protection characteristics (in which case why bother with the bulky, impractable plates?) or would be so stiff and bulky as to prevent all movement.

Now during combat this doesn't matter as the marine can protect them from gunfire by positioning himself but he doesn't have that luxury when falling. If he's falling headfirst then his neck joint is gonna be getting very hot, feetfirst and his leg joints and arm joints etc.

Also, due to the non-aerodynamic shape of the marines power armour (especially those massive shoulder pads) he'll end up with potentially large forces on some parts and minor ones on others. These force differentials could just rip the armour (and the marine inside) apart well before impact.

The joints aren't unarmored, power armor is made of synthetic metal muscles (think of the nanosuit from crysis, but metal), with the composite plates slapped on top. They might melt and fuse, but they're certainly still heat resistant.

Good answers here so far.

The lychguard in question is equipped with a sword and shield, which gives it an invulnerable save, increasing its survivability.

Can a space marine take getting hit by a delivery van? If so then so can the lychguard.


And I spelled reentry wrong.

I doubt they'd even make it to the ground. The heat from re-entry would fry them to, at best, a slab of unrecognizable bio-ceramic sludge.

Yeah - I am not sure the people here quite understand what heat re-entry generates.

If we take rules as any indication, hotter than a melta gun, since heat shielding on orbit to ground spacecraft also happens to protect from melta.

Using melta as a measure is a difficult thing, since it doesn't reduce Melta weapons to Str 0 or anything; ie they still work, just not as effectively. Good observation, though.

Also, the heat of re-entry would be far longer than a single melta blast, anyway.

As much as I love Halo, mentioning events that occur in that totally separate fiction are about as relevant as mentioning that, in the anime, Sonic once fell from space (more likely the exosphere) and was completely fine afterwards. Or that the RX-78 Gundam could do it.

That said, what instances are there other than Master Chief's low-atmosphere jump and Noble Six's Reentry Pack-enabled fall?

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ceramite is notoriously heat-resistant. I am pretty sure he'd survive the re-entry if the armour is intact.

As for the ground impact, it depends on how he lands. On his neck? He's dead. On his feet? A Marine has survived falling through an elevator shaft in the kilometres before. He'll break his legs, but it's merely a setback.

Reading this made me remember something. In "Flesh of Cretacia" there actually is an example of a marine landing after a fall, although not from orbit.

jayko657 wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Ceramite is notoriously heat-resistant. I am pretty sure he'd survive the re-entry if the armour is intact.

As for the ground impact, it depends on how he lands. On his neck? He's dead. On his feet? A Marine has survived falling through an elevator shaft in the kilometres before. He'll break his legs, but it's merely a setback.

Reading this made me remember something. In "Flesh of Cretacia" there actually is an example of a marine landing after a fall, although not from orbit.

Spoiler:

After an assault squad is forced to abandon their Stormraven, they all jump out. However, one of them quickly realises that his jump pack isn't working, and prepares himself for a rather pathetic death. He ends up surviving, but his jump pack is destroyed beyond repair, his armor is damaged and cracked in some sections, and his arm is broken. Still combat ready due to space marine biology but if a fall like that was enough to nearly kill him, falling from orbit would almost certainly be lethal on impact.

I think we have established that there are two elements

Entering the atmosphere and suriviving the heat - this is unlikely
Suriviving the subsequent freefall - this is likely/ possible. The height is irrelevant beyind 500ft

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah - I am not sure the people here quite understand what heat re-entry generates.

If we take rules as any indication, hotter than a melta gun, since heat shielding on orbit to ground spacecraft also happens to protect from melta.

HA

Not even in the same OOM, in fact removed several times over. Meltaguns and Plasma Guns generate temperatures equal to those found on the surface of Sol. Twenty million degrees and greater. Reentry IIRC is far, far, faaaar lighter, with spacecraft experiencing temperatures of around three thousand degrees celcius upon burning in.

Not to mention that we have no reason at all to believe that military grade heat shielding against lasers, masers, and plasma is even REMOTELY comparable to mere reentry shields.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah - I am not sure the people here quite understand what heat re-entry generates.

If we take rules as any indication, hotter than a melta gun, since heat shielding on orbit to ground spacecraft also happens to protect from melta.

