Star Wars Galactic Empire vs Imperium of Man (without Adeptus Astartes)

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**endlesswaltz123**

No one's considering weapon placement on the ships.

If you consider that the 40k ships have higher power weaponry, the issue is they have a limited fire arc.

A star destroyer is competent at bringing a lot of it's weaponry to bare in any direction other than backwards. A star destroyer could literally sit a few hundred meters away on top of an imperial cruiser, bombarding it whilst the cruise will be fighting back with anti star fighter weaponry at best.

**Grey Templar**

Incorrect.

40k weapon batteries are arranged in banks along all sides of the ship, including along the dorsal spine and underneath as well.

And even if that was the case, its a simple matter to twist the ships pitch and bring its port or starboard batteries(which can in fact fire straight up and down if necessary) into position.

The only weapons which are truly fixed are the torpedo launchers.

**Wyzilla**

Iron_Captain wrote:
Happyjew wrote:
Iron_Captain wrote:
Happyjew wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:
Again? Oh very well then, it seems fate has decreed there shall always be a thread like this. Maybe Star Wars vs 40k threads can be added to Dakka bingo?

Everything wins against the Galactic Empire because it has the worst trained army ever. Stormtroopers can't hit anything and all Imperial leaders save for Thrawn seem to be hugely incompetent douchebags. They lost to Ewoks for God's sake, before being defeated by a bunch of ragtag rebel scum.
In the meanwhile, the Imperium was capable of holding out against pretty much half of its armies and the AdMech rising up in rebellion. On the ground, it is not much of a contest, the Empire will be slaughtered.
In space, it is not much of contest either, if only for the fact that without proper navigational charts, the Empire's ships won't be hyperspacing anywhere. Same for the Imperium's ships without the Warp.

See above regarding mapping out the Galaxy.

As for Stormtrooper accuracy, watch Episode 4, when they board the Tantive IV. Stormtroopers enter through a heavily guarded checkpoint and not only do they inflict more casualties than they sustain, they force the Rebel defenders to fall back.

That says more about the Rebels being horrible soldiers than about the Stormtroopers being good. Seriously, they just walk into the line of fire without any cover whatsoever, without throwing in some grenades first or something similar. They present a slow moving, big white target in full sight of the defenders, without cover at a distance of just a few meters. And still the rebel soldiers can barely hit them. The fact that the Stormtroopers only took two casualties is entirely due to Rebel ineptitude, not due to the Stormtrooper's great skill at stumbling around in hallways.

My comment had nothing to do with tactics. It was pointing out that your comment about Stormtroopers never hitting anything is clearly false. The only time they ever seem to miss is (surprise) when shooting at the main characters, who naturally have plot armour to keep them alive.

So? Never hitting anything is hyperbole of course, but that does not change the fact that Stormtroopers are notoriously bad at aiming and are horrible soldiers. Far worse than the battle droids from the prequels even.

Happyjew wrote:
Automatically Appended Next Post:

AnomanderRake wrote:
Someone asks this question once every so often and the answer is always the same.

A Star Destroyer is about the size of an Imperial frigate in 40k. A Super Star Destroyer is slightly bigger than an Imperial cruiser. On top of the size differential Warhammer cruisers are perfectly capable of cracking a planet, something A New Hope implies is far beyond the capacity of the entire Imperial fleet shooting full power at one planet. The Battlefleet Gothic books suggest that, among other things, Imperial ships are capable of combat at ranges orders of magnitude greater than anything we see in a Star Wars movie, with vastly larger and more powerful weapons.

So if the two settings ever ran into each other half a sector battlefleet could probably take the entire Galactic Empire to the cleaners. If you want a less one-sided crossover try Star Trek, where the ships are under half a kilometer long and can still crack planets by themselves.

Super Star Destroyers are 19 km long. How long is a cruiser? Hint it is less than 10 km.

A New Hope does not imply that the entire fleet could not crack the planet. It implies that the entire fleet could not cause a planet to violently explode in such a short time.

Assuming when you say "Star Trek" you are referring to just the UFP, Star Wars would crush them. Not only would a troop transport be able to destroy the Enterprise one on one, the Slave I could do it. And that's a 1-pilot patrol ship.

Yeah, Super Star Destroyers are huge, but there is only a few of them.
Here is a good comparison chart for Star wars and 40k ships:

Spoiler:

Ships in Star Wars are indeed capable of pretty devastating planetary bombardment and have no problem wiping out entire planets, though their weapons are not so devastating as those in 40k.

This is also forgetting Ramillies Class Star Forts, which are the size of small moons and the Imperium constructs non-stop. Which IIRC, are also capable of Warp Travel, but lack powerful thrusters for sublight.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

endlesswaltz123 wrote:
No one's considering weapon placement on the ships.

If you consider that the 40k ships have higher power weaponry, the issue is they have a limited fire arc.

A star destroyer is competent at bringing a lot of it's weaponry to bare in any direction other than backwards. A star destroyer could literally sit a few hundred meters away on top of an imperial cruiser, bombarding it whilst the cruise will be fighting back with anti star fighter weaponry at best.

The worst guns are on the FRONT of an Imperial Ship- the torpedo tubes and lance batteries. And no, an ImpStarDeuce couldn't do that, because the ISD2 actually has a terrible firing arc. All of its main guns are mounted on top of the ship, so it can't bring any good firepower to bear under it, and struggles to shoot anything in front of it without tilting the nose down.

**Happyjew**

Grey Templar wrote:
Plus their shields are demonstrably not all that powerful. Remember a single A-wing crashed through the bridge of the Executor, which totally crippled it and caused it to crash into the Death Star II.

