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Sorry, but it's hard to fear an army of guys with weapons with a maximum range equal to a snub 22


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Sorry, but it's hard to fear an army of guys with weapons with a maximum range equal to a snub 22, and less accurate to boot! On the battlefield, it would be like shooting gophers

You have a source for that range? Or just salt?

5'9" human, 24x maximum range on the table. 125'

pm713 wrote:
How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-12_Equalizer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
5'9" human, 24x maximum range on the table. 125'

Tabletop not to scale. Like, since forever.

Simple answer: Imperium as you aren't going to loose a fight from the top of a gravity well unless your opponent seriously outclasses you in technology.

Really though, you can't take two different settings and smash them together and expect them to work without dragging them into the other's setting. Comparing ST vs SW doesn't really work because both operate with different scientific realities. In ST a Federation ship scoffs at laser weapons but in SW planets don't scoff at the Death Star laser. How well would a Federation ship deal with a hit from a laser with enough energy to destroy an entire planet? No matter which way you go, you will likely be favoring one setting or the other.

Now if an IG guardsmen is as strong and tough as a regular human in reality, than an unarmed IG soldier getting shot by a .45 round is going to be having a very bad day and likely won't be doing much of anything else, if anything at all, for the rest of the day. We know that is mechanically possible for an IG soldier to kill a SM in close combat armed only with a lasgun. Now this implies that a real soldier would have a similarly unlikely chance and also implies modern weapons would still work.

Now let's continue from there and say you want to bring SM over to a Rifts RPG. There you have two types of damage, Structural Damage and Mega Damage. 1 point of MDC (Mega Damage Capacity) is equal to 100 SDC but it does not actually mean they are equal. If you have 120 SDC and take 1 MD, you get vaporized. If you unload with an SD weapon into a MDC target and do 120 SD, it takes no damage. Clearly converting a SM over to Rifts would mean they should be SDC characters as they can be beat by unaugmented humans and humans are SD creatures. This means a human in plastic man armor and shooting with a Willks laser pistol (both very basic MD gear) will ruin several SM because the setting mechanics don't mix well. Chances are though, if you are working to port SM to Rifts, they will probably just become MDC so they can still do what GW wanted them to do in Rifts, even if they are now immune to basic humans without MD weapons, because they come from a world with magic/psychics which are MD in Rifts.

Every setting has its own rules quirks that don't mix well with others. Luke Skywalker can pilot an X Wing in combat without any apparent training in space combat because SW was Inspired by pulp serials from a time when a kid who tooled around in the family crop duster could theoretically jump into a p-51 Mustang and be a good pilot. In reality a person who flies private aircraft won't become a modern fighter pilot, space shuttle pilot, or transatmospheric fighter pilot without a lot of training.

 Earth127 wrote:
You're wrong admech doesn't use computers they use cogitators, organic brains harvested to act as computers. Meaing even a servo skull has more processing power than our current day supercomputers. The admech is post robot apocalypse apocalyptic cult with varying degrees of technology.

While the human brain is the most complex structure in the know universe, it’s neither reliable nor as capable as you seem to think. Can you do high end math and run solfware in your head? Or can you do simple repetitive tasks? We both know the answer to that.

We know the imperium does not use always traditional carbon based fuel. they have a variety of power scources wich for conveniences sake all have the same result on the tabletop. (Vostroya aside).

A non-point. I already stated the Imperium have better power supplies. Restating that they have better power supply either means you missed it or you didn’t understand that the point was already given.

Do not underestimate the ground power of an army with air superiority and zero regard for losses.

Again, a non-point. The Imperium has space, so they win. We have have air and ground superiority, so from just a ground war point of view, we come out ahead.

Power armour is described as not just protecting the space marine but allowing for a host strenght/speed boosting effects. a space marine is described as pretty much Captain america in iron mans suit.

Doesn’t matter, the wearer is still salsa if hit by an Rocket Propelled Grenade.

