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Witch branch of Imperium service treats its men and women better? Like if you were isekaid into 40k and given a choice between joining the navy or the army which would you choose? I know it can vary wildly based on which regiment or fleet your in but in general which has a better standard of living for your average soldier/ ummm sailor? Voidsmen? Navy person?

If you can choose to join the Navy, then that's probably the best option - but more likely you'd be drafted against your will (and that's not a good life).

Probably the stormtroopers, if you can survive the schola progenium. The trainings may be very difficult but life is probably better (housings, food, not being treated like dogs...).
But the Navy ? Idk. If we use a real world comparison, even the good Navy used to treat quite badly their men IIRC because they had no choice: no place, no room, bad food, always working...
Speaking about the 18th and 19th centuries here.

I suspect that each are grim in their own ways, just that we tend to hear more about the ground infantry rather than the navy/air forces for the Imperium.

Consider that ground infantry should, in most cases, be nestled within bunkers and with comrades. They essentially fight in groups, large ones. So often as not you're part of a combined armies race toward the enemy; or a defensive position. It's hell down there, but unless your side is losing you've got more chance to avoid getting shot as your part of the group.


Meanwhile in the air even though you're behind metal and protective barriers; you're more on your own. Even if you fly in formation the nature of dogfights means that you'll get fragmented after a while.

In addition you might easily be fighting over a no-mans-land between two ground forces or far into enemy lines. If your craft is shot down and you bail out (or survive impact). You could be alone and very far from your own lines and safety. At which point you're basically in the same position as an infantry guardsman sent on recon who loses their team. Same issues, same problems and same hell to get back to your own lines (with the chance that upon returning you might be shot for failing to achieve your objective and showing cowardliness in retreating instead of slogging on foot to complete your objective)

 godardc wrote:
Probably the stormtroopers, if you can survive the schola progenium. The trainings may be very difficult but life is probably better (housings, food, not being treated like dogs...).
But the Navy ? Idk. If we use a real world comparison, even the good Navy used to treat quite badly their men IIRC because they had no choice: no place, no room, bad food, always working...
Speaking about the 18th and 19th centuries here.

Yeah but modern day the navys are almost always better then the Army. Cause modern ships are complicated and you need at least some technical knowledge to crew one meaning Naval troops are more valuable and thus treated better. Id assume the same goes for the Imperium Navy given a fething space ship is far more complicated then a modern naval ship.

The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Probably the stormtroopers, if you can survive the schola progenium. The trainings may be very difficult but life is probably better (housings, food, not being treated like dogs...).
But the Navy ? Idk. If we use a real world comparison, even the good Navy used to treat quite badly their men IIRC because they had no choice: no place, no room, bad food, always working...
Speaking about the 18th and 19th centuries here.

Yeah but modern day the navys are almost always better then the Army. Cause modern ships are complicated and you need at least some technical knowledge to crew one meaning Naval troops are more valuable and thus treated better. Id assume the same goes for the Imperium Navy given a fething space ship is far more complicated then a modern naval ship.

You are aware that many maintenance duties might be conducted by a servitor - ergo a once living human now reduced to the role of an automated machine. They might even have totally random jobs like "turning screw 436" on the assembly line. Heck there's a short story somewhere about refuelling a starship where basically the living humans carry/walk the fuel toward the engine and basically get obliterated by extreme radiation. In a cruel twist of 40K madness small servitors are then deployed to clean up the remains. So you could end up basically getting ripped apart by radiation as part of your servicing duty for the ship.

The regular crew of an Imperial warship are very unlikely to be treated better, if anything being squashed like sardines in a can in a massive iron fortress cathedral in space.Only the upper ranks would likely enjoy any degree of freedom

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Overread wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 godardc wrote:
Probably the stormtroopers, if you can survive the schola progenium. The trainings may be very difficult but life is probably better (housings, food, not being treated like dogs...).
But the Navy ? Idk. If we use a real world comparison, even the good Navy used to treat quite badly their men IIRC because they had no choice: no place, no room, bad food, always working...
Speaking about the 18th and 19th centuries here.