There are three common methods of estimating Star Destroyer shield strength, although accurate estimates are elusive:

TESB asteroid field. The TESB novelization described a "steady rain" of asteroids, and Anakin Skywalker: The Story of Darth Vader said that "turbolaser gunners blasted the largest rocks; those they missed impacted against the bow shields like multi-megaton compression bombs." We can see from the film that the ships were taking impacts at the rate of at least 1 asteroid per second if not more, and we know from the above quote that the asteroids were striking with several megatons of energy each. Some dispute this figure by stating that we saw some slow-moving asteroids in the films, but this is a false dilemma fallacy: the existence of slow-moving asteroids does not prove that all of the asteroids (<99.99% of which would have impacted >off-screen) would have been slow-moving, particularly since typical asteroid speeds in the Earth's solar system have been observed to be much higher than this. Furthermore, the bombardment must have continued for at least 1 or 2 days because Vader had time to contact bounty hunters, who travelled from their various homebases to the Outer Rim while the fleet stayed in the field. Therefore, each ISD might have absorbed as much as 3E20 joules of kinetic energy while in the asteroid field.
ROTJ battle. Star Destroyers were able to survive half an hour of ship to ship battle with Mon Calamari battlecruisers in the Battle of Endor before they started to lose shielding. If we assume roughly one Star Destroyer per Mon Calamari cruiser and ignore fighters (in spite of the fact that they were carrying thermonuclear weapons), we can estimate that a Star Destroyer can survive many thousands of shots before shield failure. In the opening scene of ANH a Star Destroyer is seen firing roughly 25 shots in 5 seconds, for a time-averaged refire rate of 5 shots per second. As discussed here, each shot carries at least 1.5E15 joules of energy, and around 1E17 joules of energy if set to maximum power. If similar fire rates occured in the Endor battle (note that we are disregarding the heavy turbolasers which would increase the estimate by an order of magnitude), this means that the energy capacity of a Star Destroyer's shields is between 1.4E19 and 9E20 joules, so 1E20 joules (24,000 megatons) is a reasonable estimate.
Characteristics of offensive weaponry. An ISD1 can unleash more than 6E19 joules (14,000 megatons) of energy with a full broadside. If an ISD can withstand at least one full broadside from another ISD, then this would mean that the burst energy capacity of a Star Destroyer's shields is probably in the range of 1E19 joules.

Then there are the official tech specifications, which state that the Acclamator Troop Transport (which is not a particularly powerful ship) has a Shield heat dissipation of 70 trillion GW peak.

**PhillyT**

Grey Templar wrote:
PhillyT wrote:
I say Star Wars primarily because of the massive speed advantage and the huge Navy advantage.

The Imperial Navy, at tis height, is supposed to have 25,000 Star Destroyers alone, not counting the thousands of smaller ships and fighters capable of carrying weapons powerful enough to damage capital ships.

By conservative estimations, the 40k Imperial Navy significantly outnumbers the Galactic Empire's navy. Not to mention the smallest 40k escort class vessel is larger than a Star Destroyer and has far more devastating weaponry.

25,000 Star Destroyers is rather pitiful, and the smaller ships are going to be even more useless.

Literally the only advantage Star Wars has is that their FTL is faster. In all other areas they are inferior. They are less numerous, carry less powerful weapons, and are less durable.

Then there is the following problem. The Star Wars universe is, to put it bluntly, full of incompetent individuals and weak willed people. The Empire/Republic only had a few million soldiers at their greatest numbers, yet even with this very tiny numbers they were still capable of maintaining a moderate amount of control over their galaxy, yet they were also overthrown by a few thousand poorly trained and equipped freedom fighters.

This tells us that nobody in Star Wars really has the stomach for actual warfare. The civilians are so cowardly that they can be controlled with barely any threat at all, and the soldiers of the most powerful faction have never actually faced up to the horrors a truly galaxy spanning conflict against a foe who doesn't pull punches would unleash on them.

Any fight that Star Wars gets sucked into is going to be a bloodbath. The difference is that the Empire would not be able to sustain their numbers OR be able to maintain good morale. The Imperium is more than happy to throw troops into the meat grinder because they have literally infinite manpower. The casualties would absolutely horrify the Empire's soldiers as they got overwhelmed with sheer numbers, and an opposing warmachine on a scale they cannot imagine.

I've never seen anything that gives the indication that the Imperium can muster 25,000 ships over frigate size. In terms of shields and fire power, a Star Destroyer can fight over cruiser level vessels and likely even give a Battleship a great deal of trouble. Tie fighters and Tie bombers would be more than capable of destroying Warhammer vessels since they lack the anti fighter training or weapons for the most part.

**Happyjew**

Side note: Shouldn't this be in General, as it really has nothing to do with background.

**Engine of War**

I have an urge to link the "HERE WE GO AGAIN" song.....

But this happens so much its heretical.

**Chapter Master Angelos**

PhillyT wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
PhillyT wrote:
I say Star Wars primarily because of the massive speed advantage and the huge Navy advantage.

The Imperial Navy, at tis height, is supposed to have 25,000 Star Destroyers alone, not counting the thousands of smaller ships and fighters capable of carrying weapons powerful enough to damage capital ships.

By conservative estimations, the 40k Imperial Navy significantly outnumbers the Galactic Empire's navy. Not to mention the smallest 40k escort class vessel is larger than a Star Destroyer and has far more devastating weaponry.

25,000 Star Destroyers is rather pitiful, and the smaller ships are going to be even more useless.

Literally the only advantage Star Wars has is that their FTL is faster. In all other areas they are inferior. They are less numerous, carry less powerful weapons, and are less durable.

Then there is the following problem. The Star Wars universe is, to put it bluntly, full of incompetent individuals and weak willed people. The Empire/Republic only had a few million soldiers at their greatest numbers, yet even with this very tiny numbers they were still capable of maintaining a moderate amount of control over their galaxy, yet they were also overthrown by a few thousand poorly trained and equipped freedom fighters.

This tells us that nobody in Star Wars really has the stomach for actual warfare. The civilians are so cowardly that they can be controlled with barely any threat at all, and the soldiers of the most powerful faction have never actually faced up to the horrors a truly galaxy spanning conflict against a foe who doesn't pull punches would unleash on them.

Any fight that Star Wars gets sucked into is going to be a bloodbath. The difference is that the Empire would not be able to sustain their numbers OR be able to maintain good morale. The Imperium is more than happy to throw troops into the meat grinder because they have literally infinite manpower. The casualties would absolutely horrify the Empire's soldiers as they got overwhelmed with sheer numbers, and an opposing warmachine on a scale they cannot imagine.

