Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

This has become a playground battle of two kids with stick rifles. I shot you, nah uhn, I have shields! My Bullets go thru shields!

I know.

Glorious, isn’t it?

I’m just enjoying the whataboutism, and explaining what exactly it is that makes Marines transposed to something even dimly approximating The Real World so utterly terrifying.

To call on one of my earliest posts in this wonderful thought exercise?

Humans excel as Persistance Hunters. We don’t need to be faster or stronger, we just need greater stamina. To be able to maintain a pace over greater distances, with fewer and shorter rest periods, married to the intelligence to track prey over great distances.

Marines do that so much better than baseline humans. Sure a given human may be able to best an Astartes in a dead sprint, in terms of MPH. But the Marine can maintain that speed far, far longer. They don’t need to sleep the way us baseline humans do. Their armour can feed them the basics after a fashion.

Even in a stand up fight? Sure a well place knife might find the weak point and draw blood, but the Astartes physiology can deal with such flesh wounds handily. And due to their relative lack of fatigue, the Astartes can maintain that brawl far, far long than a human opponent.

As I said pages ago, it’s what makes fictional killers like Jason Voorhees so scary. Jason is monstrously strong, monstrously resilient, and just keeps on following you. An Astartes is all of that - but also inhumanly fast.

Not to mention their entire existence is one of fighting or training for the next fight.

I do feel like folk haven’t properly stopped and considered exactly what impact seeing an Astartes can have, let alone seeing one snapping your mates like twigs without working up a sweat or breaking its stride.

That does something to us on an instinctual level. It’s stronger than us. It’s faster than us. It’s tougher than us. It’s more resilient than us. OK we’ve had it worse on our evolutionary journey. But all at the same time, when it’s smarter than us and has greater, near inexhaustible stamina” and that, regardless of how good your training is? That’s a one way ticket to Brown Trouserville.

And that’s before we start adding in the basic weapons and other more esoteric potentials.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I know.

Glorious, isn’t it?

I’m just enjoying the whataboutism, and explaining what exactly it is that makes Marines transposed to something even dimly approximating The Real World so utterly terrifying.

To call on one of my earliest posts in this wonderful thought exercise?

Humans excel as Persistance Hunters. We don’t need to be faster or stronger, we just need greater stamina. To be able to maintain a pace over greater distances, with fewer and shorter rest periods, married to the intelligence to track prey over great distances.

Marines do that so much better than baseline humans. Sure a given human may be able to best an Astartes in a dead sprint, in terms of MPH. But the Marine can maintain that speed far, far longer. They don’t need to sleep the way us baseline humans do. Their armour can feed them the basics after a fashion.

Even in a stand up fight? Sure a well place knife might find the weak point and draw blood, but the Astartes physiology can deal with such flesh wounds handily. And due to their relative lack of fatigue, the Astartes can maintain that brawl far, far long than a human opponent.

As I said pages ago, it’s what makes fictional killers like Jason Voorhees so scary. Jason is monstrously strong, monstrously resilient, and just keeps on following you. An Astartes is all of that - but also inhumanly fast.

Not to mention their entire existence is one of fighting or training for the next fight.

I do feel like folk haven’t properly stopped and considered exactly what impact seeing an Astartes can have, let alone seeing one snapping your mates like twigs without working up a sweat or breaking its stride.

That does something to us on an instinctual level. It’s stronger than us. It’s faster than us. It’s tougher than us. It’s more resilient than us. OK we’ve had it worse on our evolutionary journey. But all at the same time, when it’s smarter than us and has greater, near inexhaustible stamina” and that, regardless of how good your training is? That’s a one way ticket to Brown Trouserville.

And that’s before we start adding in the basic weapons and other more esoteric potentials.

One-on-one, I agree with you, MDG. It would take a ridiculously exceptional human to match even a basic Astartes in pretty much any battle or warfare category.

