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Naaris wrote:
The one negative I would say about the Xenos Tanks are that they have highly exposed engines and large intakes that are juicy targets. But if they're over twice as fast as imperium tanks and can descend from orbit or drop off cliffs, jump obstacles and have optics and fire control systems lightyears ahead of the Imperiaum, its a design flaw that can be overlooked...

If the Tau railgun had the firepower of real life railguns and the range it would quickly make short work of pretty much the entire Imperiums tank force. Sadly GW are derps who have no idea just how powerful a railgun is.

 Gamgee wrote:

Naaris wrote:
The one negative I would say about the Xenos Tanks are that they have highly exposed engines and large intakes that are juicy targets. But if they're over twice as fast as imperium tanks and can descend from orbit or drop off cliffs, jump obstacles and have optics and fire control systems lightyears ahead of the Imperiaum, its a design flaw that can be overlooked...

If the Tau railgun had the firepower of real life railguns and the range it would quickly make short work of pretty much the entire Imperiums tank force. Sadly GW are derps who have no idea just how powerful a railgun is.

It would also have recoil that would make putting it on a hovering platform a bad idea. Plus the Hammerhead railgun isn't capable of firing in parabolic arcs due to its mount, so that artificially limits its maximum range.

A battalion of LRBTs will take losses as it approaches a HH, but their guns are just as capable of destroying it as it is of destroying them. And they are far cheaper to mass produce.

It doesn't matter if a Hammerhead will destroy 10 LRBTs before its destroyed if the IG can field 100 LRBTs for every Hammerhead they face.

HH's do have the mobility advantage, however.

The only problem with rules vs fluff and stats, is that it won't ever match up as a few other posters have said. Say, if we go by the novel's and fluff in codexes, a company of Space Marines is a world conquering force, and Terminators are walking gods who laugh at orbital blasts... Except it doesn't work out that way.

I feel that using the model's table top stats are not going to be that good of a reflection of how the tanks really operate. They can't be as good as they should be if GW wants to be able to sell more than one tank per army. It isn't a bash on GW, but the truth that they are a business. Has anybody ever seen the "Movie Marines" article in White Dwarf? They had essentially made a mini codex that represented Marines as they are in the fluff. You could pretty much run a Tactical Squad against a 2,000 point army and still have a very good chance of coming out on top. Now imagine adding an accurate representation of a Land Raider or Dreanaught to that.

But, I will add one thing, the biggest advantage I feel that Imperial vehicles have is that they can run on essentially anything put in their tank. I think it is in Titanicus or Double Eagle by Dan Abnett that a tank commander pretty much just throws whatever he can find in the tank to keep his squad moving. Not even an Abrams or any other 21st century vehicle can claim that. A Leman Russ might not be the heaviest armored vehicle with the most badass sci fi weaponry available, but anything that can be cheaply and quickly built and fixed by the barely trained and fueled by whatever in the galaxy that's a liquid is a winner in my book.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But, sadly the tabletop stars are really the only thing we can use to compare the vehicles because it's the closest thing to a standard grading system.

Also, sorry to keep ranting, but I showed my buddies the cutaway Land Raider poster with stats and stuff that I saw during 3rd Edition (Google is great) and they laughed so hard. One was a tanker in the army (he's part of my D&D group), and my other buddy is a mechanic (he's in my Warmachine group). So, they at least understand the proposed mechanics of the thing better than I do (I was Infantry, I just break machines haha). They both instantly noticed that there is no way the guys at GW know anything about how to construct a vehicle built for war. So the printed stats I think are hard to use for comparison as well when comparing how durable the vehicle is as well because even though guys here might know something about metallurgy, can guarantee GW doesn't. Rule of cool I think is what designed these vehicles.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
HH's do have the mobility advantage, however.

Which is really only useful in Symmetrical warfare, or Asymmetrical warfare where its asymmetrical in your favor.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
HH's do have the mobility advantage, however.

Which is really only useful in Symmetrical warfare, or Asymmetrical warfare where its asymmetrical in your favor.

How so? If the HH's both out-range them, and can move back faster than the LR's can, combined with tau's inherent mobility and lack of concern for losing ground, it give them a great advantage. It's why HH's are often said to be taking out dozens of imperial tanks.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
HH's do have the mobility advantage, however.

Which is really only useful in Symmetrical warfare, or Asymmetrical warfare where its asymmetrical in your favor.

How so? If the HH's both out-range them, and can move back faster than the LR's can, combined with tau's inherent mobility and lack of concern for losing ground, it give them a great advantage. It's why HH's are often said to be taking out dozens of imperial tanks.

Lack of concern for losing ground is an entirely moronic way of fighting. The Tau doctrines as outlined by GW are textbook examples of how to lose a war. A force that not only cannot take and hold ground but actively avoids doing so will always lose against a force that does.

Eventually you're going to run out of ground to fall back from. And you still need to resupply from fixed positions. Their mobility means nothing when the Imperium takes out their supply lines, which cannot be made mobile.

