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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.

I must admit, I do have a hard time countering this one. Not so much on the how 'viable is it' front, I still feel the same, but rather on the way it is presented in the books. The fluff is at complete odds with itself. The Imperium is supposedly on the brink of breakdown. The 'two-minutes-to-midnight' theme runs through nigh on all the books and I don't have a problem with that. However, if the Imperium was under siege to the extent it is portrayed to be under, with several Tyranid incursions (and small compared to what's coming), Necrons rising up everywhere, the Green Kroosade and 3rd War for Armageddon alongside the 13th Black Crusade, then you'd think the Imperium would be trying to conserve manpower as much as possible - especially considering the general distance and unreliability of getting said troops there. Hence, in these scenarios, you'd expect each General to be nursing his forces to the greatest extent he can, because of the overall scale of the threat to the Imperium. Furthermore, you would expect that the HloT, who see all, know all and operate through the Commissars and Inquisition, would be able to enforce the use of proper tactics to nurse the forces of mankind as best as possible. However, in the next breath the Imperium can afford the likes of Chenkov and the utilise maximum loss attrition tactics - running completely counter to the general theme of the brink of disaster. Obviously, it's all to add a bit of grimdarkness, (which is fine) but there are other ways to add grim darkness without sacrificing common sense. The likes of Creed, Macharius and Gaunt are engaging not because the achieve victory through slaughtering thousands of their own men, but because the achieve victory through careful husbandry of their resources and winning despite the odds. It's the same reason Arthur Wellsley is a celebrated general and Douglas Haig gets a bad press (To be fair to him, he was trying to make the best of a bad job). If the Imperium had so many men it could afford to throw them away with attrition tactics it would be winning. Plainly, this isn't the case as there is a large percentage of fans who feel that to move beyond 999. M41 would be to spoil it's 'on the brink of disaster theme'.

Deadshot wrote:

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.

I don't dispute the rest of you post pertaining to the Imperium not caring for troops, so if you excuse me, I'll skip over that. One thing I would like to point out is that Russia did not have anything approaching reasonable success in the First World War. From start to finish that war for Russia was a shambles. To summarise: In 1914, Russia invaded Galicia and was beaten back. Then in 1914 Germany invaded Poland and gained ground despite failing to take Warsaw. By 1915, germany renewed it's offensive and took Warsaw and the rest of poland and Galicia, forcing Russia to retreat. Come 1916, the Russians performed two failed offensives against the Germans (the Lake Naroch and Baranovichi Offensives) before undertaking the Brusilov Offensive against the Austro-Hungary Empire. By 1917, the Bolsheviks had risen up and overthrown the Monarchy (with one of the causes for the Revolution being the cost of the war). After the failed July Offensive, the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with large territorial concessions. To sum it up, WW1 for the Russians was a shambles. I have enormous respect for the soldiers themselves for the mere fact that they even stood and fought (not that they had a choice) despite only one in three men having a rifle, few having adequate winter clothing and rations being poor in the extreme. But for the overall performance of the Russians - not even close to successful IMHO.

A note on the Brusilov Offensive: It marked the only campaign during the war in which Russia was genuinely successful. The key reasons it was so successful is that it deviated from standard tactics of prolonged barrages and massed hordes of infantry. The breakthrough was achieved by a short but accurate barrage (More like a modern fire-mission) followed by mobile shock troops to exploit weaknesses. Only when a breakthrough had created a gap did the rest of the infantry and cavalry exploit that gap (In other words - economy of force) In fact, the Russian shock troops would end up being the inspiration for German shock troops in the final stages of the First World War, who would in turn inspire the Western Allies. By 1917-18, the British standard training was essentially analagous to that of the German Shock Troops. If that type of thinking can even remotely be considered standard 'attrition' tactics then I'll eat my hat.

 Warpig1815 wrote:

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.

