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Made in lt
Regular Dakkanaut





It is because people do not consider all the things that allows melee combat to happen in W40k. My main point about melee combat today was using combat drug called frenzone. This combat drug converts person into beserker. His body will be overloaded and pushed beyond what a human is physically capable of. Furthermore it will allow person to ignore injuries which would kill most men. Blown up arm? Barely noticeable. Hole in a chest? Not something you are going to die fast enough. You only need ten seconds to get into melee to do damage and these drugs can prevent body from realizing damage that was inflicted upon it.

There is also a thing with exploding collars. In W40k slave masters of these troops will have each soldier attached to a collar with some explosives in it. If you don't do what he says, your head will explode. That is pretty big motivator to charge those troops without stopping. Especially when they have automatic drug injectors who will remove all fear, self preservation. No machine gun will give you pause. Only most severe wounds like blowing up head or heart will stop you for good, otherwise you will need to either riddle person with bullets in order to stop him for good.

I think that the only thing that prevents melee from happening in real life is our morality and self preservation instinct. Now, if we take those two things out. Lets say I'm a chaos lord and had enslaved a lot of people. Those slaves are useless to me. So, I will give them to slave masters. They will attach those explosive collars upon their necks. I do believe that will really motivate people to do what they are told as otherwise their fellow head explodes in a shower of blood and brain matter. The only thing and technology which we do not have to make melee a real threat in our world is this drug, frenzone.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2020/02/06 10:55:03


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on the forum. Obviously

Ok, so frenzone is a little stronger than PCP. Wouldn't the practical solution then be to aim for the legs to slow them down? If you can sever an arm, you can sever a leg. I dunno, I see where you're coming from, I just don't think its that easy to get into melee.

Maybe if you popped smoke first to hide the charge, but that's practically an ambush.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/06 10:58:31


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Lads, this is a game where 8 foot super soldiers which can spit acid and fire rockets regularly engage british football hooligan mushrooms, 20 meters alien monsters and robots older than most planets.

I think we need to leave any pretence of realism at the door and just enjoy the spectacle.
   
Made in lt
Regular Dakkanaut





Well, I'm half joking in this thread. I do believe that ranged combat is most viable format in today or W40k world. I just want to play with people perception that melee combat only works because it is fantasy setting.

The thing with frenzone drug in lore is that it makes person into mindless beserker. You can cut person's arm with chainsword and it won't have any effect on him. Sure, his body might be dying, but combat is often very fast and brutal. He might need a minute to bleed out and die, but he only need a second to stab you with his knife.

If you aim for their legs you have a lot of people still crawling and trying to run in order to reach your position. A person drugged with proper mix of chemicals become little more than a hormagaunt. It will run mindlessly at you and will sustain ridiculous amount of damage, because its brain will refuse to accept a fact that it is already dead. This is why melee charges are so difficult to stop. It is not enough to merely hit a person anymore. Sure he might die on his own due to damage inflicted, but it will take him a little bit of time. If you do not stop person physically from running at you, he will still be a threat even if he is going to fall dead few seconds later due to his internal injuries. Heck, even headshot or hitting a heart won't do much good for you in some cases. Do you know that after you chop chicken's head, his body will proceed to run mindlessly around for few seconds? These few seconds while human continues to run at you out of pure inertia still contributes to a charge. It unerves soldier which might make him panic. It still forces soldier to fire even more rounds at him even if he does not need it. This is why fully automatic modes on your weapons, kinetic/stopping power is so important in W40k on your weapon. Then you can really be effective and put hurt upon someone who is charging you.

Yup, I had mentioned smoke when I had created this thread. There are many ways to help you with reaching other squad. Suppressive fire. Firing smoke into their positions. Artillery barrages. Mix in some assault weapons like flamethrowers. This is why guardsmen relies in lore so heavily upon their heavy armaments. Heavy bolters, flamers are often just the only thing that stands against their survival and being nom nomed by hormagaunts.

