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Wouldn't you expect a Metal Gear Solid sort of situation? The marine gets deployed with a bit of basic gear and is expected to scavenge supplies where he can. Grenades are easy enough. Pick them off a corpse, pull the pin and lob towards the enemy. A Boltgun is a little trickier. Perhaps some officers and sergeants would have a couple of clips the beakie could steal on the way past.

But this is more describing a covert ops situation, meaning it's not really 1 v 10'000 but 1v1 10'000 times over.

If the marine can "Beat" the 10'000 by performing an objective, like knifing a general or someone they're guarding then legging it to an extraction point then yeah I'd believe it.

To be fair here I think we said no artillery and tanks.

Edit: this was in reference to the Eartshaker

 Pyroalchi wrote:
To be fair here I think we said no artillery and tanks.

Edit: this was in reference to the Eartshaker

That was a comment about resupply from the air/orbit in general.

If the orbital resupplies are "small" packages, that might be able to go undetected, finding them might be harder though

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The problem with resupplying by drop pod is that it can be intercepted, and if not then you are also painting a big "shoot me" target on the landing site.

Drop pod lands, space marines converge to restock their ammo, Earthshaker barrage obliterates the LZ, all marines at the LZ are dead and all ammo is lost.

Resupply from the air is really difficult, as the Germans learned on the Eastern front of WW2. Resupply from orbit? Even worse as if you can track the ship in orbit which is launching the supplies (which is not a difficult task), and you know the area that the marines are operating in, you know exactly what windows are open for them to be resupplied.

I think there are a number of assumptions going on there that may not apply. Iirc there is such a thing as a "stealth" Pod. Pods are more controllable than WWII chutes. I'd imagine something more like a small, stealthy criuse missile.

It might also be possible that any artillery around doesn't want to fire, because to do so would give its position to the ship in orbit. Lots of variables here.

You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Depends where it’s deployed.

There’s relatively little stopping it being dropped hundreds of miles from the Marine’s last known position, as it’s established they can run for days on end. And provided there’s no time sensitivity to the Marine’s task, he can make that journey as many times as are needed.

Deploy it somewhere tricky to get to (up a Mountain seems one possibility, as that would prevent mechanised infantry outracing you) and so much the better.

Though if you’re in a position for orbital supply drops, just Bombard the enemy from orbit.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Not even that, as the ship ferrying the payload can reduce its orbital speed by either decelerating itself, or just taking a higher orbit so that it's stable speed relative to the ground is lower or even geostationary.

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Not even that, as the ship ferrying the payload can reduce its orbital speed by either decelerating itself, or just taking a higher orbit so that it's stable speed relative to the ground is lower or even geostationary.

I'm not sure I understand that. How does the ship reducing its orbital speed influence the heat signature of a drop pod entering atmosphere?
That question is not meant snarky, I guess I just misunderstand something at the moment.

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Not even that, as the ship ferrying the payload can reduce its orbital speed by either decelerating itself, or just taking a higher orbit so that it's stable speed relative to the ground is lower or even geostationary.

That does nothing for the actual delivery of the supplies, as they still need to transition from that orbit to the planet surface and will be accelerating towards the planet the entire time (This needs to be the case or else their orbit doesn't change and they are also going deeper into the gravity well of the planet) and so will still be travelling extremely fast once they hit the atmosphere. And sitting in geostationary orbit even further limits the area that you can resupply, making interception even easier.

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Not even that, as the ship ferrying the payload can reduce its orbital speed by either decelerating itself, or just taking a higher orbit so that it's stable speed relative to the ground is lower or even geostationary.

It's still a stupid amount of fuel, just in a different location (we should probably avoid looking too closely at voidship propulsion, tbh...I know just enough that it looks like it tortures those who know more about that sort of thing ).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Not even that, as the ship ferrying the payload can reduce its orbital speed by either decelerating itself, or just taking a higher orbit so that it's stable speed relative to the ground is lower or even geostationary.

That does nothing for the actual delivery of the supplies, as they still need to transition from that orbit to the planet surface and will be accelerating towards the planet the entire time (This needs to be the case or else their orbit doesn't change and they are also going deeper into the gravity well of the planet) and so will still be travelling extremely fast once they hit the atmosphere. And sitting in geostationary orbit even further limits the area that you can resupply, making interception even easier.

Drop Pods have internal guidance, and at least some capacity to alter course though.

It’s also worth noting they’re described as travelling at extreme velocity, with the Marine’s enhanced physiology, armour and that being the reason they don’t turn into splutchy pancakes when the rapid deceleration (described as happening relatively last moment) kicks in.