I must admit, I do have a hard time countering this one. Not so much on the how 'viable is it' front, I still feel the same, but rather on the way it is presented in the books. The fluff is at complete odds with itself. The Imperium is supposedly on the brink of breakdown. The 'two-minutes-to-midnight' theme runs through nigh on all the books and I don't have a problem with that. However, if the Imperium was under siege to the extent it is portrayed to be under, with several Tyranid incursions (and small compared to what's coming), Necrons rising up everywhere, the Green Kroosade and 3rd War for Armageddon alongside the 13th Black Crusade, then you'd think the Imperium would be trying to conserve manpower as much as possible - especially considering the general distance and unreliability of getting said troops there. Hence, in these scenarios, you'd expect each General to be nursing his forces to the greatest extent he can, because of the overall scale of the threat to the Imperium. Furthermore, you would expect that the HloT, who see all, know all and operate through the Commissars and Inquisition, would be able to enforce the use of proper tactics to nurse the forces of mankind as best as possible. However, in the next breath the Imperium can afford the likes of Chenkov and the utilise maximum loss attrition tactics - running completely counter to the general theme of the brink of disaster. Obviously, it's all to add a bit of grimdarkness, (which is fine) but there are other ways to add grim darkness without sacrificing common sense. The likes of Creed, Macharius and Gaunt are engaging not because the achieve victory through slaughtering thousands of their own men, but because the achieve victory through careful husbandry of their resources and winning despite the odds. It's the same reason Arthur Wellsley is a celebrated general and Douglas Haig gets a bad press (To be fair to him, he was trying to make the best of a bad job). If the Imperium had so many men it could afford to throw them away with attrition tactics it would be winning. Plainly, this isn't the case as there is a large percentage of fans who feel that to move beyond 999. M41 would be to spoil it's 'on the brink of disaster theme'.

Deadshot wrote:

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.

I don't dispute the rest of you post pertaining to the Imperium not caring for troops, so if you excuse me, I'll skip over that. One thing I would like to point out is that Russia did not have anything approaching reasonable success in the First World War. From start to finish that war for Russia was a shambles. To summarise: In 1914, Russia invaded Galicia and was beaten back. Then in 1914 Germany invaded Poland and gained ground despite failing to take Warsaw. By 1915, germany renewed it's offensive and took Warsaw and the rest of poland and Galicia, forcing Russia to retreat. Come 1916, the Russians performed two failed offensives against the Germans (the Lake Naroch and Baranovichi Offensives) before undertaking the Brusilov Offensive against the Austro-Hungary Empire. By 1917, the Bolsheviks had risen up and overthrown the Monarchy (with one of the causes for the Revolution being the cost of the war). After the failed July Offensive, the Bolsheviks signed a peace treaty with large territorial concessions. To sum it up, WW1 for the Russians was a shambles. I have enormous respect for the soldiers themselves for the mere fact that they even stood and fought (not that they had a choice) despite only one in three men having a rifle, few having adequate winter clothing and rations being poor in the extreme. But for the overall performance of the Russians - not even close to successful IMHO.

A note on the Brusilov Offensive: It marked the only campaign during the war in which Russia was genuinely successful. The key reasons it was so successful is that it deviated from standard tactics of prolonged barrages and massed hordes of infantry. The breakthrough was achieved by a short but accurate barrage (More like a modern fire-mission) followed by mobile shock troops to exploit weaknesses. Only when a breakthrough had created a gap did the rest of the infantry and cavalry exploit that gap (In other words - economy of force) In fact, the Russian shock troops would end up being the inspiration for German shock troops in the final stages of the First World War, who would in turn inspire the Western Allies. By 1917-18, the British standard training was essentially analagous to that of the German Shock Troops. If that type of thinking can even remotely be considered standard 'attrition' tactics then I'll eat my hat.

You misunderstood what i was trying to say. What I meant was that the Russians did have a shambolic WW1, but taking into consideration their poor equipment, training and tactics, they did much better than they had any right to. Any other force with those kind of limitations would not have last 3 year, closer to 3 weeks

They only lasted because of their numbers. That's why its called attrition. So what was the point? Nothing but loss of lives and the war, oh but they sure lasted a long time to lose a lot of soldiers and gear.

Attrition is never well depicted in a tactical game. That's why everyone jizzes over themselves to play Germans at the tactical level and then they all are in for a rude awakening in a strategic level game as the Germans are systematically pounded into paste.

Oh in strategic level games I'm excellent at dealing with mass rushes and small elite force warfare. I would actually say I'm far better at strategy than tactics.

In real life there are three levels to any war from macro to micro. Strategy > Operations > Tactics.

Something like Crusader Kings 2 and that line of games is strategy with a focus on the big moves. Then an operations (a modern level) level would be the Wargame series, and finally a perfect example of a tactics game is Company of Heroes 2.

Those are broadly the different levels of warfare. I'm exceptional at strategy, okay at operations level, and great at tactics.

The operations level of warfare is tough for me to manage in games because I want to micro my units a lot but it's not as important at that level so much as having them there working as one big force over the map. The logistics also slow me down a lot more at that scale when I'm the guy who has to manage fuel, weapons, and repairs. I'm getting better though.