Also, troops about which we talked about often are used just as mere distractions. For example, crazed fanatics drugged with combat drugs in Chaos armies are merely cannon fodder meant to screen and protect far more valuable troops.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/02/06 11:17:48


"If the path to salvation leads through the halls of purgatory, then so be it."

Death Guard = 728 (PL 41) and Space Marines = 831 (PL 50)
Slaanesh demons = 460
Khorne demons = 420
Nighthaunts = 840 points Stormcast Eternals = 880 points. 
   
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 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.



Bayonet charges are still a thing. In 2011, IIRC, a British platoon fixed bayonets and charged the enemy when caught in an ambush in Afghanistan.

While charging in mass to stick 'em with the pointy end is no longer the premier battle tactic, it's still valid and useful when the situation calls for it, and very effective at dislodging the enemy from a position.

That was Iraq if I recall, and against what was essentially an armed mob. And not of the Ork kind Bayonets are like cannons on airplanes- no longer viable in 99% of cases (if I recall, since Vietnam war ONE combat airplane was downed by another planes' gun and two helicopters. That's it, 50 years and 3 kills) but no one is willing to get rid of them in case you find yourself in that 1% situation.
   
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Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.

Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/06 16:54:51


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I don't know. My counter to drug crazed melee troops in the modern world would be triple strand concertina wire and more anti personnel weapons.
The problem with these drug fueled hand to hand killers is the lack of life expectancy. The drugs and activity will drastically reduce the reuseability of this type of troop. The drugs may let them ignore injury but in reality they will succumb to blood loss, loss of limb or punctured lungs. The side that uses these kinds of troop will always need a lot more than they have available .
Your answer to the first my be some kind of breaching vehicle but that would still contend with every other modern counter. Very few would make it through. The other problem is the numbers. Your drug warriors will need to be deployed in the hundreds or thousands to be meaningful in a conflict. Even then, if they have no command and control element they will be useless in the long run. We probably throwing the rules and laws of land warfare and every other governing document in the trash. Landmines will be back in season so will napalm and white prosperous and possibly poisonous gas.
One more problem is where will these drug troopers stage how do you get them any where? Those places and vehicles will get a hammer dropped on them for sure.
If anything war would get far worse than it already is.
I guess I just see an escalation to match the problem.
In 40K they have far more bodies to throw at a problem than we do in the real world.

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Ernestas wrote:
Compared to other infantry weapons, the Pulse Rifle trades rate of fire for damage. Pulse Rifles also have significant recoil, which requires that the user be stationary to fire most effectively.


https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Pulse_Rifle

It is most unfortunate that they do not link the reference to that specific information. I do not recall reading it in the 3rd or 4th Codex.

Cronch wrote:That was Iraq if I recall, and against what was essentially an armed mob. And not of the Ork kind Bayonets are like cannons on airplanes- no longer viable in 99% of cases (if I recall, since Vietnam war ONE combat airplane was downed by another planes' gun and two helicopters. That's it, 50 years and 3 kills) but no one is willing to get rid of them in case you find yourself in that 1% situation.

The AC-130 would have a word with out, and you should read up on why the Top Gun school was created.

Still, in hallways or tunnels, rifles are a little too long to be used effectively.

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We had a long discussion of bayonettes while back. Consensus in that thread seemed to be they're currently useful tools distributed still today, but primarily not a weapon today.

And, even as a weapon, they're more about ensuring your rifle can't be grappled with. So affixing it close-in can be useful, but more as a deterrent than weapon.

However, that same discussion showed that charges and bayonettes were useful and effective in warfare long after most thought they were not.

Close combat did not become completely useless upon the advent of firearms, as some would have you believe. It has some advantages. Not enough to be practical in modern warfare, but that doesn't mean it'll always be worthless.
   
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Bayonets are also made to be effective knives as well as pokey points on the end of a rifle.

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CthuluIsSpy wrote:Ok, so frenzone is a little stronger than PCP. Wouldn't the practical solution then be to aim for the legs to slow them down? If you can sever an arm, you can sever a leg. I dunno, I see where you're coming from, I just don't think its that easy to get into melee.

