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Hi
Has a navy already been mentioned in 40k ?A navy like an Imperial Navy (but with boats, not spaceships !), a Tau Navy, etc...
I never heard about maritime warfare. Or maybe just "local" navies ? Like PDF ?

We see some naval PDF forces in one of the Beast novels, when the Orks attack a water-world. Can't recall which one, but I think it might be the second in the series.

Orks seem to quite like naval warfare, I remember them using boats in a few campaigns.

Not sure if it is because the dev studio finds it fun to build ork boats, or because boats a low tech way of crossing water.

I don't think the Imperium gives it much thought, but I have no doubt that a PDF would maintain some form of maritime force for defense against invaders or, likely piracy.

In Flesh and iron. There are multiple mentions of a water born navy. Of course its taken up to the 40k "beyond 11".

Battleship with meters thick hull and cannons big enough to fire a leman russ out of, or an aircraft carrier that is miles long and wide with smaller craft that are just as heavily armed with cannons, lascannons, and more.

I can't recall if they were PDF or who owned them specifically though.

During the first war for Damnos, the Damnosian navy was defeated when the Necrons opened an extra-dimensional sinkhole and drained away the ocean.

It would vary too much from planet to planet, as some would not have oceans others would have massive ones.

You would certainly have some ships, and perhaps floating defensive cannons but a specific navy for engaging another navy would be rare, as most planets are going to be ruled by only 1 master.

Naval vehicles have advantages. They can be considerably more heavily built than aircraft, and are more mobile than land installations. Being able to move is a massive factor when bombardments are made on a long-term strategic level, especially when intel is limited (think Battleships the board game).

If memory serves, there was a decent description of a battle between Space Wolves and Tau that occurred entirely underwater (with Crisis Suit jetpacks replaced with propellors, torpedos replacing missiles, etc.), with the Space wolves eventually prevailing.

No Above-water navy was mentioned, but then, both the Space Wolves and the Tau suits are air-tight and capable of withstanding the pressure, so there wasn't really a need.



Generally speaking, we don't really hear much about naval warfare in 40k, as we don't really have base game scenarios appropriate for a water-heavy or water-only board.

One of the cooler bits of 4e Apocalypse was the Armageddon Ork submarine.

Any world with large enough bodies of water, will have a naval force of some kind - be it made of galleons or aircraft carriers. Depends on the level of technology really.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
One of the cooler bits of 4e Apocalypse was the Armageddon Ork submarine.

I remember an Ork submarine. Was it a Golden Daemon thing or what ? I don't recall very well, but it was great !

Been a while since I've been to a miniatures gaming forum... gotta remind myself what people mean when they say PDF haha...

 godardc wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
One of the cooler bits of 4e Apocalypse was the Armageddon Ork submarine.

I remember an Ork submarine. Was it a Golden Daemon thing or what ? I don't recall very well, but it was great !

Don't forget the naval battle for Helsreach on Armageddon.

I know a long while back, we had a pretty extensive thread about waterborne navies in 40k. If I recall, I think the general assessment was that the navies that are present are going to be in the hands of PDF, as the Imperial Guard are not going to lug around the men and materiel for a navy in their transports when spacecraft and shuttle insertion do nearly everything a navy does more slowly.

To say it another way, put yourself in the shoes of a commander. In order to justify having a navy on a campaign, you would need:

-A planet with a liquid ocean
-A planet with a large enough liquid ocean to make a navy worthwhile
-A planet with the right kind of liquid ocean to make a navy even float (after all, your boats are not going to float or work well on liquids other than water)
-A planet with an objective (enemy, fortification, etc) that a navy is somehow better suited for over orbital bombardment followed by insertion

All of those coming together, while it is not impossible, it's really relegated to a single planet kind of thing. And that's what a PDF is there for. As a Guard commander, you would rather have more tanks, troops and shuttles in your bays than boats that you might never use, and would only be marginally more effective in exceedingly specific situations.

messhallcook wrote:
Been a while since I've been to a miniatures gaming forum... gotta remind myself what people mean when they say PDF haha...

Planetary Defence Forces


I wonder if the Imperium has, for the case they need to take a ocean world, water ships that can/will be transtported to that planet.
Should be faster than building a navy from scratch there.

SiWi wrote:

messhallcook wrote:
Been a while since I've been to a miniatures gaming forum... gotta remind myself what people mean when they say PDF haha...

Planetary Defence Forces


I wonder if the Imperium has, for the case they need to take a ocean world, water ships that can/will be transtported to that planet.
Should be faster than building a navy from scratch there.

Haha yeah I remembered after reminding myself of the section I was reading this under.

Its actually one of my favorite acronyms in the 40k (or general sci fi world) even.

Next time someone asks if I want something in PDF format I'll ask how many troops are included haha.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Naval vehicles have advantages. They can be considerably more heavily built than aircraft, and are more mobile than land installations. Being able to move is a massive factor when bombardments are made on a long-term strategic level, especially when intel is limited (think Battleships the board game).