But numbers matter. Again-if a Marine has a mere 1% chance of suffering lasting harm from taking on ten Guard, but they're able to consistently take down ten Guard each time, and never encounter more or less, never get caught out of place, never run into a booby trap, they'd succeed about 1 in 23,000 times.

If they're only able to take down five Guard at a time, with that 1% chance of mission failure, it would take them trying 536,000,000 times to succeed on average.

A Marine is not indestructible. A Marine is not omnipotent. A Marine is not infallible.

I’ve never argued such.

I’m simply arguing the nebulous bits.

The impact of even a single squad, where but one Guardsman survived the Marine’s onslaught. What tales might that person tell, assuming they’re not rendered utterly catatonic by the experience?

It’s the death by thousands of cuts. The Astartes has never been in a rush. They can take their time. Yes there’s the argument the Marine need only make one mistake, and fair enough. But when the Guard make a mistake? Total horror show.

The Marine doesn’t need their Bolter. They can pretzel a baseline human, whilst small arms fire basically does nowt, in a relative blink of the eye.

Just the combat knife and the right opportunity and it’s hot knife, butter.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I’ve never argued such.

I’m simply arguing the nebulous bits.

The impact of even a single squad, where but one Guardsman survived the Marine’s onslaught. What tales might that person tell, assuming they’re not rendered utterly catatonic by the experience?

It’s the death by thousands of cuts. The Astartes has never been in a rush. They can take their time. Yes there’s the argument the Marine need only make one mistake, and fair enough. But when the Guard make a mistake? Total horror show.

The Marine doesn’t need their Bolter. They can pretzel a baseline human, whilst small arms fire basically does nowt, in a relative blink of the eye.

Just the combat knife and the right opportunity and it’s hot knife, butter.

And a Tyranid Warrior is deadlier than a Marine. Yet Guardsmen still somehow fight them.

I mean that isn't quite a good argument because the Guard fight anything and everything. Just because they fight a thing doesn't mean they'd beat said thing.

 Gert wrote:
I mean that isn't quite a good argument because the Guard fight anything and everything. Just because they fight a thing doesn't mean they'd beat said thing.

It does mean that they're able to stand against a foe and not just wet their pants in terror.
Even when said foe is deadlier and scarier than a Marine.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 Gert wrote:
I mean that isn't quite a good argument because the Guard fight anything and everything. Just because they fight a thing doesn't mean they'd beat said thing.

It does mean that they're able to stand against a foe and not just wet their pants in terror.
Even when said foe is deadlier and scarier than a Marine.

Except the vast majority of Guardsmen are total noobs, such is the brutal calculus of war in 40K.

You can be as grizzled a Veteran as you want, but the greens fleeing in abject terror are going to get in the way all the same.

As I’ve kept saying? The Astartes isn’t in a rush. He can and will take his time.

Even for Veterans, there has to be a finite number of hideously abused corpses the mind can take, with no obvious signs for progress, before it snaps and the sheer apparent futility comes crashing down on your psyche.

 JNAProductions wrote:
It does mean that they're able to stand against a foe and not just wet their pants in terror.
Even when said foe is deadlier and scarier than a Marine.

The background is pretty consistent on big monsters tending to cause Guardsmen to scatter after they take a pasting or just prior to said pasting.
That being said fear can also manifest in a lot of different ways. Some people run, some freeze and some keep shooting in a vain attempt to kill a 7ft tall super human who is about to pound them to paste. There are of course exceptions to the rule.

And for the exceptions? Guess who the might-as-well-be immortal is going to drive their ceramite clad fist through next?

Not. Not the head. The torso. The greater the squealing, the greater the effect.

Regarding psychology: I don't know... I mean... Look at places like Verdun 1916

I think you underestimate the ability of the human mind to blank out when confronted with blood and gore. They had literally corpses of their comrades as "building material" in their trenchwalls and counted a death toll of ~ 300.000 within ~10 months, so ~ 1000 a day. Continous Artillery bombardmend, the threat of a gruesome death through mustard gas, seeing people blown to bits or mutilated on a daily, hourly, sometimes per minute basis... and still they kept on fighting.