Maybe if you popped smoke first to hide the charge, but that's practically an ambush.



As a regular shooter I feel that trying to hit somebody's legs while he's on the move could be a tough shot to pull off. You would actually aim at the chest were you still can hit something even while being stressed, in a hurry. Though you'd prefer not to have to do it at all, if your mental sanity is whole, and be quite reluctant anyway.

Gir Spirit Bane wrote:Lads, this is a game where 8 foot super soldiers which can spit acid and fire rockets regularly engage british football hooligan mushrooms, 20 meters alien monsters and robots older than most planets.

I think we need to leave any pretence of realism at the door and just enjoy the spectacle.


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 Charistoph wrote:

The AC-130 would have a word with out, and you should read up on why the Top Gun school was created.

Still, in hallways or tunnels, rifles are a little too long to be used effectively.

The AC-130 isn't an anti-air platform. It's a slow cow designed to pummel low-tech opposition at a low cost. As for "top gun"... one airplane downed in anger by fighter's cannons in 50 years that passed since Vietnam. Sorry, but missiles are the default weapon against modern flying targets. It doesn't mean the fighter training school is useless, just that the gun is as much a backup option as a pistol is to a rifleman.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/06 19:49:31


 
   
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 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.

Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.



Even in the American Civil War bayonets and swords only accounted for about 1% of battle wounds.

You really need to go back to the early age of gunpowder to see planned close assault with melee weapons.
   
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Moscow, Russia

 Xenomancers wrote:
Just for a frame of reference.
A 5.56 Round travels at about 1000 mps.
It will cover the range of 100 meter in a little over a 10th of a second and in 3 seconds 30 rounds can travel that far...from 1 man with the most basic weapon on the battlefield.

Each shot is lethal too.
.


Err? Most gunshot wounds are not lethal. They're not magic death rays.
   
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Where are you getting your data for "most gunshot wounds are not lethal"? Cuz, I mean sure... if you shoot someone in the arm, shoulder, leg, hand, or foot, it probably won't be lethal. And if you shoot them in the abdomen, it won't be immediately lethal either. But people aren't aiming for those areas. If you take a 5.56 to the chest without body armor, you're probably gonna die, and that's the easiest target for a gunman to aim at.
   
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CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Spoiler:
 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
Are guard even that orientated towards close combat? They seem more shooty to me, especially compared to marines. Which makes sense; guard aren't power armored shock troops.
Apparently bayonet charges are a thing, but it seems to me that most of the fighting is done with artillery and fusilades of las gun fire. Its not really modern tactics, more WW1 - WW2 tactics, but then again we haven't really seen a full scale war in modern times.



Bayonet charges are still a thing. In 2011, IIRC, a British platoon fixed bayonets and charged the enemy when caught in an ambush in Afghanistan.

While charging in mass to stick 'em with the pointy end is no longer the premier battle tactic, it's still valid and useful when the situation calls for it, and very effective at dislodging the enemy from a position.


Huh, I did not know that. Interesting little fact there.
I especially didn't know modern rifles could still take bayonet attachments. I thought that got phased out.


Ernestas wrote:CthuluIsSpyMade,

You did not understood me. In my original point I had mentioned that Tau rifles are like battle rifles of today. They are single shot weapon (it doesn't mean that there is some real delay between shots, but do not have rate of fire). I also had said that they operate on kinetic and plasma principle. Kinetic energy provides penetration and accuracy while plasma provides damage. Tau rifles hit hard and are accurate. They also possess quite a lot of inherent armor penetration.

As for 5.56 point, it is a real life comparison. The thing is, our calibers are poor at stopping power. 5.56 will not stop charging Ork. In Warhammer all armaments are a lot bigger and heftier. What we use today, mere 2 kilogram rifles 3 kg if they are loaded are children's toys. Even bolt pistol have more stopping power than burst from M16. It is not about W40k technology being all that better, but about that infantry weapons in W40k are of entirely different level in terms of weight. In W40k they would consider AK47 as lacking on stopping power and we use one level weaker gun all together.