I've never seen anything that gives the indication that the Imperium can muster 25,000 ships over frigate size. In terms of shields and fire power, a Star Destroyer can fight over cruiser level vessels and likely even give a Battleship a great deal of trouble. Tie fighters and Tie bombers would be more than capable of destroying Warhammer vessels since they lack the anti fighter training or weapons for the most part.

Fighter class ships are in abundance in 40k and Imperium crews have the weapons and training to deal with them. From Chaos Hellblade fighters and traitor gunships, to Eldar Strike Craft and Fighters, to everything the Tau throw out in the way of Strike Craft and Fighter Drones. These aren't just used in Ground wars. The Imperial Navy has to deal with these threats regularly, and counters it with its own set of dedicated fighter craft.

The Imperium has not only the Marauder class heavy attack craft which are geared for Void Combat just as well as they are atmospheric attack, as well as the Thunderbolt heavy fighter, which can punch well above its weight. You also have the Astartes Arsenal, which includes the Xiphon interceptor, and a range of Bullet spewing gunships, in the form of the Storm Raven, Storm Eagle, And Fire Raptor, to the infamous Thunderhawk Gunship which is stated repeatedly as a craft used for heavy void combat.

**Grey Templar**

PhillyT wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
PhillyT wrote:
I say Star Wars primarily because of the massive speed advantage and the huge Navy advantage.

The Imperial Navy, at tis height, is supposed to have 25,000 Star Destroyers alone, not counting the thousands of smaller ships and fighters capable of carrying weapons powerful enough to damage capital ships.

By conservative estimations, the 40k Imperial Navy significantly outnumbers the Galactic Empire's navy. Not to mention the smallest 40k escort class vessel is larger than a Star Destroyer and has far more devastating weaponry.

25,000 Star Destroyers is rather pitiful, and the smaller ships are going to be even more useless.

Literally the only advantage Star Wars has is that their FTL is faster. In all other areas they are inferior. They are less numerous, carry less powerful weapons, and are less durable.

Then there is the following problem. The Star Wars universe is, to put it bluntly, full of incompetent individuals and weak willed people. The Empire/Republic only had a few million soldiers at their greatest numbers, yet even with this very tiny numbers they were still capable of maintaining a moderate amount of control over their galaxy, yet they were also overthrown by a few thousand poorly trained and equipped freedom fighters.

This tells us that nobody in Star Wars really has the stomach for actual warfare. The civilians are so cowardly that they can be controlled with barely any threat at all, and the soldiers of the most powerful faction have never actually faced up to the horrors a truly galaxy spanning conflict against a foe who doesn't pull punches would unleash on them.

Any fight that Star Wars gets sucked into is going to be a bloodbath. The difference is that the Empire would not be able to sustain their numbers OR be able to maintain good morale. The Imperium is more than happy to throw troops into the meat grinder because they have literally infinite manpower. The casualties would absolutely horrify the Empire's soldiers as they got overwhelmed with sheer numbers, and an opposing warmachine on a scale they cannot imagine.

I've never seen anything that gives the indication that the Imperium can muster 25,000 ships over frigate size. In terms of shields and fire power, a Star Destroyer can fight over cruiser level vessels and likely even give a Battleship a great deal of trouble. Tie fighters and Tie bombers would be more than capable of destroying Warhammer vessels since they lack the anti fighter training or weapons for the most part.

We are told a few key facts about the Imperium.

The Imperium is divided up into sectors, which are defined as being cubes of space roughly 200 lightyears by 200 lightyears.

Each sector is defended by a fleet of roughly 50-75 ships(we can take this as an average and apply it to the number of sectors).

The Milky Way is by the most conservative estimates, 100,000 light years across(but could be up to 180,000) and 2,000 light years thick. Which gives a volume of 15,708,000,000,000 light years, or 1,963,500 possible sectors(with a radius of 50,000 light years and a height of 2,000)

Now obviously the imperium doesn't control the entire galaxy and have it all plotted into sectors. Lets assume they have 10% of the possible sectors. 196,350 sectors.

At the bare minimum of 50 ships each, that is 9,817,500 ships. Assuming that half are Escorts, 1/3 are Cruisers, and 1/6 are Battleships, that leaves us with 4,908,750 Escorts, 3,272,470 Cruisers, and 1,636,230 Battleships. This is at the lowest estimations of battlefleet size(50 ships). It could be up to 50% larger.

Fighter craft do exist in 40k, and ships are bristling with point defense turrets to defend against them. In the BFG game, each ship has a stat which specifically represents these systems which are used against incoming fighters and torpedos.

Of course the space fighters in 40k are the size of modern naval frigates and carry weaponry to match, I doubt any Star Wars fighter weapons will be able to even scratch the paint on a 40k warships. Their bombers might be able to do damage, but they'd still be nothing more than wasps stinging a lion.

**SomeRandomEvilGuy**

Grey Templar wrote:

We are told a few key facts about the Imperium.

The Imperium is divided up into sectors, which are defined as being cubes of space roughly 200 lightyears by 200 lightyears.

Also when the Cacodominus died his Psychic death scream caused millions upon millions of ships to be lost in the Warp. Whilst most of them may have been civilian, cargo or transport vessels that still leaves plenty of room for vast numbers of military vessels.

**Chapter Master Angelos**

SomeRandomEvilGuy wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:

We are told a few key facts about the Imperium.

The Imperium is divided up into sectors, which are defined as being cubes of space roughly 200 lightyears by 200 lightyears.

Also when the Cacodominus died his Psychic death scream caused millions upon millions of ships to be lost in the Warp. Whilst most of them may have been civilian, cargo or transport vessels that still leaves plenty of room for vast numbers of military vessels.

Okay, so Here:

Spoiler:

It does indeed say Millions upon Millions of ships and the loss of some -subsectors- which have been noted to be anything as small as a planetary system.