It also doesn't matter if a HH can kill dozens of LRBTs, the Imperium has thousands upon thousands for every Hammerhead.

I think you took that lesson the wrong way Grey. Nothing says they don't care for land or else they wouldn't fight and contest over planets. Duh. Common sense.

What it means is they are fluid and adaptable. They designate an area to fight in but they don't necessarily have to hold it from only one single spot of the designated battlefield but will move around to gain better ground or to flank and whittle away soldiers.

So if the Tau are losing they don't make some desperate last stand unless they have no option they would rather fallback, regroup, and find a better spot to attack or defend. In real life war we fight the same way. We need to take or defend ground but that doesn't mean we have to fight a static slow war like in WW2. We have mechanized infantry, high speed tanks, beyond visual range combat, and bombs so big they could wipe out thousands of people with a single bomb if they were clustered up 40k style. We have to spread out due to blast ranges of weapons. It's just common sense. If we know about incoming fire we move to avoid it. So yes war is about taking or defending land but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to plant your ass in one single spot and get shot to gak. A dynamic offense and defense is better than a static one any day of the weak.

 Gamgee wrote:
I think you took that lesson the wrong way Grey. Nothing says they don't care for land or else they wouldn't fight and contest over planets. Duh. Common sense.

What it means is they are fluid and adaptable. They designate an area to fight in but they don't necessarily have to hold it from only one single spot of the designated battlefield but will move around to gain better ground or to flank and whittle away soldiers.

So if the Tau are losing they don't make some desperate last stand unless they have no option they would rather fallback, regroup, and find a better spot to attack or defend. In real life war we fight the same way. We need to take or defend ground but that doesn't mean we have to fight a static slow war like in WW2. We have mechanized infantry, high speed tanks, beyond visual range combat, and bombs so big they could wipe out thousands of people with a single bomb if they were clustered up 40k style. We have to spread out due to blast ranges of weapons. It's just common sense. If we know about incoming fire we move to avoid it. So yes war is about taking or defending land but that doesn't necessarily mean you have to plant your ass in one single spot and get shot to gak. A dynamic offense and defense is better than a static one any day of the weak.

Except that's not how the Tau fight at all. Anybody who knows anything about modern military tactics can see the absurdity of the Tau doctrine. As opposed to the Imperium, who contrary to popular belief actually approach warfare closer to the way a modern military does. Just on a large scale.

The difference between our modern military forces and the Imperium is that the Imperium has unlimited manpower and doesn't care about casualties. That's very liberating in terms of strategic options, it makes attrition a very viable way of winning. And if you can do it its the most reliable way of winning.

The Tau of course can only fight the way they do because they'd lose horribly due to being outnumbered. It still in the grand scheme of things isn't a winning strategy, the Tau only continue to exist because they have more plot armor than anybody else in the setting. Its really just an illusion that their tactics are superior, when in reality they're not that good at all. its just favorable window dressing.

Yeah in real life we don't fight to attrition anymore. If we have to it is an option but we also fight smarter while also having attrition.

Nothing says we can't do both.

In real life if you proposed a massive scale attack with no regard to preserving lives for later battles the brass would laugh your incompetent ass out of the door into a court marshall.

The Imperium is stupid on a whole new level. Just because you have numbers doesn't mean preserving them isn't a good idea for later fights. It's downright stupid and wasteful if you can accomplish both and they could easily do it.

There has been no modern warfare to test out all the new strategies and warfare that have been developed "in theory" so that tells me you already have no experience with anything modern war or strategy. Terrorists are not a war. There hasn't been one between two large countries with cutting edge tech to test out because of nukes and generally we get along.

So if your claiming to be some expert in modern warfare your already wrong. There have been small skirmishes here and there during modern history that showcase modern armies fighting each other but the problem is the data is only one small set we have no idea to its veracity or how accurate future warfare is.

So much of what anyone in modern warefare talks about is theory since we other than wargames we have no modern way to test out our militaries.

In modern warfare we developed BVR (beyond visual range) fighter weapons because it was safer and more reliable to use them than fighting in dogfights. It also allows a small amount of fighters shoot down far more smaller weaker fighters.

On top of this in the gulf war the Abrhams a technologically superior tank wooped the utter gak out of the opposing forces old outdated soviet tanks.

In lore for the Tau their HH is described much the same as an Abrahams. It out ranges and is faster than the enemy combatant. Meaning it gets the first shot and can move out of distance of attack from enemy tanks well before they could ever even hope to retaliate. On top of this its gun is far stronger and is usually seen one shotting tanks. Only when enemies get close do the weaker armor become a hindrance to the Tau tanks.

On top of this Tau typically dominate the skies and provide anti tank fire support so there will be more tanks lost. There will also usually skyrays firing from out of line of sight with their seeker missiles like real life ATGM's. Again fast and mobile they can dictate the field.