Depending on how robustly built a hypothetical supply pod is, that deceleration could be even more extreme, as there’s no living being at risk of being pulped. Guess that depends on what’s aboard, and how unstable any ammo might prove under those circumstances - and indeed if, unlike regular Drop Pods, there’s any expectation of recovering it post-action.

As for the streak of fire? Surely that’s solely for initial entry to the atmosphere, and not the entire downward journey? Add in the Marine Drop Pods established, however limited, self steering capability, tracking its touchdown location may not be that easy. Even assuming Guard regiments have that capacity themselves, and it’s not something provided by Naval Assets. Even if it is, can we say for certain it’s sensitive enough to pick up what needn’t be a particularly large pod if it’s solely depositing ammo planetside travelling at extreme speeds.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
You can't be stealthy when coming in from orbit. You are a giant flaming object in the sky. It is impossible not to be due to the laws of physics.

I mean...you don't HAVE to be, but you're going to have to bring a stupid amount of fuel for it lol.

Not even that, as the ship ferrying the payload can reduce its orbital speed by either decelerating itself, or just taking a higher orbit so that it's stable speed relative to the ground is lower or even geostationary.

That does nothing for the actual delivery of the supplies, as they still need to transition from that orbit to the planet surface and will be accelerating towards the planet the entire time (This needs to be the case or else their orbit doesn't change and they are also going deeper into the gravity well of the planet) and so will still be travelling extremely fast once they hit the atmosphere. And sitting in geostationary orbit even further limits the area that you can resupply, making interception even easier.

Ahh right, the "has to go backwards relative to the ship" thing.

Ok so my understanding however is that all you're trying to do is hit the atmosphere at a relatively low speed. So if you have a ship (Space Shuttle) doing mach 25 in low orbit relative to the ground, all you have to do is accelerate the payload to a similar speed in the opposite direction to hit the atmosphere at . . . Well, not mach 25. Something lower, but I don't know what's required.

But accelerating something to that speed in space shouldn't really be that fuel expensive, since you're not working against gravity or air pressure, and I'd say you could start the proccess by railgunning the thing out.

 Insectum7 wrote:

But accelerating something to that speed in space shouldn't really be that fuel expensive, since you're not working against gravity or air pressure, and I'd say you could start the proccess by railgunning the thing out.

Orbital speeds are crazy high (low earth orbit is over 7 km/s) and you're going to need a ton of thrust all at once to bring the supply drop orbital speed down to zero before it hits the atmosphere, so you can't rely on an ion thruster or something that takes a long time to change the speed of the pod. That said I really don't think the supply drop will be too much of a give away of location overall so long as the marine can retrieve the supplies and move them elsewhere. If anything, it might be in the marines favor (assuming infantry only) as the guard regiment would probably dispatch a patrol to investigate the anomaly. Granted that'd probably only work once as I doubt a marine would be able to off an entire patrol before someone can report back.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

As for the streak of fire? Surely that’s solely for initial entry to the atmosphere, and not the entire downward journey? Add in the Marine Drop Pods established, however limited, self steering capability, tracking its touchdown location may not be that easy. Even assuming Guard regiments have that capacity themselves, and it’s not something provided by Naval Assets. Even if it is, can we say for certain it’s sensitive enough to pick up what needn’t be a particularly large pod if it’s solely depositing ammo planetside travelling at extreme speeds.

The streak of fire is due to friction heating up the air, due to the extreme velocity of the object not giving time for air to move out of the way and so it gets compressed and as a result heats up. You can't have both "extreme speeds" in atmosphere and no effects of that, especially when the object in question has the aerodynamical properties of a brick. So either the drop pod has to brake to the point where it is no longer travelling fast enough for friction to superheat the air around it, which means that it is now travelling slow enough to be targeted by weapon systems such as those used to intercept missiles, or it has to keep being a streak of fire.

Your choice.

Fair enough

Sidenote I had today:
Regarding (C)SM one standard design feature of any (Traitor)Guard Bunker/fortified building/tunnel should be Krakmines that are triggered by somethin > 250 kg stepping on it. Ogryn won't ever wander around there anyway and there should be large areas were no allied Marine would ever be expected to trespass. Thinking of short films like Astartes it's kind of hilarious thinking about the SM running after a bunch of Traitor Guardsmen through a tunnel and suddenly the whole floor explodes into their face.

Or even more basic: make some access tunnels in your Rockcrete bunker narrow enough and the SM can quite simply not fit through. That's a story I would like to read/see some time "Sorry Chapter Master, we can't storm the bunker, we just don't fit..."