It also happened in m34, since this is about 40k the idea is its implied to be happening in m39, so.. you dont think that the respective fleets/ships that were lost were never rebuilt over the massive time gap between m34 and m39? The IoM has shipyards that run non stop, just like any other war factory producing tanks and guns. And while considered "rare", as noted earlier, the LARGEST classes of Imperial Warships still number in the millions at the very least, by numbers provided by BFG, which took place WELL after m34.

**dusara217**

The only way Star Wars wins is if its fans ignore the all of the 40k lore surrounding its star ships (or Darth Sideous is present at every single space battle fought between the two factions).

**Grey Templar**

dusara217 wrote:
The only way Star Wars wins is if its fans ignore the all of the 40k lore surrounding its star ships (or Darth Sideous is present at every single space battle fought between the two factions).

If Palpatine is present in every battle, than so is Tigerious and the Grey Knights. That's not going to the end well for Palpatine.

**KommissarKiln**

In this scenario, I think the Imperium would have a beyond distinct advantage in head-to-head terrestrial battles. Space battles I'd gauge as roughly equal, except when the Death Stars roll in. Now, if the Empire ever did decide to builds the Starkiller Base safely in its own territory, it'd be RIP imperium, given how long it'd take to get a fleet there vs sun-powered super weapon whose lasers defy relativity and reaches its targets almost immediately.

TL;DR Imperium has better conventional warfare, Empire has the best super weapons.

**Grey Templar**

Not really. We don't really know anything about the Starkiller's capabilities, other than it being a "hyperspace" weapon.

There is no evidence that it can actually move, which means eventually its going to run out of stars to use as ammunition. Second, its only useful if you know of a target. As the Empire wouldn't have any knowledge of the Imperium's territory, they're not going to know of any good targets. And again its just as vulnerable as the Death Stars are to frontal attacks, even more so because its planet sized and can't move(at least till we have evidence to the contrary).

And as was already mentioned, the Imperium's super weapons are far more impressive and practical. Any Imperial fleet can destroy a planet if needed, not just one individual weapons platform.

**endlesswaltz123**

Grey Templar wrote:
Not really. We don't really know anything about the Starkiller's capabilities, other than it being a "hyperspace" weapon.

There is no evidence that it can actually move, which means eventually its going to run out of stars to use as ammunition. Second, its only useful if you know of a target. As the Empire wouldn't have any knowledge of the Imperium's territory, they're not going to know of any good targets. And again its just as vulnerable as the Death Stars are to frontal attacks, even more so because its planet sized and can't move(at least till we have evidence to the contrary).

And as was already mentioned, the Imperium's super weapons are far more impressive and practical. Any Imperial fleet can destroy a planet if needed, not just one individual weapons platform.

It wouldn't take much scouting to work out the most important targets in the IOM galaxy. All the ships and space stations surrounding the important worlds aren't there for show.

**Happyjew**

Grey Templar wrote:
dusara217 wrote:
The only way Star Wars wins is if its fans ignore the all of the 40k lore surrounding its star ships (or Darth Sideous is present at every single space battle fought between the two factions).

If Palpatine is present in every battle, than so is Tigerious and the Grey Knights. That's not going to the end well for Palpatine.

Aren't Tigurius and the Grey Knights Adeptus Astartes? If so, they will not be there, since this ridiculous scenario specifically said no Adeptus Astartes.

**Eumerin**

Grey Templar wrote:
Not really. We don't really know anything about the Starkiller's capabilities, other than it being a "hyperspace" weapon.

There is no evidence that it can actually move, which means eventually its going to run out of stars to use as ammunition.

?

It kind of HAS to move, since it extinguishes the primary of the system it's in each time it charges. It might not be capable of movement in real space, but the logic behind the thing makes it pretty clear that it has to have some form of FTL so that it can find a new star system after each charging. You don't spend the money and resources that were expended on something like the Starkiller just to make a one-shot weapon. The Empire was able to give the Death Star a hyperdrive, and it was a space station the size of a moon. I've yet to see anything that suggests they couldn't just scale up the hyperdrive technology for a planet, especially when they've created batteries that are apparently capable of storing the entirety of a star's energy. It's not as if they'll have any issues powering the hyperdrive.

On an amusing side-note to the main debate, it occurred to me that given the usual bureaucratic issues that the Imperium experiences, it would probably be over a century before more than a tenth of the Imperium's fleet was even notified that it was supposed to be mobilizing for war with the Empire.

**Wyzilla**

KommissarKiln wrote:
In this scenario, I think the Imperium would have a beyond distinct advantage in head-to-head terrestrial battles. Space battles I'd gauge as roughly equal, except when the Death Stars roll in. Now, if the Empire ever did decide to builds the Starkiller Base safely in its own territory, it'd be RIP imperium, given how long it'd take to get a fleet there vs sun-powered super weapon whose lasers defy relativity and reaches its targets almost immediately.

TL;DR Imperium has better conventional warfare, Empire has the best super weapons.

The Death Stars aren't impressive at all by 40k standards. Their results can be done by any ship able to carry torpedoes (cyclonic torpedoes), and Ramillies Class Star Forts possess similar firepower (but can be mass produced).

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Eumerin wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Not really. We don't really know anything about the Starkiller's capabilities, other than it being a "hyperspace" weapon.

There is no evidence that it can actually move, which means eventually its going to run out of stars to use as ammunition.

?

It kind of HAS to move, since it extinguishes the primary of the system it's in each time it charges. It might not be capable of movement in real space, but the logic behind the thing makes it pretty clear that it has to have some form of FTL so that it can find a new star system after each charging. You don't spend the money and resources that were expended on something like the Starkiller just to make a one-shot weapon. The Empire was able to give the Death Star a hyperdrive, and it was a space station the size of a moon. I've yet to see anything that suggests they couldn't just scale up the hyperdrive technology for a planet, especially when they've created batteries that are apparently capable of storing the entirety of a star's energy. It's not as if they'll have any issues powering the hyperdrive.

On an amusing side-note to the main debate, it occurred to me that given the usual bureaucratic issues that the Imperium experiences, it would probably be over a century before more than a tenth of the Imperium's fleet was even notified that it was supposed to be mobilizing for war with the Empire.