This is how I see Tau pulse rifles in terms of use and rate of fire. They have superb accuracy, range and hitting power. Though they are mediocre to crap at everything else as weapons. They are long, unwieldy with high recoil. They are poor close quarters weapons. They are complex weapons which makes them heavy on maintenance and very demanding on resupply. They have low rate of fire and are difficult to effectively use them when ranges are 100 meters and below.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragunov_sniper_rifle

If I'm wrong, please direct me to lore where they behave differently.


Also, I had double checked on pulse rifle lore. While they do have automatic function, due to recoil of a weapon and that plasma temperature taxes barrel and it requires to cool off, these weapons are fired in single shot mode. In fact, precisely due to cooling difficulties of this rifle, it has separate barrel to alternative shots while unused barrel cools off.


Cronch wrote:
 Charistoph wrote:

The AC-130 would have a word with out, and you should read up on why the Top Gun school was created.

Still, in hallways or tunnels, rifles are a little too long to be used effectively.

The AC-130 isn't an anti-air platform. It's a slow cow designed to pummel low-tech opposition at a low cost. As for "top gun"... one airplane downed in anger by fighter's cannons in 50 years that passed since Vietnam. Sorry, but missiles are the default weapon against modern flying targets. It doesn't mean the fighter training school is useless, just that the gun is as much a backup option as a pistol is to a rifleman.[/spoiler]

40K is lacking a little thing in the real world called the Geneva Convention. It is the reason every.single.cartidge designed(for open warfare) has to do a better job of wounding than killing. Cuz your dead buddy is dead, but your squad mate is alive & screaming in agony. Since it takes more people to care for an alive one than a dead one, it effectively takes more soldiers out of the fight.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2020/02/06 21:18:59


 
   
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 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.

Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.



I dunno about that.

As observed, the most recent bayonet charge was in Afghanistan in 2011. Bayonet charges were also successfully performed by western units during the Falklands War, Yugoslav conflict, and during the Iraq wars.
During the Korean War, both sides used bayonet charges, the Chinese very extensively so.

It's pretty easy to turn up a fairly significant number of bayonet charges made during modern conflicts with a cursory search. While not the primary weapon of any military, it is definitely still something than is still used.

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I think the key is to realise that whilst ranged weapons beat close combat in an open situation; there's still ample reason to use close combat weaponry including a bayonet. It's just not part of standard battle practice and is a rarer and very situational method. As opposed to the historical past when bayonet charges were far more commonplace.

I'm sure you can find examples of people still using swords, spears and bows and arrows in battles today. People haven't changed. We still die if you can impale or bludgeon us with something. Those weapons still work. If you get hit in the face with a mace it doesn't matter if its the middle ages, ancient Rome or yesterday - its going to at best hurt a lot and at worst kill you.

However you're not likely to carry a mace today because your opponent isn't likely wearing full plate armour and you're unlikely to first encounter them in battle right up close. You're far more likely to trade ranged weapons fire even indirect fire and such long before.

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 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.

Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.



I dunno about that.

As observed, the most recent bayonet charge was in Afghanistan in 2011. Bayonet charges were also successfully performed by western units during the Falklands War, Yugoslav conflict, and during the Iraq wars.
During the Korean War, both sides used bayonet charges, the Chinese very extensively so.

It's pretty easy to turn up a fairly significant number of bayonet charges made during modern conflicts with a cursory search. While not the primary weapon of any military, it is definitely still something than is still used.

In Iraq 2004 at Danny Boy there was another close quarters engagement with bayonets and no British loses, however for anyone trying to romanticise melee over ranged combat needs to go play some paintball then reconsider.
   
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Insularum wrote:
 Inquisitor Lord Katherine wrote:
 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Are you forgetting that things like bayonet charges largely haven't been attempted since around the time of the american civil war? Or at MOST world war 1? Automatic weapons have largely made it irrelevant. There are some limited examples of melee fighting, but it's pretty rare.