Yeah but modern day the navys are almost always better then the Army. Cause modern ships are complicated and you need at least some technical knowledge to crew one meaning Naval troops are more valuable and thus treated better. Id assume the same goes for the Imperium Navy given a fething space ship is far more complicated then a modern naval ship.

You are aware that many maintenance duties might be conducted by a servitor - ergo a once living human now reduced to the role of an automated machine. They might even have totally random jobs like "turning screw 436" on the assembly line. Heck there's a short story somewhere about refuelling a starship where basically the living humans carry/walk the fuel toward the engine and basically get obliterated by extreme radiation. In a cruel twist of 40K madness small servitors are then deployed to clean up the remains. So you could end up basically getting ripped apart by radiation as part of your servicing duty for the ship.

The regular crew of an Imperial warship are very unlikely to be treated better, if anything being squashed like sardines in a can in a massive iron fortress cathedral in space.Only the upper ranks would likely enjoy any degree of freedom

Why not have the Servitors load the fuel? Thats like so dumb. Like so fething dumb. Like I get that the Imperium us a cruel place but most of thats a nesaasity. There is litterally no reason to not have there ships largely automated by servitors. Like none whatsoever.

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

Some ships do, but brute manpower is easier & cheaper. At the top end are Marine & Inquisition ships that can be operated by a minimal command staff, and at the other end there are ships that no-one understands how they work - but they know that if the yellow button isn't pressed every 90 minutes bad things happen...

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

It's important to realise that, to the Imperium, humans ARE machines. Especially the lower classes who are likely cheaper to feed than machines and are also expendable. Plus they can multi-task better. They can't just load torpedoes but that same person can also be used to load other munitions as the ship requires; swab the decks; pray to the Emperor and self replicate. A machine cannot do all those things, since that would require it to have an AI and AI is abominable technology banned over the whole Imperium.


Also don't forget that they likely do have auto loaders; but for specific historical roles that could not possibly be ported to other weapons. Plus different ships from different ages likely have different levels of technology on display and in-use. Provided it works the Imperium often sees no need to improve; and many times even if it doesn't work all that well they still won't improve.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

chimera0205 wrote:
[

Why not have the Servitors load the fuel? Thats like so dumb. Like so fething dumb. Like I get that the Imperium us a cruel place but most of thats a nesaasity. There is litterally no reason to not have there ships largely automated by servitors. Like none whatsoever.

Because at the same time as the Imperium considers humanity superior to machines, they are also expendable. The humans load the fuel because its a sacred and important task where failure would doom the ship. Thus humans perform it as humans are the chosen ones of the Emperor. Even though machines would perform the task just as well. Don't forget part of the Imperium is a neurotic level phobia of technology after the huge uprising of the Iron Men AI system generations ago. That phobia turned into religious dogma. Remember when they fuel the ship they've likely no real idea what is going on nor how it works. They just know that it works and that you do things this way. Whilst they've copious human bodies to perform the task there's basically no pressure to innovate or change things.

Indeed the whole of society is built to obey not innovate.

Auto loaders do exist but they are an individual ship upgrade in BFG rules (and thus not standard within a class), and even then the description outright says that it is semi-automation rather than full automation:

Auto-loaders. The ship's crew are aided in their task of readying torpedoes and attack craft by huge semi-automated machinery

p.156, BFG rulebook

 Overread wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

It's important to realise that, to the Imperium, humans ARE machines. Especially the lower classes who are likely cheaper to feed than machines and are also expendable. Plus they can multi-task better. They can't just load torpedoes but that same person can also be used to load other munitions as the ship requires; swab the decks; pray to the Emperor and self replicate. A machine cannot do all those things, since that would require it to have an AI and AI is abominable technology banned over the whole Imperium.


Also don't forget that they likely do have auto loaders; but for specific historical roles that could not possibly be ported to other weapons. Plus different ships from different ages likely have different levels of technology on display and in-use. Provided it works the Imperium often sees no need to improve; and many times even if it doesn't work all that well they still won't improve.