In most tank battles range and speed are the most frequent factors in battle to determine how badly the enemy is going to get wrecked. I've watched a documentary where a tank crew said during the Gulf war all they had to do was pull the trigger like a video game since anything they hit was vaporized. They were outnumbered

http://www.tanks.net/tank-history/tanks-during-the-first-gulf-war.html

In real life weapons are constantly advancing one way. Longer range, more accurate, faster firing, and more destructive. Why? Because its more cost effective. Why produce 100000 bombs to carpet bomb an area to kill a few thousand soldiers and many more civilians and possibly friendly fire when you can make 1-5 that won't be wasted and WILL hit their targets.

Tanks are faster, more accurate, and more well armored today than in the past. Why? Because these are important to have. With this increase in mobility new strategic, operational, and tactical levels have arisen on the battlefield. This allows you to better take advantage of terrain with your longer range guns. Or like Abrams tanks you can make armor that's better against projectiles at long range and keep your enemy there by being faster.

Your thinking in such an antiquated form of warfare I have to simply laugh at what you consider modern. Hollywood movies?

During the second Gulf War the Abrams tank had no losses. Not one. At the time the Iraqi army was the 4th largest in the entire world with T55, T65, and t-75 russian tanks. The americans suffered more damage (but not losses) to accidental friendly fire than the enemy.

The Iraqi tank brigades were wiped off the face of the earth. Okay you might say poor tactics played a role. Well we have reports the American tanks were struck sometimes multiple times to no effect. It's a joke to say superior numbers did anything this day.

Oh and what did the US do? Stay outside of their range, control the air and destroy their air force and bomb the gak out of them, and then once they were in retreat advance all the way across the border massacring tanks along the way.

This sounds familiar. Oh... Mont'ka the new book that came out. The Tau held their airforces in reserve for the decisive victory at the end. In Kauyon they used it form the start to on Prefectia to get air control and start fire support. Sure enough as soon as they were back on the offensive they started bombing IG troops, hounding them with mechanized infantry, HH tanks, missiles strikes, and crisis suit attacks.

One of the largest Imperium vs Tau tank engagements happened on the planet as well. The Tau took losses because the IoM manage to cut them off and get close so their armor was to their advantage, but overall on a strategic scale they got their gak kicked in as the Tau won the battle. Maybe not a curb stomp battle like the Gulf War but the losses were simply staggering. The IG forces were said to be a crusade so large they would send to retake a sector.

Wooped. Granted the Tau suffered heavy losses because of the sheer attrition, but the smarter tactics won through the day and it helped their technology allowed them to use those smarter tactics.

Imagine if they had the numbers as well as tech and tactics?

Back to the Gulf War lets talk losses. The famous battle of Easting 73 Over a dozen Us Bradey's and 9 Abrams tanks went on to wipe out 83 Iraqi tanks. It helps the US tanks have GPS so they can preplan movements and engagements. Something the IoM never does and you see the Tau doing. The Americans suffered a dozen losses and the Iraqi about 600. So the Iraqi suffered 50x the losses of the Americans in that one battle alone.

Of the few Abrams tanks that have been damaged or destroyed (it can happen) in all of their operational history most of them have been repaired or recovered. I think only like 3 ever out of thousands had to be scuttled and blown up or were beyond repair.

Oh but the Tau must be so stupid you say. When you call the Tau style of warfare dumb your calling the US modern Fullspectrum Warfare (they teach this at academies) dumb since its clearly based on it with some Sci-Fi stuff thrown on top.

I didn't even get into how wrecked the Iraqis got in terms of airpower and why that allows you to fight outside their range. The US had the largest military in the world and it still chose to fight smart. Works great. I might not love America all the time and I can be critical of it, but one thing I do know is they have one of the most potent militaries in the world for a reason.

Preserving your troops for battles increases your morale of your entire army and civilians to see successful battles with minimum losses. It also allows soldiers to get a lot more experience who will then go on to fight better or even rise up the ranks to pass on knowledge. If you have a vast huge army you also preserve that mass while causing the smaller army to have less so your advantage is now even greater. Further since the army is mostly intact it allows for them to continue to rapidly respond in the field instead of being wiped out and needing to be replaced.

I await your counter point. I swear to god if I wrote all of this just for you to start going into a logical fallacy I'm going to be pretty triggered. Laugh but be triggered.

Text removed.

Reds8n

I know, the Tau's approach to warfare is nothing like successful militaries have used on earth. Forces that consistently fall back and keep their distance until they can bring about a weakness in their enemy rarely do well.

Just ask the Huns and the Mongols.

It's not that the Tau don't care about real estate at all, they just refuse to get sucked into putting the effort into holding a place when. They know holding it is doomed to failure. Likewise they won't attack a position that is strongly defended until they have taken actions to draw some of those defenders away to killing grounds of the Tau's choosing.

The Tau are the steppe nomads of 40k.

I think the tanks of 40k are fantastic, as, despite their poor design, they face up to alien warmachines with railguns, directed energy weapons, disintegration beams and conventional shells and win.