Adamantium is based on wolverine's claws, not adamant.

Kind of an ignorant statement, since Marvel’s “adamantium” is a rephrasing of Steel, just like “Transparent Aluminum” is Sapphire, and “Dihydrogenoxide” is water.

I can't even remember a recent description of what ceramite is supposed to do.

It’s a ferrous ceramic with near indestructible qualities such as being 33% the weight of steel, being highly resistant to heat and impact damage, being good at blocking radiation, and requiring a special method of casting ... exactly like metal foam!

Plasma weapons are dangerous not for ionizarioon but the pure amount of energy they deliver. Everything depends on just how hot those flames are. And imperial plasma tech has been descriped as " the caged heart of a star."

Which is lightning. Plasma weapons in 40k are particle weapons in real life, which means they are functionally lightning guns. Lightning has been described as containing the heat of the sun, and are electrical discharges. Which are countered by lightning rods, which are simply a grounded conductor. Yes, a lightning strike is extremely destructive, and yes, cars and planes aren’t normally struck by lightning because they are not connected to earth ground, yet are internally grounded. We can create plasma weaponry right now, it’s just not easy to do while being easy to defeat. Unlike projectile weapons, which are easier to make and harder to defeat.

And that's before we delve into the heart of 40k's handwavium : the warp.

Handwavium is BSium, and has no meaning in a comparison between similar technologies when one is based in real life. The “it’s Magic” argument doesn’t even work in religious debates, sure doesn’t work when comparing a M-16 to a Lasgun.

SJ

 Nacre wrote:
Setting aside the problem that the fluff doesn't make sense, one can't deny the fluff presents a lot of 40K weapons as extremely powerful. Of course, potency is not always reflected by the in-game stats. For example, space marines are more powerful in the books than on the table top. Nonetheless, I don't understand why anyone would think guardsmen with their lasguns are more potent than modern infantrymen. Feel free to correct me if you have a good example from the books. The fluff makes the lasguns sound about as effective as an assault rifle:

https://regimental-standard.com/2018/03/28/field-dressing-a-lasgun-wound/

And in the game, an unarmored person who gets hits has 50% chance of continuing to fight. I don't think a person's odds would be better against an AK47.

Physics of bullet wounds is actually quite interesting. Pistol rounds are extremely ineffective. In addition to having a lethality of only about 15%, often a torso shot doesn't even register with someone whos been shot.

assault rifle wounds vary wildly but typically the hydrostatic shock and tumbling in some cases means rifle and shotgun rounds have about a 50% lethality, and are much more immediately incapacitating.


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pm713 wrote:
How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.

The US military alone has weapons capable of doing this with smaller ICBM targets. I can only imagine what Eldar or Tau would have. The only thing that keeps marines from losing every battle before it begins is the grace of the emperor.


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 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It’s a misnomer to think the IG of 40k has superior technology to our modern day militaries. The IG functionally has WWII level of technology. Yes, they have Lasguns, but the only advantage Lasguns have over modern military grade small arms is the lack of a reliance on ammunition. Most IG weaponry is unguided and short ranged. Most of modern weaponry is designed for high accuracy at extreme ranges.

one note to think about is the IG doesn't NEED better equipment, tactics would help, but they need numbers and a reliable supply train. The Lasgun might only be equal or lesser than an assault rifle but when you're being shipped off to a planet 3 lightyears away from the from civilization, you need ammunition that recharges itself.


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 jeffersonian000 wrote:


Flak Armor is the same between both groups, while Carapace Armor is no different than modern ballistic vests. Players of 40k either forget or never bother to learn that Flak vest are not designed to stop bullets, they are designed to stop shrapnel from nearby explosions. Actual ballistic vests are designed to absorb the kinetic energy of small arms fire, while ballistic plate incerts are intended to absorb the energy of higher caliber rounds up to rifle round in some cases; ie, Carapace Armor.