If the guns have recoil, it is a lot easier to mitigate on a floating platform than fixed on land. Naval guns will always be larger and more accurate than land based.

 Exergy wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Naval vehicles have advantages. They can be considerably more heavily built than aircraft, and are more mobile than land installations. Being able to move is a massive factor when bombardments are made on a long-term strategic level, especially when intel is limited (think Battleships the board game).

If the guns have recoil, it is a lot easier to mitigate on a floating platform than fixed on land. Naval guns will always be larger and more accurate than land based.

Except you forget that this is 40k. You have even bigger, more stable guns on your spacecraft.

 curran12 wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Naval vehicles have advantages. They can be considerably more heavily built than aircraft, and are more mobile than land installations. Being able to move is a massive factor when bombardments are made on a long-term strategic level, especially when intel is limited (think Battleships the board game).

If the guns have recoil, it is a lot easier to mitigate on a floating platform than fixed on land. Naval guns will always be larger and more accurate than land based.

Except you forget that this is 40k. You have even bigger, more stable guns on your spacecraft.

Really well defended planets will have an iron ring, but for less developed/advanced planets it might not be possible to have lots of orbital defenses.
The orbital defenses are also sitting ducks with no shield, where as defenses on the planet will have the atmosphere to shield them from all but the heaviest projectiles.

 Exergy wrote:
If the guns have recoil, it is a lot easier to mitigate on a floating platform than fixed on land. Naval guns will always be larger and more accurate than land based.

Uh, no, not at all. Recoil is easy to mitigate as long as size/weight aren't a problem, but naval guns have a massive stability problem. It doesn't matter how accurate the gun itself is when the platform it's mounted on is moving with every wave. And the land-based guns don't have the same size or weight constraints as guns that have to fit on a ship. So it's actually the exact opposite: land-based guns can be larger and more accurate. There's a reason why real-world shore batteries with a handful of guns were expected to be a major defensive fortification.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 curran12 wrote:
-A planet with an objective (enemy, fortification, etc) that a navy is somehow better suited for over orbital bombardment followed by insertion.

And this is the fatal problem. Real-world navies make sense because there are things to defend or attack in the ocean, and power projection between continents requires ships to move stuff. But in 40k you have massive spacecraft that can move a whole army between continents without ever going near an ocean, carriers that can launch air strikes from orbit, orbital bombardment that can replace any ocean-based bombardment platforms, etc. The vast majority of the time there's simply going to be no reason to fight a naval battle.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Exergy wrote:
The orbital defenses are also sitting ducks with no shield, where as defenses on the planet will have the atmosphere to shield them from all but the heaviest projectiles.

But any shielding effect the atmosphere has works both ways. If you're protected against incoming fire you're not going to be able to shoot back effectively. In fact it's even worse because gravity works against ground defenses and in favor of attacks from space. The only advantage ground defenses have is that you can build them into massive fortifications with power generators/troop bunkers/etc buried miles underground, but that isn't something you can do with a navy.

 Exergy wrote:
And this is the fatal problem. Real-world navies make sense because there are things to defend or attack in the ocean, and power projection between continents requires ships to move stuff. But in 40k you have massive spacecraft that can move a whole army between continents without ever going near an ocean, carriers that can launch air strikes from orbit, orbital bombardment that can replace any ocean-based bombardment platforms, etc. The vast majority of the time there's simply going to be no reason to fight a naval battle.

Or, ANY battle. By this logic, there is no need for ANY military forces except occupation forces. Spaceships with weapons of mass destruction trump soldiers, Space Marines, tanks, fliers, superheavies, knights, titans, armies, etc. Game over, Man!

In Armaggeddon the orks use a giant submarine to invade I think it was Helsreach.

Orkimedes' craft, the Red Orktober, is a famous one.

 Ashiraya wrote:
Orkimedes' craft, the Red Orktober, is a famous one.

Red Orktober was a space hulk.

The humble Chimera is amphibious.

I could definetly see guard regiments from water worlds being specialised in naval warfare. Similar to Catachans in the jungle or Elysians in the air. Whilst I have no source for it I would argue for the existance of underwater cities in the Imperium. I do have sources for a few cities floating on water as well as cities moving/digging through the earth.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Orkimedes' craft, the Red Orktober, is a famous one.

Red Orktober was a space hulk.

I am pretty sure it is listed as a Submersible in my old Armageddon WD.

They have plenty of Maritime warfare, it usually is traded for Naval, as the Imperial Navy tends to just drop troops to wherever they need to go. Or, they just bomb it to oblivion. Or both, in that order.

One example is in the novel Flesh and Iron, where the fighting was based on Aircraft carriers. I don't remember who ran the ship, but it was either Imperial Navy or the normal Imperial Guard.

A maritime navy is the realm of a PDF or other local forces. Against the Imperial Navy, it's basically worthless, as it will never be able to compete with something that can fire from orbit. It's also a lot easier, and faster, to move people and stuff from orbit to ground via transport ships than it is to load them onto boats and sail across an ocean.