But thats BS. Machines are ALWAYS cheaper then people in the long term. The fuel needs of a machine will always eventually be cheaper then the Food, Water, Housing, etc needs of a person. Thats an unmutable fact backed up by all of human history. Not to Mention how much space is wasted on living quarters? Mess halls? Food storage? By automating as much as they can the ship is not only cheaper in yhe long term but can be made smaller and thus much harder to hit. Imagine how much a smaller target a Imperial Battlehip would be if you stripped out 90% of the Crew facility's. A smaller ship with just as much firepower.

chimera0205 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

It's important to realise that, to the Imperium, humans ARE machines. Especially the lower classes who are likely cheaper to feed than machines and are also expendable. Plus they can multi-task better. They can't just load torpedoes but that same person can also be used to load other munitions as the ship requires; swab the decks; pray to the Emperor and self replicate. A machine cannot do all those things, since that would require it to have an AI and AI is abominable technology banned over the whole Imperium.


Also don't forget that they likely do have auto loaders; but for specific historical roles that could not possibly be ported to other weapons. Plus different ships from different ages likely have different levels of technology on display and in-use. Provided it works the Imperium often sees no need to improve; and many times even if it doesn't work all that well they still won't improve.

But thats BS. Machines are ALWAYS cheaper then people in the long term. The fuel needs of a machine will always eventually be cheaper then the Food, Water, Housing, etc needs of a person. Thats an unmutable fact backed up by all of human history. Not to Mention how much space is wasted on living quarters? Mess halls? Food storage? By automating as much as they can the ship is not only cheaper in yhe long term but can be made smaller and thus much harder to hit. Imagine how much a smaller target a Imperial Battlehip would be if you stripped out 90% of the Crew facility's. A smaller ship with just as much firepower.

The Imperium does not operate on a rational basis. As I quoted direct from the BFG rulebook, the fact stands that 40K ships operate with a high degree of manual labor. Imperial ships are also festooned with decorative objects that add unnecessary mass. Space is also given over to chapels big and small for the spiritual needs of the crew. Inefficient but the Imperium does it anyway.

The cramped living quarters described in the background suggests actually very little space is given over to the life support and general living of the average crewman, who is fed processed rations with no concern over their quality of life. Like with a hive, there is a huge disparity between the high ranking officers and the rank and file. But the actual volume of space given over to crew needs still appears to only be a very small fraction of the total available volume of the ship. That accounts for how there can be such things as abandoned decks, deserted hallways, or "in-between decks" where stowaways, mutants, or (in one story) a Nurgle daemon could lurk undetected.

I heard in the navy you can sail the seven seas AND put your mind at ease, so it's gotta be better than the guard.

Yes and logically the Imperiums technology over thousands of years should have advanced considerably; but if anything its stagnated and gone backwards since the Horus Heresy. Heck when the Imperium first met the Tau the Tau were little more than banging rocks together. The Imperium then forgot about them before purging their world for settling and then when they met them again Tau had advanced to near Imperium levels of technology. Over that same span of time the Imperium didn't got anywhere with its technology.


It's not a sane world.

Iracundus wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

It's important to realise that, to the Imperium, humans ARE machines. Especially the lower classes who are likely cheaper to feed than machines and are also expendable. Plus they can multi-task better. They can't just load torpedoes but that same person can also be used to load other munitions as the ship requires; swab the decks; pray to the Emperor and self replicate. A machine cannot do all those things, since that would require it to have an AI and AI is abominable technology banned over the whole Imperium.


Also don't forget that they likely do have auto loaders; but for specific historical roles that could not possibly be ported to other weapons. Plus different ships from different ages likely have different levels of technology on display and in-use. Provided it works the Imperium often sees no need to improve; and many times even if it doesn't work all that well they still won't improve.

But thats BS. Machines are ALWAYS cheaper then people in the long term. The fuel needs of a machine will always eventually be cheaper then the Food, Water, Housing, etc needs of a person. Thats an unmutable fact backed up by all of human history. Not to Mention how much space is wasted on living quarters? Mess halls? Food storage? By automating as much as they can the ship is not only cheaper in yhe long term but can be made smaller and thus much harder to hit. Imagine how much a smaller target a Imperial Battlehip would be if you stripped out 90% of the Crew facility's. A smaller ship with just as much firepower.