Because rounding up a bunch of boyz and charging at the enemy has proven to be disastrously catastrophic for at least a century.



I dunno about that.

As observed, the most recent bayonet charge was in Afghanistan in 2011. Bayonet charges were also successfully performed by western units during the Falklands War, Yugoslav conflict, and during the Iraq wars.
During the Korean War, both sides used bayonet charges, the Chinese very extensively so.

It's pretty easy to turn up a fairly significant number of bayonet charges made during modern conflicts with a cursory search. While not the primary weapon of any military, it is definitely still something than is still used.

In Iraq 2004 at Danny Boy there was another close quarters engagement with bayonets and no British loses, however for anyone trying to romanticise melee over ranged combat needs to go play some paintball then reconsider.


things are significantly more complicated when someone is shooting at you. That 10ft gap between buildings/cover is plenty of time for a bullet to find you. Hell, even an open doorway is enuff. or if your enemy is utilising barrier indifferent projectiles that car/wall/whatever doesnt provide any protection at all.

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 flandarz wrote:
Where are you getting your data for "most gunshot wounds are not lethal"? Cuz, I mean sure... if you shoot someone in the arm, shoulder, leg, hand, or foot, it probably won't be lethal. And if you shoot them in the abdomen, it won't be immediately lethal either. But people aren't aiming for those areas. If you take a 5.56 to the chest without body armor, you're probably gonna die, and that's the easiest target for a gunman to aim at.


Well "most gunshots wounds are not lethal" is actually true. That's why people are saying it. Now, do you mean a rifle round will remove someone from the combat equation? That's a different thing entirely. Even a simple 5.56 or 5.45 round will take someone out of the fight most of the time if you score a shot in the torso. They might die from it, may not, depends on where it went, what organs it did or did not hit, and what kind of immediate and long-term treatment they have access to.

If you mean gunshots in a general term, including all types of handguns and long-arms, then they're most definitely not always lethal.

If you then expand that definition further to shots hitting limbs (which happens a lot), it's even more less than likely to be lethal. It's not uncommon at all for someone to survive 2-5 gunshot wounds.
   
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If we're including ready and immediate access to modern medical care then, sure, most singular gunshots are not lethal. But that's the same as saying "heart attacks aren't lethal as long as you get to the hospital in time". My view on lethality is whether or not something would kill you if you didn't or couldn't receive medical care in a timely manner.
   
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For the purposes of discussing the lethality of weapons in 40k, I think we should be looking at "will it remove the target's ability to influence the battle?", not "will it kill them in one hit".

I've always pictured "slain" models as a mixture of under too badly to contribute and actually dead.

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 flandarz wrote:
Where are you getting your data for "most gunshot wounds are not lethal"? Cuz, I mean sure... if you shoot someone in the arm, shoulder, leg, hand, or foot, it probably won't be lethal. And if you shoot them in the abdomen, it won't be immediately lethal either. But people aren't aiming for those areas. If you take a 5.56 to the chest without body armor, you're probably gonna die, and that's the easiest target for a gunman to aim at.


If you are a normal human and take a single center-mass bullet wound, you are most likely incapacitated as a casualty and unable to fight, but will likely still live.

That said, if a bullet clips a major artery or the heart, you die quickly. Also, the shoulder and leg both contain major arteries- the idea that these are non-lethal targets is Hollywood myth. Anyways, if it pierces the lung, you may suffer a collapse, but unless both lungs collapse you have ample time to seek medical attention. Anywhere else and you have a high chance of survival as long as you can be treated before infection sets in (particularly for gut wounds). You may be paralyzed by spinal injury, or have to get part of your intestine removed, but most gunshot wounds to the torso/abdomen that don't hit the heart or take out both lungs are survivable.

In the pre-WW1 era, where the most common munition was a 0.58-0.75" musket ball capable of shattering bones, the most common cause of death subsequent to gunshot wound was infection, not terminal effects of the bullet itself.

It's the incapacitating effect of pain and structural damage that renders the victim a casualty.

niall78 wrote:
Even in the American Civil War bayonets and swords only accounted for about 1% of battle wounds.