It doesn't completely suck up the star, it just drains it like the Star Forge. The star's still there, they just loiter around till it 'replenishes' or some nonsense. We know it doesn't actually kill the star and suck it all up because we can SEE. If the star's gone, you wouldn't be able to see ANYTHING, at all. It would be complete darkness only surpassed by being caught in the event horizon of a black hole. Furthermore, completely draining the star until it ceases to exist would destroy the balance of gravity in the system causing everything to spin away like tops.

**Frankenberry**

Infantry wise?

Stormtroopers all miss and Guard are killed to a man anyway.

Legit answer?

Empire has about as much of a chance as the Tau do - so, not really much of one.

**Spetulhu**

People that use centimeters to express the range of their guns lose every time. ;-)

But to be less silly, some IoM ships can carry out Exterminatus. Every damn Star Destroyer in the Empire's arsenal can do a Base Delta Zero, which is Exterminatus in all but name - wipe out not only all life but all requirements for life on a planet. Within a couple hours of orbital bombardment. The guns of a 40K ship are what people on some backwater SW planet use as mining drills or personal security.

**Grey Templar**

Eumerin wrote:
You don't spend the money and resources that were expended on something like the Starkiller just to make a one-shot weapon.

Given that the Empire has built not 1, but 3 Death Star/Death Star equivalents, only to have all of them destroyed rather trivially by small fighter craft I don't think the bad guys in Star Wars are intelligent enough to think of that.

I think they would indeed be capable of being stupid enough to build that weapon such that they only had a few shots with it.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Spetulhu wrote:
People that use centimeters to express the range of their guns lose every time. ;-)

But to be less silly, some IoM ships can carry out Exterminatus. Every damn Star Destroyer in the Empire's arsenal can do a Base Delta Zero, which is Exterminatus in all but name - wipe out not only all life but all requirements for life on a planet. Within a couple hours of orbital bombardment. The guns of a 40K ship are what people on some backwater SW planet use as mining drills or personal security.

What is this Base Delta Zero thing you speak of? Sounds like its nothing more than Myth and isn't canon.

**Peregrine**

Grey Templar wrote:
What is this Base Delta Zero thing you speak of? Sounds like its nothing more than Myth and isn't canon.

You really don't want to start that argument, especially since nothing is canon in 40k. Exterminatus is no more canon than my version of 40k where the entire universe consists of a single space marine with no weapons or armor floating in deep space.

**Wyzilla**

Spetulhu wrote:
People that use centimeters to express the range of their guns lose every time. ;-)

But to be less silly, some IoM ships can carry out Exterminatus. Every damn Star Destroyer in the Empire's arsenal can do a Base Delta Zero, which is Exterminatus in all but name - wipe out not only all life but all requirements for life on a planet. Within a couple hours of orbital bombardment. The guns of a 40K ship are what people on some backwater SW planet use as mining drills or personal security.

Base Delta Zero is no longer canon, and every single Imperial Ship is capable of doing the same- glassing a planet is no impressive, as BDZ only originally meant just slagging the planet.

Meanwhile a lances are so powerful that a Legion Fleet in a day or less blew up a planet (Nostramo), which had a solid adamantium crust, without exterminatus weapons, and blew it up "so hard", that in Soul Hunter Talos and Friends find a chunk of Nostramo over two hundred lightyears away. Meaning that the explosion was so violent chunks of Nostramo were accelerated to a significant fraction of .C that they were found in a completely different sector in a mere ten thousand years.

But because people here, despite this being a 40k site, seem to know absolutely nothing about 40k and have tiny 40k libraries... time to bust out the quotes.

Every weapon in the battleship’s arsenal was prepared and oriented down at the surface; torpedo arrays filled with warshots that could atomise whole continents in a single strike, energy cannons capable of boiling off oceans, kinetic killers that could behead mountains through the brute force of their impact. This was only the power of the ship itself; then there was the minor fleet of auxiliary craft aboard it, wings of fighters and bombers that could come screaming down into Dagonet’s atmosphere on plumes of white fire. Swift death bringers that could raze cities, burn nations." - Pg.561 Nemesis

Lances capable of boiling away oceans, torpedoes that can break continents with single hits.

It was on Earth, at the very heart of humanity's realm, that the fate of the galaxy was to be decided. In those last days, the sky was black with dust clouds and the earth was split by gigantic fissures. Tectonic plates shifted under the stress of the bombardment. Mountain chains shivered and seas evaporated and became salty deserts. Rains of blood and ash dripped from the dark sky. Everywhere oracles muttered evil portents and men went mad with fear.- The Siege of Earth, WD161/quote]

More vaporization of entire oceans from energy weapons, tectonic plates slipping from stresses put on them from the bombardment and fissures opening.

"Four Gothic-class cruisers--Intolerable, Invincible, and Righteous Force--awaited four parsecs from target. Each ship carried 100 Hellfire nuclear missles. Each missle 122 warheads, each with a firepower of 5 GT. If boarding action fails, nuclear missiles will turn a ship to dust."
-Space Hulk Rulebook

Torpedoes act like modern ICBM's with miniature warheads carpeting an area to pass through IOM point defense (which consists of things like mega-bolters or mini lances). All in all the payload ends up at 61,000 gigatons. For comparison the asteroid that killed most of the dinosaurs and sent Earth into an extinction event that lasted for around ten thousand years, possibly longe, was 240,000 gigatons. The payload of one of those ships is just over a fourth of that energy. Also note that the ship being described being "turned to dust" is a Space Hulk. Which are the size of small moons.

"These projectiles
vary more than the nature of the cannons themselves, ranging
from sophisticated plasma warheads which burn with the
ferocity of a small star for a fraction of a second, to implosive
devices which exert destructive gravitational forces upon
all those caught within several thousand kilometres of the
detonation."
-Rogue Trader RPG : Battlefleet Koronos, page 15

Mind you, Novacannons are well beyond the firepower of torpedoes, being in the petaton range of TNT equivalent- but their warheads vary. Some appear to be ridiculous powerful fusion warheads that create miniature stars- others use something akin to neutron star matter to cause a gravitational field that implodes objects.