The Imperium does not operate on a rational basis. As I quoted direct from the BFG rulebook, the fact stands that 40K ships operate with a high degree of manual labor. Imperial ships are also festooned with decorative objects that add unnecessary mass. Inefficient but the Imperium does it anyway.

The cramped living quarters described in the background suggests actually very little space is given over to the life support and general living of the average crewman, who is fed processed rations with no concern over their quality of life. Like with a hive, there is a huge disparity between the high ranking officers and the rank and file.

Yeah if there is ONE thing Gulliman needs get on before anything its crushing the Imperium anti Innovation stance completely and utterly. Something witch I believe he us already somewhat working given what Cawl is up to but he needs to be doing it on a much much wider scale.

"Research" under the Adeptus Mechanicus is more like archaeology. It revolves around rediscovering STC templates, or new variants of existing ones. Much of this therefore is just a simple weapon swap or other minor differences rather than anything revolutionary.

The problem is the Adeptus Mechanicus theology paradigm. Since the STC is held to have held all knowledge worth knowing, everything ends up being justified as being a rediscovery or permissible variant, even if perhaps it might not truly be the case. To dare propose that you have invented something entirely new is seen as an act of hubris for daring to presume you know better than the ancients.

The other thing about the Imperium is that technology doesn't progress linearly. Different fields seem to advance (or regress) at different rates, in a "1 step forward, 2 steps back" fashion. An example of this is in BFG. Older ships have longer range guns, faster engines, and an entire class of ships (grand cruisers) fell out of favor once powerful enough engines could no longer be produced. However at the same time, the invention (or rather rediscovery) of superfired plasma weaponry led to the creation of the Tyrant class cruiser, and the Firestorm frigate was created by modifying a Sword class frigate. Arguably these latter are just tweaks or rediscovering rather than genuine innovation.

Ultimately the Adeptus Mechanicus with its practice of hoarding information like a mystery cult, even within itself, is not conducive to advancement or peer review. Even their heretics like the Dark Mechanicus or the Logicians (detailed in the FFG's RPGs) are really more the "mad scientist" trope of someone tinkering away in a haphazard fashion ("For Science!") than a true scientific method of peer reviewed research and development.

There is no lack of space on Imperial vessels, even if you take account that there are thousands of dumb grunts just pulling and carrying stuff. You can fit apt of people into something 6km long

beast_gts wrote:

Some ships do, but brute manpower is easier & cheaper. At the top end are Marine & Inquisition ships that can be operated by a minimal command staff, and at the other end there are ships that no-one understands how they work - but they know that if the yellow button isn't pressed every 90 minutes bad things happen...

To put this in perspective, the most common warships in the galaxy are Escort type ships, analogous to modern day destroyers, destroyer escorts and corvettes. A marine Escort is generally crewed by a single digit complement of Astartes and Techmarines with servitor crew and automated systems. The Imperial Navy will throw several thousand empressed humans at the same type of ship.

Sterling191 wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

Some ships do, but brute manpower is easier & cheaper. At the top end are Marine & Inquisition ships that can be operated by a minimal command staff, and at the other end there are ships that no-one understands how they work - but they know that if the yellow button isn't pressed every 90 minutes bad things happen...

To put this in perspective, the most common warships in the galaxy are Escort type ships, analogous to modern day destroyers, destroyer escorts and corvettes. A marine Escort is generally crewed by a single digit complement of Astartes and Techmarines with servitor crew and automated systems. The Imperial Navy will throw several thousand empressed humans at the same type of ship.

A bit inaccurate on the details.

Marine escorts have up to a squad of Marines as command crew and officers. They are crewed by Chapter serfs.

The equivalent escort ships of the Imperial Navy have more crew yes, but Andy Chambers (who designed BFG) wrote from the old BFG mailing list (so it's been just about 2 decades): http://inisfail.realmsofinisfail.com/bfg/bfg-andy-crew-sizes.html

Basically 200-500 crew for escorts. 1500-2000 crew per damage point for BFG capital ships for the Imperium and Chaos.