 Gamgee wrote:
They only lasted because of their numbers. That's why its called attrition. So what was the point? Nothing but loss of lives and the war, oh but they sure lasted a long time to lose a lot of soldiers and gear.

The comparison was to the Imperium, to show that even having only 1 rifle per 3 people, low rations, no winter clothes, etc, the Russians still lasted 3 years againsts a tactically and technologically superior foe through weight of numbers, and were only brought down by political revolution. The Imperium don't need to worry about any of those logistical issues of rations and clothes because the Guardsmen only last a few days, they can produce enough rifles for everyone, and political backlash is just not a thing unless its a full scale mutiny. That's why attrition outright works for the Imperium and is a 100% viable option.

Deadshot wrote:

You misunderstood what i was trying to say. What I meant was that the Russians did have a shambolic WW1, but taking into consideration their poor equipment, training and tactics, they did much better than they had any right to. Any other force with those kind of limitations would not have last 3 year, closer to 3 weeks

In that case - apologies, I quite agree. On an individual level, considering the general condition of Russia and it's serfs, it's something of a miracle that they lasted as long as they did. As you rightly point out, it was nothing to do with equipment, tactics, strategy or, to be brutally honest, their whole way of waging war. The only reason they lasted as long as they did was down to the fact that the Russian soldiers were damned if they did and damned if they didn't, although the same can be said of all the participants.

@Gamgee - Have you had a go at Europa Universalis IV? Whole different kettle of fish to CKII as it cuts out all the Dynasty building and focuses more on nation building, but if you like CKII then you'll like EUIV. Personally, I prefer CKII, but EUIV is worth every penny.

I didn't like CK2 and didn't hate it. It was okay. My go to series is Total War, Civ 5 (all expansions), and Endless Legends. The only Operations level game I know and play is Wargame Red Dragon. Then I play Company of Heroes 2 for tactics level but 4v4 with my IRL friends vs random people I'm good with the Brits and Americans. Of all these my most often played right now is CoH2 and Wargaem due to their quicker nature. Though I have more hours in Civ 5, Total War Shogun 2/Rome2, and Endless Legends.

I'm looking forward to their game set during the world wars though. The new one coming out I forget its name. I was also looking at EUIV to play a Natives faction and show some pride.

Ah. The less said there, the better. In EUIV I headed straight to Newfoundland and promptly colonised it for the British Empire. Nothing personal you know... Never played any of the Civ series or Endless Legends, but I've got all the Total War series (Although after Rome: II I'm not sure I like the direction they're taking).

Rome 2 got a lot better and is great now, but only if you liked it at its core. Does that make sense? If you didn't like its faster style of play from the get go it may not be for you even though its been patched and made way better.

Also if I had EUIV I would go and conquer everyone as the Ojibwe if they are available lol. So no worries we all have our little prides. As long as they don't get to our heads.

Well, seeing as this is long OT, might as well continue...

The main bits I wasn't keen (hesitant to say dislike) about on Rome II was the lack of Diplomacy options, especially when compared to previous titles, the inability to 'liberate' provinces and turn them into protectorates (Key part of Roman policy) and the inability to split armies into smaller units. I enjoyed the pace of the game and the host of new features for the most part, but I felt that they cut back on the older features that (arguably) worked better than the new counterpart. I thoroughly enjoyed it for the most part, but it does have minor irksome things that, when collected, make me shy away from saying it was 'great'. I think people made a bigger deal about the patches than needed to be made. The patches were free and not too big to download. People just needed to be more graceful.

Yeah, the diplomacy was a little more lean. Though a counter-point I think is that the AI was a little less belligerent in terms of diplomacy. So the few options you had were usable.

Previously you'd never be able to make someone a vassal state, even if you'd kicked their butts and knocked them down to a single province. And the only way top make any diplomatic agreement work was money, alliances and trade agreements were practically worthless in getting them to agree to something. Rome2 it was much easier to get trade agreements set up, and they were actually profitable to have.

I find the opposite (and I'm not just saying this for bad Grey Templar ) - I really struggle to make somebody a vassal in Rome II. I find even beating them right back to their home province, they still don't give up! As I was playing Macedon, I wanted to get together a sort of League of Corinth (All the Hellenic states), but I couldn't get them to go peacefully and as you can't control your allies actions, by the time I fought down Athens for arguments sake, my ally Epirus comes in and destroys them. If the diplomacy was a little more balanced, Athens would have woken up to it's impending doom and signed off to me. Truly a first world problem.