SJ

only thing is those ballistics inserts are small. Armor mechanics in 40k are terrible. realistically you have to look at penetration it takes, coverage of the armor, and blast resistance.


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 jeffersonian000 wrote:
I

Yep, we don’t have hard exoskeleton powered armor like Astartes, and probably won’t for at least another 10 years, if not quite a bit longer. The issues with 40k PA in real life are specifically the power supply and that any protection it can give is easily defeated by anti-vehicle weapons that are already widely available. Which means that while Astartes can ignore our small arms, they’ll still eat it to cheap anti-tank rockets and armor piercing high caliber rounds, just like they already due to the 40k equivalents.

SJ

I dont think we will ever see power armor. In fact i can almost guarantee it. I can't legally say how i know that. Just suffice to say logistics are a SOB and infantry need to be able to stand on multiple levels of buildings. Unless a major advancement in lightweight bullet resistant material is introduced, the powered armor is just going to be fantasy. Stealth is more important and more effective.


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Also here's a hard pill to swallow. a USMC or equivalent sniper with a AP .50BMG will kill just about anything, anyone, including your precious super heroes. Superman included with a kryptonite tip. No superman cannot hear the bullet coming it's moving faster than the speed of sound.

That's the core of why 40k only works in a rule of cool universe. one man with the proper rifle can kill just about any of your favorite characters. hell even daemons since they seem to be equally affected by physical weapons.

It's not pretty, it's not fun, it's not interesting, it's not honorable, but it's damn effective.

gendoikari87 wrote:

The US military alone has weapons capable of doing this with smaller ICBM targets. I can only imagine what Eldar or Tau would have. The only thing that keeps marines from losing every battle before it begins is the grace of the emperor.

Source? My understanding is that ICBM countermeasures are pretty unreliable. Genuine curiosity.

 Flinty wrote:

pm713 wrote:
How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-12_Equalizer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system

Gau-12 and the CIWS aren't designed for that sort of purpose, you'd need anti ICBM missiles


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 Insectum7 wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

The US military alone has weapons capable of doing this with smaller ICBM targets. I can only imagine what Eldar or Tau would have. The only thing that keeps marines from losing every battle before it begins is the grace of the emperor.

Source? My understanding is that ICBM countermeasures are pretty unreliable. Genuine curiosity.

If by unreliable you mean they have a good 50% success rate? sure. And that's against ICBMs that don't have to retrograde before they hit the ground. other large air to surface missiles would work well too once the retroboosters engage. and we have plenty of those, ala the patriot.

It’s not the armor that’s the issue, it’s the power supply. All current exoskeleton designs that require power to work at tethered. Our battery technology is still lagging behind, and we can’t just strap a pocket fission core to our soldiers just to power an exo frame. But we can definitely armor a frame, it just won’t be all that maneuverable, and won’t be able to not be tethered. I’m still seeing them as being a thing in 10-15 years.

SJ

I was pointing to the CIWS in particular as an example of a system that can rapidly calculate a trajectory and engage it with a weapon system.

Drop pods aren't coming in at the speed of might therefore we ready have stuff to track and engage targets at those speeds.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It’s not the armor that’s the issue, it’s the power supply. All current exoskeleton designs that require power to work at tethered. Our battery technology is still lagging behind, and we can’t just strap a pocket fission core to our soldiers just to power an exo frame. But we can definitely armor a frame, it just won’t be all that maneuverable, and won’t be able to not be tethered. I’m still seeing them as being a thing in 10-15 years.

SJ

Even a weightless powercore wouldn't solve the issue, the actual armor itself is bulky, motion limiting and clunky. You'd need something akin to medival knight armor that could stop assault rifle rounds.

gendoikari87 wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It’s not the armor that’s the issue, it’s the power supply. All current exoskeleton designs that require power to work at tethered. Our battery technology is still lagging behind, and we can’t just strap a pocket fission core to our soldiers just to power an exo frame. But we can definitely armor a frame, it just won’t be all that maneuverable, and won’t be able to not be tethered. I’m still seeing them as being a thing in 10-15 years.