Also, the Dawn of War opening cinematic showing drop pods shows them actually moving pretty damn slow, even before they fire their retro-thrusters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBgXH7eyRo4

Contrast the speeds of those drop pods with the velocities of missiles we can see in the many videos of russian missiles shot down by shoulder-fired anti-air missiles in Ukraine.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also, the Dawn of War opening cinematic showing drop pods shows them actually moving pretty damn slow, even before they fire their retro-thrusters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBgXH7eyRo4

Contrast the speeds of those drop pods with the velocities of missiles we can see in the many videos of russian missiles shot down by shoulder-fired anti-air missiles in Ukraine.

40K wiki thing mentions speeds of 12,000kph on descent, fast enough to evade “all but the most advanced AA system”.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
Sidenote I had today:
Regarding (C)SM one standard design feature of any (Traitor)Guard Bunker/fortified building/tunnel should be Krakmines that are triggered by somethin > 250 kg stepping on it. Ogryn won't ever wander around there anyway and there should be large areas were no allied Marine would ever be expected to trespass. Thinking of short films like Astartes it's kind of hilarious thinking about the SM running after a bunch of Traitor Guardsmen through a tunnel and suddenly the whole floor explodes into their face.

Or even more basic: make some access tunnels in your Rockcrete bunker narrow enough and the SM can quite simply not fit through. That's a story I would like to read/see some time "Sorry Chapter Master, we can't storm the bunker, we just don't fit..."

Tell that to the STC you relied on to build your bunker

Also need space for hauling cargo and equipment around your bunker.

Notice that Grotsnik isn't responding to the people who picked his argument apart and is trying to change the subject. This is bad-faith argumentation and is making the forum shittier.

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

But accelerating something to that speed in space shouldn't really be that fuel expensive, since you're not working against gravity or air pressure, and I'd say you could start the proccess by railgunning the thing out.

Orbital speeds are crazy high (low earth orbit is over 7 km/s) and you're going to need a ton of thrust all at once to bring the supply drop orbital speed down to zero before it hits the atmosphere, so you can't rely on an ion thruster or something that takes a long time to change the speed of the pod. That said I really don't think the supply drop will be too much of a give away of location overall so long as the marine can retrieve the supplies and move them elsewhere. If anything, it might be in the marines favor (assuming infantry only) as the guard regiment would probably dispatch a patrol to investigate the anomaly. Granted that'd probably only work once as I doubt a marine would be able to off an entire patrol before someone can report back.

I realize it's fast (7km/s is about mach 20, and I said mach 25 ). The thing is I'm not convinced that it takes huge amounts of fuel to get there. That might sound odd, given the amount of fuel it takes to put something into orbit, but I think the vast majority of that is to get something UP there through the atmosphere in the first place. Now I'm totally not a mathematician or scientist, but I'm thinking of the absolutely tiny Orbiter and Lunar Lander on the return trips for the Saturn V missions. One of those tiny little ships had to get off the moon, and the other one had to return all the way back to earth. I think the reason they could do that is that the gravity of the moon is so low, and there's no resistance in space.

I'm also thinking of the X-15, which made it to mach 6 or 7 in atmosphere with all that air resistance, and it wasn't that big of a craft. And the amount of fuel necessary relies on the efficiency of that fuel. Like, in handwavium 40k terms . . . could be whatever, right? I mean a Thunderhawk can make it to orbit, soooo. (It sorta hurts my brain to be that handwavy, tbh though) But whatevs. Consider some sort of increase in fuel efficiency since the 1960's.

So I'm sorta putting together a picture of: Railgun out for a initial kick to mach 5-6, then a no resistance burn to get the rest of the velocity necessary, then a "break-apart" possibly for the purposes of detection-confusion, with a deployed stealth glider-pod that covers the rest of the descent. Something released that high could travel hundreds of miles in-glide, so from a ground-detection standpoint it'd be really hard to figure out where it's going once it's in "stealth mode" after its initial burn.

 Insectum7 wrote:

DeadliestIdiot wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

But accelerating something to that speed in space shouldn't really be that fuel expensive, since you're not working against gravity or air pressure, and I'd say you could start the proccess by railgunning the thing out.

Orbital speeds are crazy high (low earth orbit is over 7 km/s) and you're going to need a ton of thrust all at once to bring the supply drop orbital speed down to zero before it hits the atmosphere, so you can't rely on an ion thruster or something that takes a long time to change the speed of the pod. That said I really don't think the supply drop will be too much of a give away of location overall so long as the marine can retrieve the supplies and move them elsewhere. If anything, it might be in the marines favor (assuming infantry only) as the guard regiment would probably dispatch a patrol to investigate the anomaly. Granted that'd probably only work once as I doubt a marine would be able to off an entire patrol before someone can report back.