I suppose it depends on some variables. I've gotten some successful vassal offers. You do have to stack the effects in your favor though. Cultural animosity is one thing I don't think its possible to overcome, and IIRC the greek cultures all have animosity to each other.

Yeah - they're always backstabbing each other. Next time, I'll go all Icenii on the world, then they'll know misery on a whole new level

Quick question:

Im curious if anyone has attempted to make an example of a tank for 40k that follows some semblance of mechanical and logical sense.

Like anyone build a Russ or a tank to replace the Russ that has some engineering ideas behind it? A Predator? Baneblade? etc.

The Russ just needs to get an actual suspension.

GW doesn't understand vehicle design so they missed suspension and ground clearance on most of their vehicles.

The miniatures also suffer from being in 28mm Heroic scale instead of true scale. They'd all be about 20% large in all dimensions(except weapons would remain the same size) which would give them more realistic proportions.

 Engine of War wrote:
Im curious if anyone has attempted to make an example of a tank for 40k that follows some semblance of mechanical and logical sense.

Like anyone build a Russ or a tank to replace the Russ that has some engineering ideas behind it? A Predator? Baneblade? etc.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The miniatures also suffer from being in 28mm Heroic scale instead of true scale. They'd all be about 20% large in all dimensions(except weapons would remain the same size) which would give them more realistic proportions.

Well yes, but enlarging everything but the weapons by 20% is far less practical than doing the opposite... yes, shrink the weapons instead.

As for your question, Engine of War, yes, there's conversions aplenty about the web. I've always liked the idea of using an autocannon turret to represent a battle cannon (Predator or Chimera from FW) on a Chimera chasis, myself. That seems to go half way into making a decent MBT.

Forge World has done a pretty good job at making Russ sculpts with better weapons/vehicle proportions than the basic GW stuff.

 Psienesis wrote:
Because it's supposed to evoke a sense of WW1/WW2 in space. Hence, boxy, blocky tanks.

210mm of space-metal armor may be equivalent to 750 kilometers of WW2-era steel plate. Or more.

The Baneblade is actually a Light Tank, dating from the Golden Age of the Imperium. The Rhino, and all its variants, are based on a tractor from the same era.

40k tanks are slow, yes. Modern tanks are melted into a pile of steaming goo by any moron with a melta-pistol, Winner? 40k.

You summed it up nicely. Armor thickness doesn't automatically equal better armor, modern tank design isn't an arms race in armor thickness as much anymore. Now it is who can come up with better reactive armor to slap on top of that traditional armor. Also armor is only as good as the metallurgical techniques that produce it. No matter how stagnant the Grimdark Future is, I still believe they can produce metals far in advance of what we can make.

 Grey Templar wrote:
The Russ just needs to get an actual suspension.

GW doesn't understand vehicle design so they missed suspension and ground clearance on most of their vehicles.

The miniatures also suffer from being in 28mm Heroic scale instead of true scale. They'd all be about 20% large in all dimensions(except weapons would remain the same size) which would give them more realistic proportions.

I agree. Part of the problem is that the Leman Russ is essentially designed as an infantry support tank, but is fluff portrayed as an MBT. Here's what I would like to see changed.

1. Suspension like you said. Right now the LR looks like it couldn't even handle a pot hole. The outer skirts would did into the ground. Ditch the skirts, rework the suspension, and give it additional ground clearance.
2. Ditch the sponsons. They're blood stupid ideas and force you to have the tracks go high. The weapons would be better mounted on the turret. Sponson mounts have less range of motion and view.
3. take the tracks off the top of the tank so they're less exposed. Remove the current skirts, replace them with some removable panels.
4. Shrink the main gun to a more reasonable size, firing a high explosive shell. Have a secondary lascannon mount for armored targets. Lascannons are small and portable, so this shouldn't be a problem, and the LR already typically includes one so its obviously got the power capacity.
5. Increase the size of the turret, this will offer more room for the crew and additional ammo capacity.
6. Move all secondary weapons to the turret for better firing position. Switch the heavy bolters to remote fire multi-lasers like the chimera to conserve ammunition.

The problem with the excuse GW has given that 40k tanks were designed by backward idiots that "forgot" how basic tank design principles, is that tanks evolved dramatically in history over the span of a few years in World War 2.