You need to work backward from the perceived effect instead of working forward from what you perceive the design to be.

The effect is that they blow up falcon grav tanks and hammerheads whilst taking autocannon and plasmacannon rounds on the nose with no damage.

We can see that autocannon is a catch all term for self loading solid shot antitank guns of a variety of calibers.
A predator autocannon is clearly a large AT gun and while it is effective enough to destroy most alien tanks, it cannot damage the front armour of humanity's leman russ.

In return, the base leman russ fires a shell more destructive and with a very large area of effect while a hit from the AT variant is akmost a guaranteed kill.

Granted, the twin lascannon variant of the predator is more effective- but then that's just comparing 40k's offensive weaponry to our weaponry, and again, the Russ is rugged enough to take a lascannon hit and live.

Autoguns and cannons exist so we have a useful baseline against which to measure how effective 40k weapons are.

If the Tau railgun had the firepower of real life railguns and the range it would quickly make short work of pretty much the entire Imperiums tank force. Sadly GW are derps who have no idea just how powerful a railgun is.

I like how people seem to think that the RL railgun in current testing (stored in a hanger with shelfes of capacitors) is an indicator for how powerfull the railgun on the Tau Hammerhead is...

Railgun just means it magnetically accelerates projectiles. And weapon size, strength of the magnetical field and projectile properties DO matter.
Witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battlestation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo2-Qb3fUYs

Well, magnetically accelerated with a pair of rails (hence railgun).

I will say that the in-game version is sort of under-powerd compared to how it is in fluff, but that's more to do with the weirdness of game mechanics making med S, high RoF weapons better. In fluff it's... suitably impressive. There's a blub of a time when one over-penetrated, and the pressure ended pulling everything not nailed down (including the crew) out of the exit hole. That also points to one of it's main weaknesses, unlike conventional shells, which explode, over-penetration is a real issue. Although less of an issue for the tau with their targeting and tracking tech.

 Gamgee wrote:
Yeah in real life we don't fight to attrition anymore. If we have to it is an option but we also fight smarter while also having attrition.

Nothing says we can't do both.

In real life if you proposed a massive scale attack with no regard to preserving lives for later battles the brass would laugh your incompetent ass out of the door into a court marshall.

The Imperium is stupid on a whole new level. Just because you have numbers doesn't mean preserving them isn't a good idea for later fights. It's downright stupid and wasteful if you can accomplish both and they could easily do it.

There has been no modern warfare to test out all the new strategies and warfare that have been developed "in theory" so that tells me you already have no experience with anything modern war or strategy. Terrorists are not a war. There hasn't been one between two large countries with cutting edge tech to test out because of nukes and generally we get along.

So if your claiming to be some expert in modern warfare your already wrong. There have been small skirmishes here and there during modern history that showcase modern armies fighting each other but the problem is the data is only one small set we have no idea to its veracity or how accurate future warfare is.

So much of what anyone in modern warefare talks about is theory since we other than wargames we have no modern way to test out our militaries.

In modern warfare we developed BVR (beyond visual range) fighter weapons because it was safer and more reliable to use them than fighting in dogfights. It also allows a small amount of fighters shoot down far more smaller weaker fighters.

On top of this in the gulf war the Abrhams a technologically superior tank wooped the utter gak out of the opposing forces old outdated soviet tanks.

In lore for the Tau their HH is described much the same as an Abrahams. It out ranges and is faster than the enemy combatant. Meaning it gets the first shot and can move out of distance of attack from enemy tanks well before they could ever even hope to retaliate. On top of this its gun is far stronger and is usually seen one shotting tanks. Only when enemies get close do the weaker armor become a hindrance to the Tau tanks.

On top of this Tau typically dominate the skies and provide anti tank fire support so there will be more tanks lost. There will also usually skyrays firing from out of line of sight with their seeker missiles like real life ATGM's. Again fast and mobile they can dictate the field.

In most tank battles range and speed are the most frequent factors in battle to determine how badly the enemy is going to get wrecked. I've watched a documentary where a tank crew said during the Gulf war all they had to do was pull the trigger like a video game since anything they hit was vaporized. They were outnumbered

http://www.tanks.net/tank-history/tanks-during-the-first-gulf-war.html

In real life weapons are constantly advancing one way. Longer range, more accurate, faster firing, and more destructive. Why? Because its more cost effective. Why produce 100000 bombs to carpet bomb an area to kill a few thousand soldiers and many more civilians and possibly friendly fire when you can make 1-5 that won't be wasted and WILL hit their targets.

Tanks are faster, more accurate, and more well armored today than in the past. Why? Because these are important to have. With this increase in mobility new strategic, operational, and tactical levels have arisen on the battlefield. This allows you to better take advantage of terrain with your longer range guns. Or like Abrams tanks you can make armor that's better against projectiles at long range and keep your enemy there by being faster.

Your thinking in such an antiquated form of warfare I have to simply laugh at what you consider modern. Hollywood movies?