SJ

Even a weightless powercore wouldn't solve the issue, the actual armor itself is bulky, motion limiting and clunky. You'd need something akin to medival knight armor that could stop assault rifle rounds.

Oh thats easy, you just wave your hand and make the armour out of "trademarkanium" and you have a knight of old who is largely bullet proof, but whom strangely will fall to one in three small stones thrown at him hard enough, though still be able to shrug off one in six nuclear warheads

I think you have that backward. Nukes are S(D), which would negate any saves.

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
I think you have that backward. Nukes are S(D), which would negate any saves.

is str D still a thing?

gendoikari87 wrote:
General question: how does the worlds modern military tech/soldiers stack up against those from 40k?

Personally I think a modern us or Russian or Chinese soldier would be more than a match for any infantry the ig can bring to bear, basically the equivalent of tempestus. Though they’d start to have trouble against bigger targets (m16 being the classic autogun) they do have access to better equipment, for example both Russians and the us have stockpiles of semi and full auto rifles in full rifle calibers with ap ammunition. Probably the equivalent of hotshot lasguns. But overall better training (because hey we don’t have a tyrranid fleet over us)

In terms of main battle tank, despite the look the Abrams/leopard2/chally2 all have the same caliber of gun as the lrbt 120 smoothbore , and what’s more the vanquishers description sounds super similar to our modern version. Armor wise I don’t know much about the russ but outside of the Abrams most mbt have active protection systems designed to stop missiles

Overall I’d say we actually have better equipment and tactics than the imperium at large. Maybe even space marines. The same I think can be said for most scifi and fantasy worlds because most writers simply do not fully comprehend the full breadth of the power of modern weapons nor are they trained in tactics.

Also let’s not forget things in 40k that are near direct ports from our world

Heavy stubbed = mg34 or equivalent
Missile launcher = at4
Autocannon = 20-25mm auto cannon
Predator autocannon = mk44 bushmaster ii

Our army/tech is as primitive as a medieval army in comparison to 30k-40k.

You’ve never read anything in 40k if you think we are more primitive.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
You’ve never read anything in 40k if you think we are more primitive.

SJ

i don't even think its about being more primitive. I mean i could pour resources into electromagnetic containment and ultracompressed plasma to make a plasma gun that actually, you know functions as described but those would be mostly wasted resources compared to say rail guns because thermal heat transfer is just... not as efficient and the technology just required to make it work would be immense. and then there's who they use them.... that's another problem

A while back GW released the technical stats for various imperial vehicles. Stuff like gun size, speed, range (aka fuel capacity), armor. The armor was interesting because they listed it as equivalent to tank armor steel aka rolled homogeneous steel (RHS).

They listed the front armor of a LRBT, at the same protection of 20mm of RHS, the LR at 300 mm (edited from my previous state 250mm). An Abrams is sitting there at a minimum of 850mm equivilent, and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection. A modern real world MBT is functionally immune to 40K AT weapons outside of super heavies. Meanwhile, an MBT can shoot and kill another MBT with one shot. This means that even a Land Raider gets canoed by a 105-125mm tank cannon, 25mm bushmasters, and 30mm Avengers. Or infantry portable copperheads, javelins, or even newer model RPG's.

How many shadowswords does the average imperial force carry with it? Because that's what you'd have to use to damage an Abrams reliably. The US has over 8,000 of them. Did the Imperial invaders bring 8K + shadowswords?

I also forgot, in terms of speed, an Abrams with a governor still on it is twice as fast as a LRBT over land, and 2.5x faster on a road. It also (like the LRBT) can use pretty much any combustible liquid as a fuel.