Design ideas like using welded armor instead of riveted armor caught on within the span of a few years. Similarly, ideas like increasing the length of the gun barrel to impart a higher velocity, or using tungsten core ammunition with ballistic caps, or using sloped armor, or wider tracks, or lower silhouettes/profiles was something that was adopted within the span of 5 years in World War 2.

Just look at German tanks.

When they invaded France in 1940, Germany was using Panzer IIs, but their intended mass produced design was actually the Panzer III and IV.

You can see riveted armor on the Panzer IV - the main front plate is completely flat. The barrel is both short and small caliber, leading to poor anti-armor performance. The main gun of the Panzer IV was large caliber (75mm), but it was designed to be short as an infantry support gun so that it could fire a larger, low velocity projectile into fortifications or buildings.

The Germans realized both designs were crap when they encountered the French Char B1 heavy tank. Yes, the French actually had superior armor to the German panzers in the outset of World War 2. They realized quickly that the Char B1 actually had better armor and a better gun than either of their tanks, but fortunately the French armor tactics were backwards compared to the German massed Panzer formations and they really never experienced much opposition.

When they invaded Russia in 1941, they encountered the Russian KV-1 heavy tank - their Panzer IV and Panzer III shells bounced harmlessly off of the thick armor.

Similarly, their anti tank weapons were even useless against the Russian T-34 tank, with its thick welded armor, heavily sloped at 60 degrees on both the front and side armor, and long, high caliber 76-mm gun. It's wide tracks enabled it superb mobility in thick mud and heavy snow.


Consequently, the Germans designed the Tiger I heavy tank, with wide tracks, that incorporated the only gun in their arsenal that could defeat the KV-1 frontally at any range - their 88mm anti aircraft battery.

They also designed the Panther tank, which utilized a thick front glacis modeled on the T-34, and a long, high velocity barrel with a substantial 75mm caliber gun designed for armor penetration. Both tanks were available one year later, in 1942, in time for the Battle of Kursk, where they both saw action in 1943.

This is over the span of 3 years of war - huge technological improvements and rollouts within 2 years. How, in 3,000 years of warfare, would the Imperium not be able to recognize simple concepts like welded armor being superior to riveted armor, or sloped armor being superior to vertical plates?

One simple answer tednugent and that is the admech think older is better and to mess with anypart is sacralige and punishiable by death.
So if it ain't broke don't fix it.

Yeah but its broke as feth

 Bobthehero wrote:
Yeah but its broke as feth

It works doesn't it? If it works, its not broken.

Keep in mind that "it works" doesn't mean the same as "it's effective"
A type writer certainly works, but would you rather use a type writer to write a paper, or a computer?

The timescale of the 40k universe is indeed insane. Ten thousand years is an unimaginable amount of time. That's the whole point. It's meant to be alien, overwhelming and horrifying. The tanks are bad, the weapons are bad, the tactics don't make sense. Rushing into laser gun fire and fighting hand-to-hand with swords is foolish and entire armies making high-tech swords for that purpose is ridiculous. Space Wolves et al should have been wiped out ages ago due to their laughably inferior understanding of how to wage war.

This is all part of the theme of 40k. It's flavourful but nonsense. Giant robots would sink through the ground as they collapsed under their own weight yet they're integral to entire genres of entertainment. Space combat in Star Wars is based on WW1 dogfights and naval battles and have no connection whatsoever to how actual space warfare would work.

The Tiger I was a 1930s design.

didn't a quote get mentioned early in the thread saying that the designers of 40k tanks were using WW1-era designs to convey to us the backward-ness of the technology, but they would still, in reality, be ridiculously futuristic-looking in real life? Basically, the LRBT doesn't actually look like they portray it to, they just make it look that way because they want to convey how stagnated the tech is, even if it's significantly better than anything we've got.

but they would still, in reality, be ridiculously futuristic-looking in real life? Basically, the LRBT doesn't actually look like they portray it to

No, that's not what has been said. The LRBT looks like it looks. There is nothing along the lines of "but this is not it's true form".

This is over the span of 3 years of war - huge technological improvements and rollouts within 2 years. How, in 3,000 years of warfare, would the Imperium not be able to recognize simple concepts like welded armor being superior to riveted armor, or sloped armor being superior to vertical plates?

Religion... Ad Mech is a religious cult. Not a design bureau full of engineers. Sloped armor is already used. They use plasteel as armor. How would you know if that is even weldable? If it isn't, it makes perfect sense to rivet it...