During the second Gulf War the Abrams tank had no losses. Not one. At the time the Iraqi army was the 4th largest in the entire world with T55, T65, and t-75 russian tanks. The americans suffered more damage (but not losses) to accidental friendly fire than the enemy.

The Iraqi tank brigades were wiped off the face of the earth. Okay you might say poor tactics played a role. Well we have reports the American tanks were struck sometimes multiple times to no effect. It's a joke to say superior numbers did anything this day.

Oh and what did the US do? Stay outside of their range, control the air and destroy their air force and bomb the gak out of them, and then once they were in retreat advance all the way across the border massacring tanks along the way.

This sounds familiar. Oh... Mont'ka the new book that came out. The Tau held their airforces in reserve for the decisive victory at the end. In Kauyon they used it form the start to on Prefectia to get air control and start fire support. Sure enough as soon as they were back on the offensive they started bombing IG troops, hounding them with mechanized infantry, HH tanks, missiles strikes, and crisis suit attacks.

One of the largest Imperium vs Tau tank engagements happened on the planet as well. The Tau took losses because the IoM manage to cut them off and get close so their armor was to their advantage, but overall on a strategic scale they got their gak kicked in as the Tau won the battle. Maybe not a curb stomp battle like the Gulf War but the losses were simply staggering. The IG forces were said to be a crusade so large they would send to retake a sector.

Wooped. Granted the Tau suffered heavy losses because of the sheer attrition, but the smarter tactics won through the day and it helped their technology allowed them to use those smarter tactics.

Imagine if they had the numbers as well as tech and tactics?

Of the few Abrams tanks that have been damaged or destroyed (it can happen) in all of their operational history most of them have been repaired or recovered. I think only like 3 ever out of thousands had to be scuttled and blown up or were beyond repair.

Oh but the Tau must be so stupid you say. When you call the Tau style of warfare dumb your calling the US modern Fullspectrum Warfare (they teach this at academies) dumb since its clearly based on it with some Sci-Fi stuff thrown on top.

I didn't even get into how wrecked the Iraqis got in terms of airpower and why that allows you to fight outside their range. The US had the largest military in the world and it still chose to fight smart. Works great. I might not love America all the time and I can be critical of it, but one thing I do know is they have one of the most potent militaries in the world for a reason.

Preserving your troops for battles increases your morale of your entire army and civilians to see successful battles with minimum losses. It also allows soldiers to get a lot more experience who will then go on to fight better or even rise up the ranks to pass on knowledge. If you have a vast huge army you also preserve that mass while causing the smaller army to have less so your advantage is now even greater. Further since the army is mostly intact it allows for them to continue to rapidly respond in the field instead of being wiped out and needing to be replaced.

I await your counter point. I swear to god if I wrote all of this just for you to start going into a logical fallacy I'm going to be pretty triggered. Laugh but be triggered.

I never claimed to be an expert. I just claimed to be moderately knowledgeable, which is all it takes to see the Tau method of fighting isn't at all analogous to modern tactics. The Tau have more in common with an insurgency than the modern military.

The Tau do not have air superiority. Their fighters are individually better than Imperial fighters, but not by a significant margin(its not F22 vs a Spitfire. Its more like a Mustang vs a Zero, a minor advantage). Certainly not enough to counter the Imperial Navy vessals being superior to theirs, in all factors(range, speed, armor, and firepower). Tau doctrine actually states to never engage Imperial ships unless they have an overwhelming advantage. Sure, they'll have an advantage if they control the skies but that's true no matter what type of fighters you have. And in a straight up fight the Tau are not going to have it, it will be contested and the Imperium's numbers will show.

Back to the Gulf War lets talk losses. The famous battle of Easting 73 Over a dozen Us Bradey's and 9 Abrams tanks went on to wipe out 83 Iraqi tanks. It helps the US tanks have GPS so they can preplan movements and engagements. Something the IoM never does and you see the Tau doing. The Americans suffered a dozen losses and the Iraqi about 600. So the Iraqi suffered 50x the losses of the Americans in that one battle alone.

They have equipment which is completely analogous to GPS and long range scanners(Auspexes, Surveyers, etc...) to engage the enemy out of line of sight. Except in most of the novels its convenient for the plot line to show some sort of interference which prevents these from working fully.

You also act as if they do zero planning and just charge head long into the enemy, which is simply not true. Go read some of the novels, I recommend Gunheads. As well as the beginning of Titanicus.

Titanicus in particular shows what the tanks do when they are caught flat footed(in this case by a Titan, which uses its technology to evade the sensors of the tanks). The react by spreading out to evade its fire and engage the titan, it doesn't save them of course but it was the best possible course of action.

You're thinking the advantage gap between a Hammerhead and a LRBT is far larger than it actually is, you are envisioning it being Abrams vs some cheap T-72 knockoff. When its actually more like the difference between an M4 Sherman and a Panther. They're a lot closer than you are giving credit.