You really need to go back to the early age of gunpowder to see planned close assault with melee weapons.


While bayonets accounted for a very low percentage of wounds, bayonet charges were often tactically decisive far in excess of the casualties they produced. There are numerous battles that were resolved by a bayonet charge against a wavering enemy (Little Round Top is a well-known example), as infantry are far more likely to break and run in the face of blades than they are in the face of bullets. There is a massive psychological impact to knives and swords (both on the part of the recipient and on the bearer) that guns simply don't have. So while it is not accurate to frame the bayonet as an essential component of gunpowder warfare, it is also not accurate to dismiss its significance entirely on the basis of comparable lack of casualties. It's a psychological tool more than a weapon, but that was what won battles.

 Overread wrote:
However you're not likely to carry a mace today because your opponent isn't likely wearing full plate armour and you're unlikely to first encounter them in battle right up close. You're far more likely to trade ranged weapons fire even indirect fire and such long before.


If you were regularly encountering enemies in full plate armor up close, a .223 carbine would still be the optimal weapon. The issue is more fundamental than typical engagement profiles; modern firearms allow you to transform a lot of chemical energy into destructive kinetic energy in a short amount of time and human musculature can't compete.

Things may start to change when you bring in augmentation (power armor), energy delivery mechanisms masquerading as melee weapons (power fists), or defenses that require substantially more energy for terminal effect (power armor again). It's still liable to be super-handwavy, but it makes for good fiction.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2020/02/07 22:20:13


   
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 Ernestas wrote:
It is because people do not consider all the things that allows melee combat to happen in W40k. My main point about melee combat today was using combat drug called frenzone. This combat drug converts person into beserker. His body will be overloaded and pushed beyond what a human is physically capable of. Furthermore it will allow person to ignore injuries which would kill most men. Blown up arm? Barely noticeable. Hole in a chest? Not something you are going to die fast enough. You only need ten seconds to get into melee to do damage and these drugs can prevent body from realizing damage that was inflicted upon it.
This works...if pain is the only thing we are talking about. Bullets that burst lungs and open major arteries are going to leave a combatant incapable no matter how angry and resistant to pain they are. No drug is going to keep someone going if their blood pressure collapses in the space of a couple seconds and stops reaching the brain. Nobody is going to keep charging with a kneecap blown off or a femur shattered. Losing an arm is a gigantic problem for someone wanting to engage in close combat.



There is also a thing with exploding collars. In W40k slave masters of these troops will have each soldier attached to a collar with some explosives in it. If you don't do what he says, your head will explode. That is pretty big motivator to charge those troops without stopping. Especially when they have automatic drug injectors who will remove all fear, self preservation. No machine gun will give you pause. Only most severe wounds like blowing up head or heart will stop you for good, otherwise you will need to either riddle person with bullets in order to stop him for good.
It's really easy to inflict such wounds, and historical examples of suicidal combatants (modern IS forces, WW2 Japanese, WW1 human wave attacks, etc) have proven the primacy of firepower on every occasion.



I think that the only thing that prevents melee from happening in real life is our morality and self preservation instinct. Now, if we take those two things out. Lets say I'm a chaos lord and had enslaved a lot of people. Those slaves are useless to me. So, I will give them to slave masters. They will attach those explosive collars upon their necks. I do believe that will really motivate people to do what they are told as otherwise their fellow head explodes in a shower of blood and brain matter.
what you're far more likely to get are people who willingly walk into enemy fire to end their situation, or otherwise give up and hope said collars can be removed, or who turn on their masters when an opportunity presents itself.


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This works...if pain is the only thing we are talking about. Bullets that burst lungs and open major arteries are going to leave a combatant incapable no matter how angry and resistant to pain they are. No drug is going to keep someone going if their blood pressure collapses in the space of a couple seconds and stops reaching the brain. Nobody is going to keep charging with a kneecap blown off or a femur shattered. Losing an arm is a gigantic problem for someone wanting to engage in close combat.