And regarding "he just punches the guy resisting next": which still does not prohibit him from priming his grenades and taking the marine with him as in the death korps video I linked.

All about the insane 40K scale of violence.

Consider a Catachan Regimental MMA Champ. Vs a Space Marine.

And indeed the bloody smear said Catachan is about to become.

Us humans are adaptable, sure. I cannot and will not deny that. But a single Astartes can absolutely take their time and make messed even my seasoned gorehound imagination can cope with, over a sustained period.

This is entirely the aim and point of Astartes. It doesn’t matter how many there are, when you’ve seen 20, 30, 100, 200 physically shredded, rent, torn and shattered, for no discernible damage in return?

Our brains break.

A fully power armoured Marine can run at, flat out, for hours, between 30 and 50mph.

Imagine that’s their sole attack. Time in. Time out, just…..running at folk and making them go squish.

Whilst also tuning into you radio. Issuing wide ranging threats. Threat you know they can very much follow through on.

Marines serve a purpose. And they’re near beyond our comprehension good at it.

Our psyche can only handle and process so much. And it doesn’t include Marines. By the design of Marines.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All about the insane 40K scale of violence.

The actual scale of 40k violence is often woefully small compared to the actual horrors of wars like World War 1 and 2.

For instance, the initial Imperial Guard forces of the Third War for Armageddon, a war for an entire planet, were around 1.5million guardsmen across the entire Armageddon subsector.

There were 2.5million French and British soldiers at the 1916 Battle of the Somme alone. The Soviets lost over double the number of the Imperial Guard forces holding a planet in the Siege of Leningrad alone.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All about the insane 40K scale of violence.

The actual scale of 40k violence is often woefully small compared to the actual horrors of wars like World War 1 and 2.

For instance, the initial forces of the Third War for Armageddon, a war for an entire planet, were around 1.5million guardsmen across the entire Armageddon subsector.

There were 2.5million French and British soldiers at the Battle of the Somme alone.

Wrong. A WW2's worth of humans die brutally EVERY DAY with the wars fought in the Imperial Galaxy. In FAR worse ways. Brutally killed by demons made of rape and anger.

Not even close to the same.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
All about the insane 40K scale of violence.

The actual scale of 40k violence is often woefully small compared to the actual horrors of wars like World War 1 and 2.

For instance, the initial forces of the Third War for Armageddon, a war for an entire planet, were around 1.5million guardsmen across the entire Armageddon subsector.

There were 2.5million French and British soldiers at the Battle of the Somme alone.

Wrong. A WW2's worth of humans die brutally EVERY DAY with the wars fought in the Imperial Galaxy. In FAR worse ways. Brutally killed by demons made of rape and anger.

Not even close to the same.

Sure they do, in battles for whole planets without enough men to hold a single section of the line in World War 1. Because it isn't just the rules writers at GW that suck at numbers.

But thank you for proving my point that 40k's lore has no sense of actual scale when it comes to the numbers involved in total war. WW2 casualties (85million total, thereabouts) should be a rounding error for the Imperium on a daily basis. It has a total population countless times larger than 1940s Earth. Terra alone has a population in the Quadrillions, which is around 1,000,000 times the population of the Earth in 1940. Now, if you had said every hour, or every minute, then WW2 casualty numbers might be something to balk at, but simply on the scale of the population of the Imperium of Man, it is nothing.

For Terra alone to suffer the same rate of casualties as Earth did in WW2 (approx 3% of the 1940 population), it would need 3*10^13 (or 30,000,000,000,000 in non-scientific notation) casualties, minimum. Spread that out over 6 years and Terra alone should be losing 5*10^12 every year to match the casualty rates of WW2, which is 13,698,630,137 per day. The total casualties of WW2, which you said the Imperium lost per day, is 0.6% of the daily losses of Terra alone if the wars that the Imperium is fighting are as destructive as WW2.