Small arms.
M-16. Fun quirk about the M-16. It's actually less powerful then it could be. During development they changed the rifling from a 16" rifle, to an 18" (aka the length of the barrel needed for the groove to do a full circle of the barrel.) At 16" the M-16 can blow limbs off. The reason we changed it is that it loses accuracy in arctic temperatures.

Several of the Auto-guns depicted in 40K are M-16's and AK-47/74's. GW once flat out said the heavy stubber is an M2 machine gun (aka browning .50). So it's safe to assume that RW rifles are str:3, and RW M2's are str 4.

A .75 is roughly a 20mm gun. But a bolter isn't automatically the same as RW cannon. Bolt shells look to be about 3-4 inches long. RW 20mm cannon rounds are closer to 8". All of that extra space is gun powder, which means a more powerful shot. With the longer barrel, such as on vehicle mounted weapons, you also get a longer range, and an even higher muzzle velocity. The latter means even more damage and penetration.

Wich is why SCi-fi writers should never reveal their "numbers". They no sense of scale, or what tech they'd actually need to make some things they describe work.

But they did, and that's what we have to work with.

 Flinty wrote:

pm713 wrote:
How exactly are they shooting it down? The whole point of a Drop Pod is the time it takes to launch it and land it is so fast there isn't really time to aim shots accurately enough to destroy it and it has enough self control to stay relatively on course.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-400_missile_system

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-12_Equalizer

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Close-in_weapon_system

Okay. So they can make the Drop Pod land two streets away from where it was meant to if anything. Still getting your head removed by a giant angry mans fist.

 Mmmpi wrote:
and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection.

HEAT is not based on heat. HEAT creates a hypersonic jet of semi liquid copper that interacts with metals in a semiplastic state. Effectively it's a giant hypersonic spear.... that once it penetrates breaks up into billions of tiny spears and turns the crew inside to hamburger.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
You’ve never read anything in 40k if you think we are more primitive.

SJ

I didn't realise we had fusion and stasis fields as commonplace technology. Oh, wait we don't.

gendoikari87 wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:
and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection.

HEAT is not based on heat. HEAT creates a hypersonic jet of semi liquid copper that interacts with metals in a semiplastic state. Effectively it's a giant hypersonic spear.... that once it penetrates breaks up into billions of tiny spears and turns the crew inside to hamburger.

Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.

 Mmmpi wrote:

gendoikari87 wrote:

 Mmmpi wrote:
and against weapons that rely on heat (RW, HEAT rounds (aka copper plasma jets)/40K Lasers and plasma), it jumps to over 1600mm worth of protection.

HEAT is not based on heat. HEAT creates a hypersonic jet of semi liquid copper that interacts with metals in a semiplastic state. Effectively it's a giant hypersonic spear.... that once it penetrates breaks up into billions of tiny spears and turns the crew inside to hamburger.

Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.

take it from someone who’s PhD is on this effect. Almost nothing you said was true

You have a PhD? Really? I'm a pretty princess.

 Mmmpi wrote:
Except to achieve that effect, it's heated to semi-plasma and has to blowtorch it's way though the armor. The high speed just lets it keep moving forward, rather then splatting against, and filling in the crater it formed in the armor plating. The effect it has on the crew is from the super-heated hull exploding, and then spalling.

WTF? No. None of that is true at all. Please do some basic research on the subject before posting nonsense. HEAT rounds are purely a kinetic weapon, penetrating armor by applying a lot of force to a small surface area and punching a hole in it. HEAT is an acronym and has nothing to do with temperature.

These days modern military's arent equipped to fight the grinding battles of Stalingrad or fall of Berlin the Imperium likes to fight.
Wooop de doo you have 8000 Abrams. They have 80000 Leman Russes.
Ze germans prolly thought, we have 1000 Tigers. Your crappy Shermans. Lol gg.
All the long range missiles we use require a base station which more or less turns them into imperium los weapons or requires some sort of communications with something in space. Which would be the first this taken out.