I can forgive you for this, the Tau are never portrayed in a bad light(again, ridiculous plot armor) so its easy to gloss over this.

I'm done here.

Grey Templar wrote:
Lack of concern for losing ground is an entirely moronic way of fighting. The Tau doctrines as outlined by GW are textbook examples of how to lose a war. A force that not only cannot take and hold ground but actively avoids doing so will always lose against a force that does.

Eventually you're going to run out of ground to fall back from. And you still need to resupply from fixed positions. Their mobility means nothing when the Imperium takes out their supply lines, which cannot be made mobile. .

Jeffar wrote:I know, the Tau's approach to warfare is nothing like successful militaries have used on earth. Forces that consistently fall back and keep their distance until they can bring about a weakness in their enemy rarely do well.

I'm not so sure that losing ground = defeat. Admittedly, an army may have to make a stand sooner or later, but it is a viable tactic to avoid contact and slowly but surely pick off ones enemies. A couple of examples of armies, not insurgencies, that have used this very successfully:

A) Battle of Cannae, 216 BC.

B) Battle of the Teutoburg Forest, 9 AD.

C) Chevauxchee, 14th-15th Century, Hundred Years War.

E) The Peninsular War - 1808-1814.

D) Finally, a modern example. The Winter War of 1939-1940.

In each of these examples it has not been an insurgency waging war this type of warfare, but a unified army. Similarly, in each of these battles, the 'winner' has typically been numerically inferior. I'd also point out, that in a time of VTOL and STOVL aircraft, air-to-air refueling and a time when technology is becoming more and more efficient in terms of power consumption, I'd suggest that it is becoming more and more likely that a force could remain almost entirely mobile whilst prosecuting asymmetrical warfare. In this instance it's only fixed supply point would be where it procures it's supplies from, however the ability to raid enemy supplies or procure them from a neutral dealer would massively extend endurance.

Grey Templar wrote:attrition a very viable way of winning. And if you can do it its the most reliable way of winning.

First World War. Those three words sum up absolutely every single thing you need to know about how 'viable' attrition warfare is. It is not the most reliable way of winning because A) It is incredibly costly and results in all participants being worse off than when they started. B) There is no clear winner and no end in sight with traditional attrition tactics and B) It requires mobile tactics (as show by the British via their invention of Tanks or by the Germans by their use of Stormtroopers) to break the stalemate.

I'm not going to engage in a Tau vs Imperium debate, but I will say that attrition and numbers do not rule warfare. There are a billion factors to warfare and if just one of them is unexpected, if just one soldier gets it into his mind to do something extraordinary, then it could result in something that changes not just the course of a battle, but the course of history.

Grey Templar has the strategic acumen of France in the opening battles of WW1 where they marched their armies into machine gun fire and lost basically thousands of men in a few short minutes.

The irony of the opening battles of WW1 for France is when they finally wised up and retreated it prevented them from being enveloped by German attacks and being eradicated and completely removed as a factor in WW1. Oh but maybe we should just keep charging in like Grey Knight suggests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Charleroi

@Gamgee - Well everybody has an opinion I guess and Grey Templar is of course entitled to his.

The thing about attrition is that it relys on brute force. Hence, larger countries tend to use it more than smaller countries as they have the manpower for it. However, you often find that countries with a smaller pool of manpower resort to smarter tactics or better tech to compensate for the numbers. Strange as it sounds, it's often the smaller person or the smaller countries that are the ones who often make the most profound difference in the world. Those that are born strong take it for granted and their arrogance proves to be their undoing. Those who start weak strive to be strong and in doing so, have greater experience of how to deal with setbacks when they occur. Perhaps 'The weak shall inherit the earth' isn't as sentimental as some would deride it as being.

If you've ever studied a martial art such as Ju-Jitsu you quickly come to understand that the strong man isn't always the winner. It's one of the most lauded martial arts and it's core ethos is evasion of the enemy's blows and using his own weight against him. The same can be applied to warfare. It's not about who has the biggest stick, but how they use the stick they have.

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I will say that the in-game version is sort of under-powerd compared to how it is in fluff, but that's more to do with the weirdness of game mechanics making med S, high RoF weapons better. In fluff it's... suitably impressive. There's a blub of a time when one over-penetrated, and the pressure ended pulling everything not nailed down (including the crew) out of the exit hole. That also points to one of it's main weaknesses, unlike conventional shells, which explode, over-penetration is a real issue. Although less of an issue for the tau with their targeting and tracking tech.

I'd rather propose the opposite: The effects described by the author are totally unrealistic, no matter how superficially strong the weapon would be. If a projectile "pulls" so much air behind it, that it can suck every loose object inside a tank through the tiny exit hole, it would have ridiculously bad air resistance. If you want to accelerate a projectile to high velocity you need to optimize airresistance / drag of the projectile.
I've seen this "sucked through exit hole" as one of the silly myths about realworld kinetic penetrators and i'd think this is where this comes from.