The issue is how fast melee combat is. Even if you puncture major arteries, person will still keep running. It is great analogy with headless chicken. You can cut head off a chicken, but it will still keep running for God's sake for quite a while. This is what I mean by brain not realizing that it is dead. This is what I mean that it can be remarkably difficult to kill a charging beserker with range fire, especially one without kinetic force. Even if body is most definitely dead it will just keep on coming until from its own inertia and that is even worse. Your soldiers will panic, your troops will stay focused on a dead, harmless man and will fire more ammunition than it is necessary thus ignoring other targets. In melee combat, everything is decided within seconds. It can take under 10 seconds for charging units to cover 100 meter distance and it takes seconds to obliterate your lines if they get into melee.

It's really easy to inflict such wounds, and historical examples of suicidal combatants (modern IS forces, WW2 Japanese, WW1 human wave attacks, etc) have proven the primacy of firepower on every occasion.


Not exactly. Modern combat had proven that even stone age technology warriors pose serious threat to modern soldiers. If they are properly drugged and conditioned, it will take entire magazines to stop one such beserker and such sights will wreak havoc upon your troops. This video shows what happens when you have such soldiers properly employed in modern combat. Please take note that calibers used in this battle were a lot higher than ones we use in modern combat. In addition, these troops would count as cheap cannon fodder in W40k and most factions would have far more deadly variants than these. They at their weakest are exactly like here, driven utterly mad by Chaos and charging you without any regard for their own lives. Men, women, old people, children. Hordes of such people will descend upon your soldiers, previous citizens of your planet merely herded before you and your firing line. More often than not, they are only here to distract their enemies until more valuable and experienced troops get into positions to kill their foes. Now tell me, how that is not effective in modern combat? Our soldiers have PTSD from gak they see in real combat, brutal stuff like that would seriously tax their sanity even if they manage to ultimately win. This is why entire regiment had betrayed Imperium on Cadia and decapitated its command staff merely because it would rather betray Imperium and would die there and now rather than to face horrors of Chaos again.




Now, in W40k everyone uses level or armament at least one level higher than we use today. Autoguns, stubs in W40k are of Ak-47 level. Orks are known to utilize a lot of high caliber, high rate of fire weapons. Even then, W40k has equally ridiculous stuff in making melee a lot more feasible. This is outside of more unnatural things. We did not talked about charging Ogryn at all. What you gonna do when this brute will be charging at you and all you have is a lasgun? Soil yourself? Then there are even more ridiculous force multipliers like Chaos blessings. Nurgle is eager to bless his followers with unnatural resistance meaning that every single heretic simply doesn't die from things described in this thread. Punctured lungs, bleeding arteries? Nurgle worshipping average heretic is unlikely to die from that on his own. Now consider your average guardsmen squad. They have mere lasguns and laspistols. While they are deadly against unprotected human flesh, the problem with them is that they have zero stopping power. A full power hit can wreck entirely any area of flesh where it lands, but the issue with laser weaponary is that it seals wounds as it makes them. Meaning that any damage to flesh will require quite a bit of time to register and for brain to comprehend that it is dead. I do not envy guardsmen, while lasgun is remarkable weapon for an army, in such situations it is ineffective. The only salvation they have are in their heavy weapons. Flamers, heavy bolters. If they cease firing, they all are as good as dead.

what you're far more likely to get are people who willingly walk into enemy fire to end their situation, or otherwise give up and hope said collars can be removed, or who turn on their masters when an opportunity presents itself.


Humans can be trained as animals and all hope and spirit can be crushed if you are competent slave master. There are countless gruesome examples from real world where people will not resist and will accept their fate even if accepting mean certain death while resisting means possible survival for some.

This message was edited 7 times. Last update was at 2020/02/11 08:44:39


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Yeah but in the video the tribesman lost 500 to only around 14 or so Americans.

Also you fail to account for the fact that if the Americans had gone into battle only with closecombat weapons as well, then they would have likely taken far greater loses because now their opponents would have made it into close combat unharmed. Ranged weapons let them down most to the majority of them at range; leaving them weaker and wounded by the time any that did survive, made it into close combat range.