Now, how many soldiers did the Imperium lose in the Third War for Armageddon? How does that "massive planetary war" look when we compare it with that number we just calculated which is, remember, the daily casualties from a single planet in a ww2 scale conflict, and the Imperium has millions of planets?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Except the vast majority of Guardsmen are total noobs, such is the brutal calculus of war in 40K.

Well that's just quite untrue, especially considering that the Guard are typically drawn from among the better PDF regiments iirc.

Conscripts are nubs, sure. But not the "vast majority" of the Guard.
. . .

Bears can run 30 mph. People are plenty capable of shooting bears. If a bear is charging you and you're holding a semi or fully automatic rifle that you've trained with extensively . . . my money is on "you're gonna shoot the bear". Even if the bear has killed other soldiers, and even if the bear's been going all "Tokyo Rose" on you. Hell, you're probably quite happy to shoot the bear at that point.

 Insectum7 wrote:

Bears can run 30 mph. People are plenty capable of shooting bears. If a bear is charging you and you're holding a semi or fully automatic rifle that you've trained with extensively . . . my money is on "you're gonna shoot the bear". Even if the bear has killed other soldiers, and even if the bear's been going all "Tokyo Rose" on you. Hell, you're probably quite happy to shoot the bear at that point.

This. Marines running fast means nothing really, because even at 30mph it's not that fast. It's like facing a knight riding at full gallop towards you. A cheetah racing towards you ready for its next meal.

The whole inhuman reflexes and speed mean nothing when your basic weapon fires at the speed of light.

Realistically, a marine is about as armoured, armed, and as fast as a Sentinel. Just a smaller target and more nimble.

More than that, "mere humans" were taking on mammoths with ****ing SPEARS.

 Insectum7 wrote:
More than that, "mere humans" were taking on mammoths with ****ing SPEARS.

And how did we manage that?

Persistence Hunting. Just keep on the move, knacker the beastie out, only making with the stabby once it’s exhausted and it’s threat greatly reduced.

Here, the Marine is 100% fighting back, at a speed described as unbelievable for a being of its mass. And your shooting just…doesn’t seem to be doing anything. Even relatively glancing blows from the Marine are doing damage. It’s not a stand up slug fest. Limbs are being wrenched off effortlessly, rib cages are caving in from a single blow. Heads are being pulped by a backhand slap. All the while your foe is roaring at deafening volume - possibly tied into your Vox Net.

The Marine is also a martial artist. It’s not just pub brawling or Queensbury Rules. They don’t noticeably slow down or suffer fatigue. They can keep fighting, non-stop for hours if needs be, possibly even days at a push.

Training, discipline and bravery have limits. Marines are specifically designed to exceed those limits. They are terror troops par excellence. The sort of military horror you deploy to not just cow or defeat an opponent, but to drive all thought of future rebellion out.

Sure you might have folk snap in a useful way and become insanely heroic - but they still need to get past the squad mates frozen by the horror, or those that heavily besmirched their britches. And even then, even if they’re well trained and drilled, it’s like a five year old trying to beat up an adult. Sure a lucky hit can hurt (they always go for the nads!), but they don’t take much effort to put down if you really want to (do not pick fights with children to prove or disprove this point. It’s illustrative only).

Even if you get an arm off the Marine? They keep on fighting, possibly thrashing you with said detached limb. That’s not natural. It should take them out the fight. But it doesn’t.

And? Going back to WW1 people were being killed in their thousands every day. The Somme had over a million casualties in a 4 month period, that’s over 250 thousand deaths a month.

Artillery was wrenching off limbs. Machine guns caved in rib cages. Rifles and bayonets pulping heads. It’s not like humans haven’t seen that level of destruction before.