 Gamgee wrote:
Grey Templar has the strategic acumen of France in the opening battles of WW1 where they marched their armies into machine gun fire and lost basically thousands of men in a few short minutes.

The irony of the opening battles of WW1 for France is when they finally wised up and retreated it prevented them from being enveloped by German attacks and being eradicated and completely removed as a factor in WW1. Oh but maybe we should just keep charging in like Grey Knight suggests.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Charleroi

Take a deep breath, Gamgee. No need to make things personal, man.

Attrition is not viable in modern warfare because lives have a value. Attrition is viable in 40k because they don't. Men of the IG have more use when they are costing the enemy ammunition and resources than as actual soldiers. The Tyranids do the exact same thing and win often. IG are able to the do the same because they breed at such a phenomenal rate that losses are not important. 50,000 men is like dropping pennies when you pay cash for your new private island.

 Keep wrote:

 Co'tor Shas wrote:
I will say that the in-game version is sort of under-powerd compared to how it is in fluff, but that's more to do with the weirdness of game mechanics making med S, high RoF weapons better. In fluff it's... suitably impressive. There's a blub of a time when one over-penetrated, and the pressure ended pulling everything not nailed down (including the crew) out of the exit hole. That also points to one of it's main weaknesses, unlike conventional shells, which explode, over-penetration is a real issue. Although less of an issue for the tau with their targeting and tracking tech.

I'd rather propose the opposite: The effects described by the author are totally unrealistic, no matter how superficially strong the weapon would be. If a projectile "pulls" so much air behind it, that it can suck every loose object inside a tank through the tiny exit hole, it would have ridiculously bad air resistance. If you want to accelerate a projectile to high velocity you need to optimize airresistance / drag of the projectile.
I've seen this "sucked through exit hole" as one of the silly myths about realworld kinetic penetrators and i'd think this is where this comes from.

Oh, certainly. It's generally best to put examples like that in the outlier pile. I just chose the most over the top example to illustrate my point.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
@Gamgee - Well everybody has an opinion I guess and Grey Templar is of course entitled to his.

The thing about attrition is that it relys on brute force. Hence, larger countries tend to use it more than smaller countries as they have the manpower for it. However, you often find that countries with a smaller pool of manpower resort to smarter tactics or better tech to compensate for the numbers. Strange as it sounds, it's often the smaller person or the smaller countries that are the ones who often make the most profound difference in the world. Those that are born strong take it for granted and their arrogance proves to be their undoing. Those who start weak strive to be strong and in doing so, have greater experience of how to deal with setbacks when they occur. Perhaps 'The weak shall inherit the earth' isn't as sentimental as some would deride it as being.

If you've ever studied a martial art such as Ju-Jitsu you quickly come to understand that the strong man isn't always the winner. It's one of the most lauded martial arts and it's core ethos is evasion of the enemy's blows and using his own weight against him. The same can be applied to warfare. It's not about who has the biggest stick, but how they use the stick they have.

I agree with all of this and already knew it but good to hear none the less. Also yeah your right I should simmer down.

Edit
Also your also right for telling my to simmer down Entyme.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I can forgive you for this, the Tau are never portrayed in a bad light(again, ridiculous plot armor) so its easy to gloss over this.

Ha. Good one. You obviously haven't read much bolter porn. The kind where they can be ambushed in open terrain by bright blue Space Marines, or where a single squad of White Scars can secure planetfall, mow down hundreds of Fire Warriors, and pull apart Crisis Suits with their bare hands.

 Warpig1815 wrote:

First World War. Those three words sum up absolutely every single thing you need to know about how 'viable' attrition warfare is. It is not the most reliable way of winning because A) It is incredibly costly and results in all participants being worse off than when they started. B) There is no clear winner and no end in sight with traditional attrition tactics and B) It requires mobile tactics (as show by the British via their invention of Tanks or by the Germans by their use of Stormtroopers) to break the stalemate.

The Imperium has unlimited manpower, in a very literal sense. So yes, attrition is a completely viable method of warfare for the Imperium. Of course its not the only viable way, and the Imperium doesn't only use it. They use many strategies, as dictated by the situation. And they have various forces which can be used in different ways. They have line regiments, scout regiments, armor regiments, special forces, etc... Everything a well rounded modern military force has.

WW1 is not a good example because none of the participants are in the same situation as the Imperium. They don't have unlimited manpower and they actually valued the lives of their soldiers. The Imperium doesn't need to worry about either of those things.

 Grey Templar wrote:


The Imperium has unlimited manpower, in a very literal sense. So yes, attrition is a completely viable method of warfare for the Imperium. Of course its not the only viable way, and the Imperium doesn't only use it. They use many strategies, as dictated by the situation. And they have various forces which can be used in different ways. They have line regiments, scout regiments, armor regiments, special forces, etc... Everything a well rounded modern military force has.