If one thinks about the volume of a 40K starship, the fact many of the crew are effectively manual laborers means already many of the ship functions are automated. They just are automated in a black box type of situation where nobody really knows (maybe not even the Tech Priests) what exactly those big machines do or where those pipes go.

You really, really dont want to be in the position of arguing in support of information extrapolated from BFG stats. Thats how you end up with things like Escorts with the kinetic weapon capacity to destroy planets.

Sterling191 wrote:
You really, really dont want to be in the position of arguing in support of information extrapolated from BFG stats. Thats how you end up with things like Escorts with the kinetic weapon capacity to destroy planets.

Who's extrapolating? The creator of BFG explicitly stated the crew scale.

There are also explicit nuggets from the Black Library novels that give the effective speed of a Nova Cannon shell: 5,000 km per second. (Warriors of Ultramar)

A lot of BFG information is out there. It's just scattered around, but it has a (for Black Library) a remarkable level of internal consistency.

Also the kinetic energy claim for escorts is also overblown, though going down that path does require some calculation based on the known dimensions and velocities of BFG weapons. Even the Nova Cannon cannot achieve sufficient kinetic energy capacity to destroy planets, though the detonation of the shell can make life difficult.

Navy for the sure. Especially if you're a pilot. But even if you were just an aircraft technician, at least you're not stuck in some trench fighting superior enemies like aliens or possessed space marines.

Claustropobia might be an issue though as crew quarters appear to be cramped. Hive worlders might not mind.

http://inisfail.realmsofinisfail.com/bfg/bfg-lances.html

The above again is from Andy Chambers, creator of BFG. He muses on how the crew of a lance turret (200-500) might spend the rest of their lives essentially living in the turret.

Iracundus wrote:

Who's extrapolating? The creator of BFG explicitly stated the crew scale.

A statement which does not appear in any official source. Fanon, even from a creator, doesn't mean jack until it appears in-verse.

Iracundus wrote:

Also the kinetic energy claim for escorts is also overblown, though going down that path does require some calculation based on the known dimensions and velocities of BFG weapons. Even the Nova Cannon cannot achieve sufficient kinetic energy capacity to destroy planets, though the detonation of the shell can make life difficult.

Yeah, no. It's quite simple math.

Sterling191 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Who's extrapolating? The creator of BFG explicitly stated the crew scale.

A statement which does not appear in any official source. Fanon, even from a creator, doesn't mean jack until it appears in-verse.

Iracundus wrote:

Also the kinetic energy claim for escorts is also overblown, though going down that path does require some calculation based on the known dimensions and velocities of BFG weapons. Even the Nova Cannon cannot achieve sufficient kinetic energy capacity to destroy planets, though the detonation of the shell can make life difficult.

Yeah, no. It's quite simple math.

Yes it is and the numbers still don't add up to planet destroying levels. We know the breech width of a nova cannon (50m). We know its firing velocity of 5,000 km/s. Though we do not know the length of the shell, one can make some guesstimates based on RL cannon shell shapes and dimensions. We don't know the mass of a shell but again even using a dense element, we don't reach planet destroying energy levels of kinetic energy. Even that would be an overestimate because Nova Cannon shells are not kinetic penetrators but instead have a timed fuse that explodes, meaning the shell is not going to be solid and superdense throughout.

The precise reason given within the fluff for why the Planet Killer is feared is because its weapon can break up a planet.

Crew sizes are backed up by Black Library publications so it is not just idle speculation by Andy Chambers:

Now, six years later, he was one of the most senior non-commissioned officers amongst a crew of almost thirteen thousand...
p. 62, Shadow Point , by Gordon Rennie

That is for a Dictator class cruiser with 8 Damage points. By Andy Chambers' scale that is a crew of 12-16k. 13k is within that range.

Ridiculously large crew sizes are also inconsistent with the described capacities of average BFG transport ships, which are described as carrying about 1 regiment. Ridiculously large crew sizes lead to the illogical situation of a transport requiring more people to man it, than the actual transported troops. That is a situation that I don't think has ever existed for any kind of military transport vessel.