HA

Not even in the same OOM, in fact removed several times over. Meltaguns and Plasma Guns generate temperatures equal to those found on the surface of Sol. Twenty million degrees and greater. Reentry IIRC is far, far, faaaar lighter, with spacecraft experiencing temperatures of around three thousand degrees celcius upon burning in.

Not to mention that we have no reason at all to believe that military grade heat shielding against lasers, masers, and plasma is even REMOTELY comparable to mere reentry shields.

Actually, you're wrong. The Sun has a surface temperature of 5778 K ( ~ 5500 °C). Its core has a temperature of ~ 15 000 000 °C.

And yet plasma is not as good at penetrating armor as melta.

Its been done in fluff, by the one of the Raven Guard or Alphas. Cant remember which. They didnt hit the ground, but landed on some hovering base via jet pack. Cant remember which book but the were lots of Iron Hands and a attempted assassination attempt on Alpharius.

the ancient wrote:
They didnt hit the ground, but landed on some hovering base via jet pack.

 mondo80 wrote:
Could a space marine or equivalent survive re-entry from orbit to a planet surface intact without a drop pod or jump pack?

?

 Melissia wrote:
And yet plasma is not as good at penetrating armor as melta.

Because meltaguns are even hotter.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 LethalShade wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
Yeah - I am not sure the people here quite understand what heat re-entry generates.

If we take rules as any indication, hotter than a melta gun, since heat shielding on orbit to ground spacecraft also happens to protect from melta.

HA

Not even in the same OOM, in fact removed several times over. Meltaguns and Plasma Guns generate temperatures equal to those found on the surface of Sol. Twenty million degrees and greater. Reentry IIRC is far, far, faaaar lighter, with spacecraft experiencing temperatures of around three thousand degrees celcius upon burning in.

Not to mention that we have no reason at all to believe that military grade heat shielding against lasers, masers, and plasma is even REMOTELY comparable to mere reentry shields.

Actually, you're wrong. The Sun has a surface temperature of 5778 K ( ~ 5500 °C). Its core has a temperature of ~ 15 000 000 °C.

Also, I was talking more about the solar flares, which are ejected material from the core. My bad.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
And yet plasma is not as good at penetrating armor as melta.

Because meltaguns are even hotter.

And still not hot enough to get through re-entry heat shielding.

Scions made a stratospheric jump in their codex, so it's possible for SM's to do it.

Don't they have grav-shutes or something though?

Yes, but they survived the heat, that was my point, obviously Marines are going to need jump packs

But grav-chutes would surely slow them down to the point where they wouldn't be going fast enough for the friction to matter?

 Bobthehero wrote:
Yes, but they survived the heat, that was my point, obviously Marines are going to need jump packs

So did Felix Baumgartner.

You're right, but,I reread the blurb, the Scion explicitly survive ''atmos-burns'' the stratosphere is never mentioned, my mistake.

They use ''little more than carapace armor and ionised body shroud of pressed alloy'' and they also activate their grav chutes after they go through the atmosphere

Also, the problem with re-entry is way different than jumping from an altitude. The problem with re-entry is that an orbital velocity tends to be ridiculously high, high enough than any friction at all (such as with an atmosphere) would vaporize the object in question without very very purpose-built equipment.

Anything in the stratosphere is unlikely to have an orbital velocity.

 Bobthehero wrote:
You're right, but,I reread the blurb, the Scion explicitly survive ''atmos-burns'' the stratosphere is never mentioned, my mistake.

They use ''little more than carapace armor and ionised body shroud of pressed alloy'' and they also activate their grav chutes after they go through the atmosphere

Is carapace armour or the "ionised body shroud" pressurised?

Also, how did they control the spin of their descent? One of the big risks of the Baumgartner jump was from going into a flat spin, which would force all the blood into his head and feet. When you're in thicker atmosphere it's easy to correct for a skilled skydiver but if you're in very low atmosphere it is a lot harder.

Which is why the lychguard has a shield, it would act as an atmospheric brake assisted by energy shield it has.

 Unit1126PLL wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Melissia wrote:
And yet plasma is not as good at penetrating armor as melta.

Because meltaguns are even hotter.

And still not hot enough to get through re-entry heat shielding.

We have no reason to believe that heat shielding exists solely for reentry. Also you're using game mechanics to justify anything. 40K's game mechanics are useless abstractions that clearly should only be tossed in the trash and never used in any discussion of the 'reality' of the fictional universe. Game rules at most are a starting point for any deduction to be made, but even that's stretching it.