If anything, a space marine is less of a threat than a WW1 tank, because a lasgun can kill a marine. We’ve seen it countless times in the lore.

Marines have weaknesses. Eye slots. Weakspots in the armour. Hell, all it takes is a single Guardsmen with a bouquet of grenades to kill one. Just like they did in WW1 to kill tanks. Alternatively a Guardsmen just sets their lasgun to max charge, zap, one-lasbolt marine dead. Just like in Gaunts Ghosts.

Removed - if you cannot reply without insulting others or grossly making light of things, maybe don't reply at all next time.

Don't call PTSD being "out of their minds", it's an ableist dismissal of a highly complex and variable condition and only serves to make you look ignorant. Not everyone with PTSD from world war 1 became catatonic, many were highly functional outside of episodes.

You're just continuing to massively undersell the human capability to endure horror as you have been the entire thread while ignoring all evidence counter to your position.

If men could climb out of a trench and march slowly into machine gun fire over the corpses of their friends half buried in mud or caught in barbed wire, limbs torn off from shrapnel, without en-masse freezing or running away then they can stand against a marine. And World War 1 showed that men could do that, even after they didn't sleep for days due to constant shelling, living in squalor and with their feet rotting off due to sitting in a water filled trench.

This is the dumbest thread I’ve ever read, I’ve tried to keep out of it but the idea that 1 marine would be so scary that all 10000 guardsmen would be scared stiff and unable to react is just soo far fetched. Then to try and bring ptsd in as an argument is insulting.

Say your marine charges through a couple of guys, of the 10000 professional trained soldiers 1 or 2 who actually witness this my be scared into inactivity. The vast majority would be fine and would fall back on their training and drills react as soldiers. That’s how it works. That’s why they train as they do.

I am a paramedic in real life, never been a soldier but they we were trained was similar in that we practiced actions again and again so that when we were confronted with super high stress situations we could fall back on this ingrained skills with out having to think.

And you know what it works, I have been confronted with unexpected carnage and horror that has frozen many others and I have gone into auto pilot of airway drills and cpr. Afterwards the stress hits you, that’s what ptsd would do.

Those guards men, after they had killed that marine and they were digging latrines or making a brew, they would relive the high stress moment. But at the time they would act. And kill the marine.

And you know what, even at the most horrific scenes I have attended there are still untrained ordinary people who don’t freeze, and struggle, they just act on instinct, because some people just can handle stressful situations well. Humans are amazing.

I know mad doc loves transhuman dread, and it’s a neat idea but really, a trained soldier would over come that very quickly. And this is shown in the fluff so many times you can’t really argue otherwise.

Except Trans Human Dread can’t be hand waved away.

It sets the scene that Marines are more than just big fellas in hefty armour. They’re manifestations of death. Faster, stronger and tougher than the human mind is able to cope with.

And nobody is saying 10,000 all at once.

It’s the cumulative massacres. The shredded bodies, pulped organs and shattered bones, all with no sign anyone got so much as a hit on the attacker.

The potential for the Marine to actively broadcast the sounds of those massacres likewise is a horrific advantage.

Everything about a Marine is dialled up to 11. That’s their entire purpose. That’s what allows them to do what they do.

All this “just needs a grenade bouquet or a Lasgun ramped up” isn’t going to cut it, because the former assumes the Marine is just….standing there. The latter is a single example in a book where if the Marine wasn’t dropped, the main characters would all be dead and that ends the series.

For those who haven’t read the bit about transhuman dread, here’s the quote.