The Campanile accelerates.

It lights its main realspace drives, delivering main extending thrust in a position where it should be almost coasting at correction burst only. It raises its void shielding to make itself as unstoppable as possible. It fires itself like a bullet at the planet Calth.

The screams of its crew can still be heard, but no one is listening.
Main extending thrust is a drive condition used for principal acceleration, the maximum output that takes a starship to the brink of realspace velocity as it makes the translation to the empyrean. It is a condition that is used as a starship moves away from a planet towards the nearest viable Mandeville Point, a distance that is roughly half the radius of an average star system.
There is no such long run-up here. The Campanile is already inside the orbit of Calth’s satellite. There is not enough range for it to reach anything like maximum output or velocity. Even so, it is travelling at something close to the order of forty per cent of the realspace limit as it reaches the edge of the atmosphere. It is travelling too fast for anything physical, such as an eye or a pict-corder or a visual monitor, to see it. It is only visible to scanning systems and sensors, to detectors and auspex. They shriek at its sudden, savage, shockwave approach.
Their shrieks are as futile as the unheard screams of its lost crew.
It does not hit Calth.
There is something in the way.
Pg.158 Know No Fear (E-book)

Imperial ships can move at relativistic speeds outside of their warp drives.

“Even if the ports had remained open, there was nothing to see. You were brawling with – and being fired upon by – an object that might be thousands of kilometres away in the interstellar blackness, and moving at a considerable percentage of the speed of light.” / Salvation's Reach, p.162[/quote[

More mention of relativistic ship speeds.

“For the second time in less than an hour, space tore open. The reality fissure leapt and crackled like a luminous cephalopod, lashing tendrils of warp energy into real space that twisted out, fizzled and faded. Non-baryonic light flared brilliantly through the tear, backlighting the arriving ships. Monumental silhouettes, they were shot forward into real space. Four ships, one of them very large. And they were moving. Point seven five light at least, cutting straight towards Herodor. They did not slow down. They were moving at cruise speed. Attack Speed.” / The Saint: A Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus, p.893 & 894

MOAR relativistic speeds.

“Several light minutes inside the orbit of Eri, the Phalanx exploded from a warp gate with violent concussion, sending sheets of exotic lightning radiating out and away into the void. Delicate sensory devices dotting the surface of the tenth planet registered the new arrival and immediately communicated reports to relay stations on Pluto and Uranus, where in turn they would be sent onward by astropath to Terra and her dominions. The return of the Imperial Fists to humanitys cradle was long overdue. By rights there should have been celebrations and great ceremony on many of the outer colonies of the solar system to mark it. Instead, the Phalanx came in with speed and ruthless purpose, not in a stately cruise around the solar systems outlying worlds.

The mammoth craft did not fly the pennants and banners associated with the triumphant arrival of a heroic vessel. Instead, the colour on her masts and the laser lamps about the Phanalxs circumfrence were lit for urgency. Patrol ships made way, no captain daring to challenge the Master of the Imperial Fists for his haste. Drives flaring like captured stars, the fortress-vessel passed in through the ragged edge of the Oort Cloud at three-quarters the speed of light, down into the place of the ecliptic, crossing the orbit of Neptune in a flicker of dazzling radiation.” / Flight of the Eisenstein, p.278

The Phalanx, a giant space station the size of a death star, is even capable of moving at relativistic speeds.

’VANDIRE’S TEETH!’ Milos Caparan cursed, triggering his starboard thrusters and jinking the two hundred tonne attack bomber out
of the path of a kilometre-wide explosive starburst which filled the view out of the cockpit’s main viewing port. All around the
lead Starhawk, the hard vacuum of space was filled with similar explosions and energy bursts. At this range - still almost one
thousand kilometres away from the target - a direct hit was almost impossible, but each energy blast emitted a burst of widespread
and high-intensity radiation lethal to both a bomber’s crew and control systems, while each exploding anti-ordnance missile
warhead or mass-reactive shell threw out a hail of shrapnel that could cover a volume of space tens of kilometres across.
Caparan activated one of the runes on his comm-link console, sending out an automated status request to the rest of his squadron.
Elsewhere, he knew, the other squadron commanders in the attack wave would be doing likewise. The cockpit’s open-channel
comm-link squawked to life as the responses came flooding back.
-Execution hour, page 16, pdf version

IOM point defense guns, create a kilometer wide fireball in space, which IIRC indicates megaton yields.

"‘Orders, my lord?’ ‘This ends,’ said Sanguinius. ‘Admiral DuCade, slave gun control on all vessels present to my word of command. Tell every shipmaster to prime their cyclonic torpedoes and megaweapon-gauge systems for full bombardment. Target Holst.’ A ripple of uncertainty passed through the human crew at the thought of such mammoth overkill. ‘All weapons? Against the hive-city?’ DuCade asked. ‘Against the planet,’ corrected the primarch. ‘Synchronize aim-points along the equator, track for geological flux. I want this world shattered.’

vAzkaellon felt a chill run through him. The hammer of the Emperor’s will was a powerful force, and in the wars of the Great Crusade it had often been regrettably necessary to punish whole worlds with ruthless intent. The Guard Commander had seen cities wiped off the map in the blink of an eye, vaporised by lance cannons and macronuclear bombs; continents seared by laser barrages; skies scorched. And while the power to kill a world ? to truly, utterly destroy it ? had always rested within the reach of the Legiones Astartes, it was not an order that Azkaellon had ever witnessed in execution. ‘All shipmasters report guns at ready.’ DuCade read back the status in a dead voice, as if she was unwilling to believe what would come next.

‘Your will, my lord.’ Azkaellon did not feel any less of the primarch’s anger at the destruction of the Paleknight, he knew that no one aboard these sister-ships felt otherwise; but the act of war that was before them still gave him pause. Finally, Sanguinius turned away from the great window and looked his old friend and comrade in the eye. In the Angel’s noble face there was at once a great distance that reminded Azkaellon of just how far his master was set above even his superior transhumanity. And within it, he saw a determination, dense as neutronium and equally unbreakable. ‘My patience with this shadow-play is at an end,’ said the primarch, and the words seemed to be for Azkaellon alone. ‘The order is given: exterminatus extremis.’