So the side with ranged weapons takes far fewer losses, far fewer wounded and kills many times its own number at range.



Yes for the 40K setting you can simply wipe that away by having massive legions of close combat troops and with armours that resist the ranged weapons of the age, pushing them back to almost the equivalent age of muskets in modern day terms. However this still shows that ranged weapons are very powerful and effective and that, in modern warfare, ranged weapons still prove to be far more effective than close combat.

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 Overread wrote:
Yeah but in the video the tribesman lost 500 to only around 14 or so Americans.

Also you fail to account for the fact that if the Americans had gone into battle only with closecombat weapons as well, then they would have likely taken far greater loses because now their opponents would have made it into close combat unharmed. Ranged weapons let them down most to the majority of them at range; leaving them weaker and wounded by the time any that did survive, made it into close combat range.

So the side with ranged weapons takes far fewer losses, far fewer wounded and kills many times its own number at range.



Yes for the 40K setting you can simply wipe that away by having massive legions of close combat troops and with armours that resist the ranged weapons of the age, pushing them back to almost the equivalent age of muskets in modern day terms. However this still shows that ranged weapons are very powerful and effective and that, in modern warfare, ranged weapons still prove to be far more effective than close combat.


The thing with melee combat is that it only takes just that little small edge before your guys start breaking, fleeing and dying in vast quantities. If those troops would get a drop, would have something worse mixed into their formation, like lets say, Chaos spawn or be under effect of far more potent combat drugs, outcome would had been far different. Lets say, you mix up few veteran chaos marauders into the mix. Suddenly, they are advancing towards your line and taking shots at your guys with impunity while your soldiers are too busy handling those lunatics screaming and charging at them. This is insane force multiplier for any more professional force. This is EXACTLY how such soldiers are used in W40k. Penal Legion are here just to provide that decisive "bayonet charge" effect or simply to soak up fire while more important troops take up positions behind them and open fire themselves. Chaos just throw them at the guns to figure out where heavy guns are and more valuable troops proceed take out those key elements. They are nothing more than a force multiplier to them, like a man would use airpower to increase effectiveness of their infantry on a ground, Chaos uses mass charges of raving mad cultists and chaos spawns as just another weapon of war for their equipped and trained soldiers to do all the actual fighting.

Though, I never had said that this tactic is not intense on casualties. I had said that people who are dying are worthless. Children, women, men, old people. You know, no one of value while those 14 or so troops are of Imperial Guard. Sent through galaxy, trained for years, equipped with tons of gear. Capable soldiers who in a right place can effectively fight most of enemies they encounter. Versatile, deadly, professional. I have millions of these civilians driven mad after I had landed on a Imperial planet while you only have hundred thousands of IG tops. On the other hand, all I had sent were just bunch of raving lunatics. I actually won in this trade, because now I won't have to feed them and they won't just starve to death and continue causing incidents in my camp and I had likely won previous position of those troops together with their undamaged gear. A highly prized equipment in resource stripped Chaos armies.

As for example in that video, American soldiers came with close quarters specialized weapons. They were fighting in a jungle, this is why they had shotguns and why pistols were so important. Most soldiers were equipped with rifles which are primary range firearm. Modern combat possesses weaker assault rifles, less stopping and killing power per bullet. They are less accurate over range, but possesses higher rate of fire. Tau on the other hand made such rifles into their main weapon of war. Their guns are harder hitting with more stopping power, but at the same time, they are unwieldy, clumsy and requires concentration and focus from fire warrior to properly aim and fire.

This message was edited 5 times. Last update was at 2020/02/11 13:29:24


"If the path to salvation leads through the halls of purgatory, then so be it."

Death Guard = 728 (PL 41) and Space Marines = 831 (PL 50)
Slaanesh demons = 460
Khorne demons = 420
Nighthaunts = 840 points Stormcast Eternals = 880 points. 
   
 
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