Age of Darkness wrote: Transhuman dread. Aximand had heard iterators talk of the condition. He’d heard descriptions of it from regular Army officers too. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing: taller and broader than a man could ever be, armoured like a demigod. The singularity of purpose was self-evident. An Adeptus Astartes was designed to fight and kill anything that didn’t annihilate it first. If you saw an Adeptus Astartes, you knew you were in trouble. The appearance alone cowed you with fear.
"But to see one move. Apparently that was the real thing. Nothing human-shaped should be so fast, so lithe, so powerful, especially not anything in excess of two metres tall and carrying more armour than four normal men could lift. The sight of an Adeptus Astartes was one thing, but the moving fact of one was quite another. The psychologists called it transhuman dread. It froze a man, stuck him to the ground, caused his mind to lock up, made him lose control of bladder and bowel. Something huge and warlike gave pause: something huge and warlike and moving with the speed of a striking snake, that was when you knew that gods moved amongst men, and that there existed a scale of strength and speed beyond anything mortal, and that you were about to die and, if you were really lucking, there might be just enough time to piss yourself first.

The sheer level of violence a Marine dishes out is insane.

Please note I’m not making light of PTSD. It’s a very real thing and not pleasant. But folk are greatly underplaying it here. A Marine breaks spirits as well as lines. That’s their entire purpose, to rip out resistance root and stem. Scaring the fleegle out of foes is part of that.

Do one massacre. Record it. Then…..broadcast it, whenever you want. Disrupt the sleep patterns. Apply stress upon stress. Sometimes follow up with an attack, sometimes just settle for the psychological impact.

Everyone has a breaking point. Marines excel at pushing folk beyond it.

It’s the cumulative massacres. The shredded bodies, pulped organs and shattered bones, all with no sign anyone got so much as a hit on the attacker.

People walked past this kind of thing with every march across No Man's Land in the first world war. They kept walking.

Everything you are saying the Marine could do to break the will and spirit of the humans is stuff that the normal humans in the horrific meat grinder of trench warfare endured, for years.

The only reason you assume Marines can break people with "transhuman dread" is because you downplay the carnage and horror of all war. People in the trenches were hearing their comrades scream and die in No Man's Land, sometimes taking hours or even days to die with nobody able to go and help them, they were subjected to constant shelling disrupting their sleep, chemical warfare blistering their skin and filling their lungs and the lungs of their friends with liquid until they drowned with no possibility of help.

And yet those humans endured, and kept going.

Transhuman dread might be the second worst writing in 40k, right after how they handle perpetuals.

 TheBestBucketHead wrote:
Transhuman dread might be the second worst writing in 40k, right after how they handle perpetuals.

And even Transhuman Dread is very clearly spelled out in the HH books as the extreme effects wearing off down to merely scary rather quickly, even for civilians, let alone trained soldiers. It’s frankly not much different to people’s reactions to other large aggressive creatures like bears and the like.

In the Siege of Terra there were tons of regular humans competently fighting marines for months, despite the carnage and the dying in vast numbers.

The first few times butchered squads are found there will probably be panic, but by the umpteenth it’ll just become routine and people will become numb to it like they did in the WW1 trenches as others have said.

And there’s 1,000 squads to get through here. 10,000 soldiers is *a lot* to get through and, while the chance of any given one killing the marine is very small, when there’s that many all those small chances add up. Even with lasguns, let alone the one in 5 that would usually have a special or heavy weapon, some of which should reasonably reliably take a marine out in one hit (if they hit, which is obviously the issue, but there’s enough of them that at least one probably will).

You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.

Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.

Never mind the impact of leaders. A good nco would help junior troops overcome such fear.

There’s a scene in a gaunts ghosts novel where a chaos marine surprises the ghosts. They just coordinate fire and bring it down.

And again you underestimate humanities ability to cope through horror. Repeated massacre wouldnt Necessarily render troops incapable. In fact, all of history shows humans can endure that and much much more. Yeah the survivors would have night terrors and flashbacks for ever but they would mostly get the job done at the time.

There is literally no basis, in setting or in real life that supports your claims. None.

Andykp wrote:
You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.

Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.

Never mind the impact of leaders. A good nco would help junior troops overcome such fear.

There’s a scene in a gaunts ghosts novel where a chaos marine surprises the ghosts. They just coordinate fire and bring it down.