The void surrounding the planet Holst flashed crimson as energies were liberated and directed, as a surge of weapons of mass destruction hurtled from launch tubes and bore down upon the turbulent world. Energy pulses struck first, moving at the speed of light and boiling away the vapours shrouding the sky, punching into the nitrogen ice surface. Rocky under-strata that had been sealed beneath permafrost for millions of years were burned clean and exposed. The torpedo barrage came seconds after, great fusion-powered rockets tipped with lethal warheads. Each had the power to lay waste to a continent, but in this instance they were combined with force enough to spear the molten heart of a world. Whatever unreal influence had spread its cancerous instrumentality through Holst-Prime Hive spilled into the matter of the planet itself.

On some primitive level, perhaps the world had even become alive, transformed by dark power into an almost-consciousness. But it died now, perishing in revenge for the deaths of the crew of the Paleknight, for Brother Xagan and all the other legionaries. Dying for the offence its existence gave to the Angel Sanguinius. Like a tormented animal, the planet ended with a tortured scream that even the void could not silence."
Pg.154 Fear to Tread

Bombardment/Extermiantus action by Sanguinius.

"Finally, the predator ships of the war fleet parted to allow the largest of their number to face the Eisenstein. If the frigate was a fox to the wolves of the battleships, then against this craft it became no more than an insect before a colossus. There were moons that massed less than the giant. It was the clenched hand of a god carved from dark asteroid stone, a nickel-iron behemoth pocked with craters and spiked with broad towers that jutted from its surface.
At a great distance, the vessel would have resembled the head of a mace, filigreed with gold and black iron. At close range, a city’s worth of spires and gantries reached out, many of them glowing with the light of thousands of windows, others concealing nests of weapons capable of killing a continent. Ships like the Eisenstein were carried in fanged docks around the circumference of the colossus, and as it drifted closer the sheer mass of its gravity gently tugged at the frigate, altering her course. Autonomous weapons drones deployed in hornet swarms, staging around the drifting craft. As one, they turned powerful searchlights on the ruined hull and pinned the frigate to the black of the void, drenching her in blinding white beams."
Pg.484 The Flight of the Eisenstein.

More mention of continent killing weapon batteries- also the ship out-masses small moons (For an example of one of the tiniest of moons, Phobos weighs 10,659,000,000 kilotons).

"A bombardment had begun, and the people of Dagonet’s capital feared it was the end of the world.
They knew so little of the reality of things, however. High above in orbit, it was only the warship Thanato that fired on the city, and even then it was not with the vessel’s most powerful cannons. The people did not know that a fleet of craft were poised in silence around their sister ship, watchful and waiting. Had all the vessels of the Warmaster’s flotilla unleashed their killpower, then indeed those fears would have come true; the planet’s crust cracked, the continents sliced open. Perhaps those things would happen, soon enough ? but for now it was sufficient for the Thanato to hurl inert kinetic kill-rods down through the atmosphere, the sky-splitting shriek of their passage climaxed by a lowing thunder as the warshots obliterated power stations, military compounds and the vast mansion-houses of the noble clans. From the ground it seemed like wanton destruction; from orbit, it was a shrewd and surgical pattern of attack."
Pg.626 Nemesis

More mention of continent splitting firepower.

"Nothing in our inventory would even come close to doing the job, but an astropathic message to the nearest naval unit would bring a task force here within weeks, and a flotilla of battleships ought to be enough to level the continent. A couple of barrages from their lance batteries would be enough to excise this cancer, however deeply it was buried.
Of course the planet would be rendered uninhabitable for generations, but no one in their right mind would be willing to set foot here once the necron presence was known in any case, so the question was pretty moot. And if anyone were foolish enough to demur, I had no doubt that Amberley would bring the full force of the Inquisition to bear on the objectors the moment I appraised her of the situation."
-Ciaphas Cain series, Caves of Ice, page 169(pdf version)

A "couple of barrages" from a flotilla's lance batteries is enough to cut into a continent and kill a Necron Tomb, and cause an extinction event in the process that renders the planet uninhabitable for an undisclosed amount of time.

"A mighty Repulsive-class Grand Cruiser with powerful reactors and heavy armour in sloping facets of adamantine and ceramite scores of metres thick, the vessel carried a weight of armament and ordnance that could reduce a continent to ruins with a single salvo."-Black Crusade

Chaos ship capable of destroying a continent with a single salvo of fire. Also note its armor is 40-60 meters thick.

Nightbringer said:

Few men knew the awesome power of destruction the captain of a starship possessed; the power to level cities and crack continents

Even more mention of continent cracking power.

"I WATCHED 56-IZAR die from the bridge of the Saint Scythus as we left orbit. Petals of flame, the size of continents, spread out under its milky skin."
-p.244, Eisenhorn Omnibus, pdf version is p.113

Plumes of flames the size of continents from bombardment/exterminatus.

“Like the hand of a god it reared its fingers across themoon’s horizon. Four thousand metres away, the cityscapes of twinkling lance batteries, torpedo banksand gun turrets welcomed them with a taut, breathlesstension. Although the broadsides were capable of dismantling continents, they were far too ponderous to harm the Harvester . Cloaked by refraction, the dark eldar shippierced the Cauldron Born ’s scans, registering asnothing more than tiny space debris.”

The mention of continent killing firepower never ends!

**Grey Templar**

Peregrine wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
What is this Base Delta Zero thing you speak of? Sounds like its nothing more than Myth and isn't canon.

You really don't want to start that argument, especially since nothing is canon in 40k. Exterminatus is no more canon than my version of 40k where the entire universe consists of a single space marine with no weapons or armor floating in deep space.

Its actually the opposite. Everything published by an official source in 40k is canon.

**Peregrine**

Grey Templar wrote:
Its actually the opposite. Everything published by an official source in 40k is canon.

{citation needed}

GW has no canon policy at all. Your choice to limit "canon" to official sources only is nothing more than your personal preference.