Can we stop applying logic to the Imperium. This is a galactic empire quite happy to pump resources into creation of a servitor cyborg which has the sole purpose of tightening one single screw on a production line for tanks which were designed in WW1 and haven't been updated since (which is basically most of the Imperial Guard tanks).

A transport with more crew than troops it transports would be VERY like the insane Imperium. Remember people are essentially a worthless resource that the Imperium has too many of.

Iracundus wrote:

Crew sizes are backed up by Black Library publications so it is not just idle speculation by Andy Chambers:

Now, six years later, he was one of the most senior non-commissioned officers amongst a crew of almost thirteen thousand...
p. 62, Shadow Point , by Gordon Rennie

That is for a Dictator class cruiser with 8 Damage points. By Andy Chambers' scale that is a crew of 12-16k. 13k is within that range.

Congratulations, you have a single data value for a single vessel. Get back to me when you have publihsed data for every single vessel classification, in both Astartes and Navy service, with breakdown by servitor, rating, officer and marine breakdowns.

Oh. Right.

Fanon is fanon. Even if its fanon you like.

Iracundus wrote:

Yes it is and the numbers still don't add up to planet destroying levels. We know the breech width of a nova cannon (50m). We know its firing velocity of 5,000 km/s. Though we do not know the length of the shell, one can make some guesstimates based on RL cannon shell shapes and dimensions. We don't know the density but again even using a dense element, we don't reach planet destroying energy levels of kinetic energy.

A single 50m diameter kinetic shell is roughly the tonnage of a small modern day warship (quite likely greater, but I'm being conservative based on whacky space materials). The energy released with a 5k kps impact of such a mass is beyond cataclysmic.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Iracundus wrote:

The precise reason given within the fluff for why the Planet Killer is feared is because its weapon can break up a planet.

Fluff has no basis in scientific reality.

 Overread wrote:
Can we stop applying logic to the Imperium. This is a galactic empire quite happy to pump resources into creation of a servitor cyborg which has the sole purpose of tightening one single screw on a production line for tanks which were designed in WW1 and haven't been updated since (which is basically most of the Imperial Guard tanks).

A transport with more crew than troops it transports would be VERY like the insane Imperium. Remember people are essentially a worthless resource that the Imperium has too many of.

It creates other discrepancies beyond just that though.

The performance of BFG ships in boarding actions depends on their Damage Points. Eldar damage points according to Andy Chambers represent fewer than the 1.5-2k of the Imperium's Damage Points. While Eldar Corsairs may be better than a Imperial Navy rating, I don't think they're that much better that you could expect <2k Eldar for an escort sized ship to outfight an Imperial transport's 1 Damage Point equivalent in crew, if one went with ridiculously large crew scales for the Imperium.

Basically the BFG scale and performance is internally consistent within BFG and BL background, within a certain margin of error. If the crew sizes for the Imperium get jacked up to ridiculously large sizes, other aspects of the background start to collapse from internal inconsistency.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Sterling191 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Crew sizes are backed up by Black Library publications so it is not just idle speculation by Andy Chambers:

Now, six years later, he was one of the most senior non-commissioned officers amongst a crew of almost thirteen thousand...
p. 62, Shadow Point , by Gordon Rennie

That is for a Dictator class cruiser with 8 Damage points. By Andy Chambers' scale that is a crew of 12-16k. 13k is within that range.

Congratulations, you have a single data value for a single vessel. Get back to me when you have publihsed data for every single vessel classification, in both Astartes and Navy service, with breakdown by servitor, rating, officer and marine breakdowns.

Oh. Right.

Fanon is fanon. Even if its fanon you like.

BL is part of GW which holds the IP, therefore their official authorized publications are not fanon. You cannot simply dismiss evidence from the IP holder arbitrarily like that.

A single 50m diameter kinetic shell is roughly the tonnage of a small modern day warship (quite likely greater, but I'm being conservative based on whacky space materials). The energy released with a 5k kps impact of such a mass is beyond cataclysmic.

Stated crew sizes are always absurdly small as the writers really don't understand scale and have never heard of square-cube law.