And again you underestimate humanities ability to cope through horror. Repeated massacre wouldnt Necessarily render troops incapable. In fact, all of history shows humans can endure that and much much more. Yeah the survivors would have night terrors and flashbacks for ever but they would mostly get the job done at the time.

There is literally no basis, in setting or in real life that supports your claims. None.

You speak like you have personal experience in combat situations. Can I get a confirmation on that? As a trained combat medic in an infantry battalion I can speak to seeing lots of "Really experienced and tough hombres" cracking under stress. I've spent an entire evening trying to find the ring finger of a casualty due to land mine, so we could send it back to his family. I saw two men just literally stop, go to their knees, and begin openly ugly crying. Effectively useless if bullets start flying. I myself have completely lost track of my senses, and vomited all over myself at the sight of a child being hit by a mortar round, which wasn't so bad, except I just started to mag dump at every mountain I could see. I had to be physically restrained. Combat PTSD is not easily described, or even factually described. There is no mathematical; This will happen, then this. It's just a thing that happens. Saying it doesn't happen to 40k humans is an odd stance to take, as we have been constantly led to believe the imperial guard is just about the closest thing to actual humans for the most part. Lacking in augmentation, mutation, enhancement (For the most part) and generally just basic human.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:

Andykp wrote:
You say it can’t be hand waved away yet it is in every novel where marines face guard. Many accounts in guard novels and how models interact on the table.

Humans are adaptable. What renders one incapable one day will quickly become accepted as normal the next time you see it. 1st time you see a marine, yeah i can buy it, it’ll be scary and you struggle to make sense of it. Next few times you will know what to expect and cope with it. Before you know it you will be calmly aiming at week spots and coordinating fire to bring them down.

Never mind the impact of leaders. A good nco would help junior troops overcome such fear.

There’s a scene in a gaunts ghosts novel where a chaos marine surprises the ghosts. They just coordinate fire and bring it down.

And again you underestimate humanities ability to cope through horror. Repeated massacre wouldnt Necessarily render troops incapable. In fact, all of history shows humans can endure that and much much more. Yeah the survivors would have night terrors and flashbacks for ever but they would mostly get the job done at the time.

There is literally no basis, in setting or in real life that supports your claims. None.

You speak like you have personal experience in combat situations. Can I get a confirmation on that? As a trained combat medic in an infantry battalion I can speak to seeing lots of "Really experienced and tough hombres" cracking under stress. I've spent an entire evening trying to find the ring finger of a casualty due to land mine, so we could send it back to his family. I saw two men just literally stop, go to their knees, and begin openly ugly crying. Effectively useless if bullets start flying. I myself have completely lost track of my senses, and vomited all over myself at the sight of a child being hit by a mortar round, which wasn't so bad, except I just started to mag dump at every mountain I could see. I had to be physically restrained. Combat PTSD is not easily described, or even factually described. There is no mathematical; This will happen, then this. It's just a thing that happens. Saying it doesn't happen to 40k humans is an odd stance to take, as we have been constantly led to believe the imperial guard is just about the closest thing to actual humans for the most part. Lacking in augmentation, mutation, enhancement (For the most part) and generally just basic human.

As I said in my earlier post I have no military experience, but have been a Paramedic for the last 22 years, so I have plenty of experience of high stress situations, trauma and PTSD, I suffered with it myself for years as have pretty much all my colleagues. You don't have to military to have been hunting for body parts.

I could list an endless catalogue of traumatic experiences I have witnessed but don’t feel the need. Just trust me, anyone doing my job for as long as I have has seen enough stuff.

But more often than not I have seen professionals overcome their fear, upset and stress and rise to the occasion. And on the odd occasions I have seen people, freeze, breakdown or just crumple on a job, I have also seen their colleagues lift them and get them going.

As for being “just human”, humans are fething amazing. Humans can overcome unimaginable hurdles and succeed. Humans can adapt and survive and cope with most anything. Just human is enough.