Wyzilla wrote:
Meanwhile a lances are so powerful that a Legion Fleet in a day or less blew up a planet (Nostramo), which had a solid adamantium crust, without exterminatus weapons, and blew it up "so hard", that in Soul Hunter Talos and Friends find a chunk of Nostramo over two hundred lightyears away. Meaning that the explosion was so violent chunks of Nostramo were accelerated to a significant fraction of .C that they were found in a completely different sector in a mere ten thousand years.

Meanwhile orbital bombardments are often portrayed as being comparable to a barrage of light mortar shells. And this whole "lances can blow up a planet with such overkill that its pieces are found 200 light years away" argument fails pretty badly when you remember that dedicated exterminatus weapons exist. There's no reason to bother with developing special weapons for killing all life on a planet if standard weapons are already massive overkill. In fact, creating such weapons would be suicidally stupid because any random chaos cult that gets their hands on an exterminatus torpedo can annihilate everything on a planet.

**Iron_Captain**

Peregrine wrote:
Grey Templar wrote:
Its actually the opposite. Everything published by an official source in 40k is canon.

{citation needed}

GW has no canon policy at all. Your choice to limit "canon" to official sources only is nothing more than your personal preference.

GW does have a canon policy. GW writers have stated that there is an internal policy on established facts which dictates what writers can and can't do. Furthermore, GW has stated that everything that gets published with a GW stamp on it is canon. That is as clear a canon policy as Star Wars has (only the movies, the Clone Wars series, and stuff published after 25 april 2015 is canon)

Peregrine wrote:
Wyzilla wrote:
Meanwhile a lances are so powerful that a Legion Fleet in a day or less blew up a planet (Nostramo), which had a solid adamantium crust, without exterminatus weapons, and blew it up "so hard", that in Soul Hunter Talos and Friends find a chunk of Nostramo over two hundred lightyears away. Meaning that the explosion was so violent chunks of Nostramo were accelerated to a significant fraction of .C that they were found in a completely different sector in a mere ten thousand years.

Meanwhile orbital bombardments are often portrayed as being comparable to a barrage of light mortar shells.

Where? Source please.

Peregrine wrote:
And this whole "lances can blow up a planet with such overkill that its pieces are found 200 light years away" argument fails pretty badly when you remember that dedicated exterminatus weapons exist. There's no reason to bother with developing special weapons for killing all life on a planet if standard weapons are already massive overkill. In fact, creating such weapons would be suicidally stupid because any random chaos cult that gets their hands on an exterminatus torpedo can annihilate everything on a planet.

Destroying a planet with conventional weapons takes rather long. Dedicated Exterminatus weapons are much faster. Also, the bombardment of Nostramo was only as devastating as it was because the lances could get right to the planet's core through a weakness in the planet's crust.

Peregrine wrote:
In fact, creating such weapons would be suicidally stupid because any random chaos cult that gets their hands on an exterminatus torpedo can annihilate everything on a planet.

Lol, that applies equally to present-day nukes and terrorist groups. The fact that terrorist groups can annihilate an entire city if they get their hands on a nuke does not stop us from producing thousands of them. If it doesn't stop us, why would it stop the Imperium?

**Peregrine**

Iron_Captain wrote:
Furthermore, GW has stated that everything that gets published with a GW stamp on it is canon.

{citation needed}

Where? Source please.

Just to name one obvious example, IA3 has a space marine warship trying to take out a missile silo with an orbital bombardment. The bombardment does little more than make a few craters in the dirt, and they have to destroy the silo by dropping in space marines to plant melta charges on the doors. That's laughably poor firepower.

Destroying a planet with conventional weapons takes rather long. Dedicated Exterminatus weapons are much faster. Also, the bombardment of Nostramo was only as devastating as it was because the lances could get right to the planet's core through a weakness in the planet's crust.

That doesn't even make any sense. It's like saying that your 500lb bomb did a really good job of smashing an apple because there was a small weak spot in the skin. Having a weakness in the thin layer of dirt and rock on a planet should have very little, if any, impact on how hard it is to destroy the planet. And that's especially true if you're hitting it with such overwhelming firepower that the surviving fragments are thrown hundreds of light years away.

Lol, that applies equally to present-day nukes and terrorist groups. The fact that terrorist groups can annihilate an entire city if they get their hands on a nuke does not stop us from producing thousands of them. If it doesn't stop us, why would it stop the Imperium?

We make nukes in the real world because we don't have any other weapon that can fill their role. Making dedicated exterminatus weapons in 40k makes no sense if any random capital ship's lance batteries can overkill a planet with firepower that makes a death star look like a minor fireworks display. You aren't gaining any meaningful firepower advantage, you're just making it easier for the wrong people to get their hands on WMDs.

**Asherian Command**

Everytime this conversation comes up the sheer size of the imperium is often just a laughable stat when someone who loves star wars will try to defend that fast movability and 'advanced' and space magic are the defining features of the universe. Forgetting that the Imperium faces Eldar, Dark Eldar, Chaos, Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and many other races that would cause the Star Wars Universe to fall apart at its seem.

A single tyranid hive fleet would destroy most of the Star Wars Galaxy. There is enough biological life and resources for there to be enough muchies. Even if the Star Wars universe used all of its might to get rid of a threat the threat would always linger.

If we did a caluclation just based on assumption we will always find the 40k universe to be far superior in sheer magnitude.

Peregrine is stating what has been fact before by ADB, but ever since there is a baseline that the authors do use, it is reasonable to conclude that internal affair that use as a baseline is true and reasonably to be the lore of the 40k universe. Which has and always will be the most confutation and conflict among fans.

**KommissarKiln**

In SW's defense, they did fight the Yuuzhan Vong, or however you spell it, in the EU New Republic era. They basically did fleshy drop pods and such, invade planets with bio-weaponry and vehicles, and terraformed what they conquered for harvest. Except the canon is now very shaky. And it wasn't a fraction as grimdark (except for the no-longer-canon loss of Chewbacca). But yeah, Nids would break a lot, a LOT of things if they stumbled into a different galaxy.