WW1 is not a good example because none of the participants are in the same situation as the Imperium. They don't have unlimited manpower and they actually valued the lives of their soldiers. The Imperium doesn't need to worry about either of those things.

The other major difference is political will. IG regiments are shipped from neighboring worlds, even sectors, sometimes across the galaxy to fight on worlds they've never stepped on before.
Communication is slow and unreliable.

There are no massive mothers and wives groups bombarding the Governors offices with requests to stop the war and resume diplomacy with the Ork. Their son/husband stepped onto a transport, was whisked into orbit and warped out of system to glory, like every other guardsman.

When you have 5 regiments of guard with attached artillery and they have a few devilfish full of fishmen and supporting suits, you can afford to lose a few thousand grunts to expend their pulse ammo. You may even conscript the local prison population for this task, and get them high on slaught or frenzon.

And have you ever considered that getting the guardmen killed might be part of the plan? Like recycling certain materials, it may well be cheaper to raise a new regiment than to process, transport, feed and rearm the existing regiment.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Warpig1815 wrote:

First World War. Those three words sum up absolutely every single thing you need to know about how 'viable' attrition warfare is. It is not the most reliable way of winning because A) It is incredibly costly and results in all participants being worse off than when they started. B) There is no clear winner and no end in sight with traditional attrition tactics and B) It requires mobile tactics (as show by the British via their invention of Tanks or by the Germans by their use of Stormtroopers) to break the stalemate.

The Imperium has unlimited manpower, in a very literal sense. So yes, attrition is a completely viable method of warfare for the Imperium. Of course its not the only viable way, and the Imperium doesn't only use it. They use many strategies, as dictated by the situation. And they have various forces which can be used in different ways. They have line regiments, scout regiments, armor regiments, special forces, etc... Everything a well rounded modern military force has.

WW1 is not a good example because none of the participants are in the same situation as the Imperium. They don't have unlimited manpower and they actually valued the lives of their soldiers. The Imperium doesn't need to worry about either of those things.

Also want to mention that the Russians had the same tactics in WW1 as the IG do, and for the most part they had reasonable success given their limited munitions. The issue modern regimes, or WW1 Russia, faced that the Imperium doesn't is that
A) democracy means unhappy civilians remove government from power
B) civilians actually get a say and say that lives are worth something
C) the governments have to worry about being voted out or strung up by their testicles by arlngry mobs.


The Imperium doesn't have to worry about political backlash, revolution (except on a massive massive scale), they don't care about people's feelings and lives. The lives of IG soldiers is worth less than the 28mm models of those soldiers we play games with, and those soldiers being killed has less significance than "killing" the models, because where the models are out for the duration of the game, never to be seen again, the IG can send in 3 men for every one that dies and still suffer no loss. The dead and logistics are literally just numbers on a screen and no more.

That removal of logistics and all other associated issues we experience in modern day does make attrition viable. Imagine if 40k games went on until one side was wiped out, and the IG simply redeploy every unit that was destroyed up to 10 times. Eventually the enemy would be crushed under weight of numbers no matter what they do.

 CT GAMER wrote:
40K is a melting pot of various aesthetics.

Take all the coolest parts of WWI, WWII, mad max, dune, judge dress, aliens, etc.,etc. and mix it together. Then sprinkle everything with skulls and gothic arches for effect.

An army of Rambo clones fighting space orcs with chainsaw swords. Geiger-esque aliens fighting WWI trench fighters. Etc. etc.

And that odd mix of aesthetics is what is so appealing about it.

Land raiders, leman Russ tanks and so forth are cool BECAUSE they are so fugly and archaic looking.


I don't want hi-tech nor ultra- realistic in my 40k.


I want to drive my WWI-ish tank closer to those "Egyptian robot T-1000s" so my guy dressed like a space Hessian can jump out and hit the enemy robot with a civil war inspired power saber!!!

If you don't love that imagery, you just don't "get" 40k...

I obviously don't get it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Warpig1815 wrote:

First World War. Those three words sum up absolutely every single thing you need to know about how 'viable' attrition warfare is. It is not the most reliable way of winning because A) It is incredibly costly and results in all participants being worse off than when they started. B) There is no clear winner and no end in sight with traditional attrition tactics and B) It requires mobile tactics (as show by the British via their invention of Tanks or by the Germans by their use of Stormtroopers) to break the stalemate.

The Imperium has unlimited manpower, in a very literal sense. So yes, attrition is a completely viable method of warfare for the Imperium. Of course its not the only viable way, and the Imperium doesn't only use it. They use many strategies, as dictated by the situation. And they have various forces which can be used in different ways. They have line regiments, scout regiments, armor regiments, special forces, etc... Everything a well rounded modern military force has.

WW1 is not a good example because none of the participants are in the same situation as the Imperium. They don't have unlimited manpower and they actually valued the lives of their soldiers. The Imperium doesn't need to worry about either of those things.

Never play a list with a strategic advantage in a tactical game, because you never get to use that advantage. It's why Vikings suck in ancients war games.