I realize it's fast (7km/s is about mach 20, and I said mach 25 ). The thing is I'm not convinced that it takes huge amounts of fuel to get there. That might sound odd, given the amount of fuel it takes to put something into orbit, but I think the vast majority of that is to get something UP there through the atmosphere in the first place. Now I'm totally not a mathematician or scientist, but I'm thinking of the absolutely tiny Orbiter and Lunar Lander on the return trips for the Saturn V missions. One of those tiny little ships had to get off the moon, and the other one had to return all the way back to earth. I think the reason they could do that is that the gravity of the moon is so low, and there's no resistance in space.

I'm also thinking of the X-15, which made it to mach 6 or 7 in atmosphere with all that air resistance, and it wasn't that big of a craft. And the amount of fuel necessary relies on the efficiency of that fuel. Like, in handwavium 40k terms . . . could be whatever, right? I mean a Thunderhawk can make it to orbit, soooo. (It sorta hurts my brain to be that handwavy, tbh though) But whatevs. Consider some sort of increase in fuel efficiency since the 1960's.

So I'm sorta putting together a picture of: Railgun out for a initial kick to mach 5-6, then a no resistance burn to get the rest of the velocity necessary, then a "break-apart" possibly for the purposes of detection-confusion, with a deployed stealth glider-pod that covers the rest of the descent. Something released that high could travel hundreds of miles in-glide, so from a ground-detection standpoint it'd be really hard to figure out where it's going once it's in "stealth mode" after its initial burn.

I think the "lots of fuel" bit was in reference to slowing a supply drop down so it doesn't be really obvious.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Also, the Dawn of War opening cinematic showing drop pods shows them actually moving pretty damn slow, even before they fire their retro-thrusters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBgXH7eyRo4

Contrast the speeds of those drop pods with the velocities of missiles we can see in the many videos of russian missiles shot down by shoulder-fired anti-air missiles in Ukraine.

Yah, well . . . as much as I love that trailer I think we can toss that one out for reference, as there are multiple descriptions about them traveling wicked fast. Besides, look at their behavior in the actual game itself, where they absolutely SLAM down into the ground.

I mean, they're probably not descending slowly until the last 200 meters, where they then turn on the big butt rocket and accelerate towards the ground, lol.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 JNAProductions wrote:
I think the "lots of fuel" bit was in reference to slowing a supply drop down so it doesn't be really obvious.

Operationally I don't think it should matter too much if post-burn the payload is undetectable and it can cover thousands of square miles in area.

Assuming of course non-handwavy stealth propulsion systems.

Hecaton wrote:
Notice that Grotsnik isn't responding to the people who picked his argument apart and is trying to change the subject. This is bad-faith argumentation and is making the forum shittier.

Almost as if it’s all stuff I’ve previously addressed, only to be told “nuh-uh” in response.

Nor have I ever claimed (barring Marine in charge of an Escort Vessel) it’s likely the Marine could carry this particular day.

But, whatever floats your boat. It’s nice here in your head, and the rent is cheap

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

Hecaton wrote:
Notice that Grotsnik isn't responding to the people who picked his argument apart and is trying to change the subject. This is bad-faith argumentation and is making the forum shittier.

Almost as if it’s all stuff I’ve previously addressed, only to be told “nuh-uh” in response.

If you think the substance is just "nuh-uh" then you're not reading it right.

I bring up trans-human dread. I’m told “nuh-uh”. I explain Marine physiology and the advantages it brings. I’m told “nuh-uh”. I’m told only to consider the rules. Then to only consider non-Codex background and round and round and round we go. Anything “advantage Astartes” is labelled “Bolter porn” and dismissed rather than actually engaged upon.

I speculate the Marine, based on canonical examples of them having their own Vox Channels, but being able to access Guard Vox Channels, could do some pretty interesting psy-Ops. I’m told “nuh-uh”.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
I bring up trans-human dread. I’m told “nuh-uh”. I explain Marine physiology and the advantages it brings. I’m told “nuh-uh”. I’m told only to consider the rules. Then to only consider non-Codex background and round and round and round we go. Anything “advantage Astartes” is labelled “Bolter porn” and dismissed rather than actually engaged upon.

I speculate the Marine, based on canonical examples of them having their own Vox Channels, but being able to access Guard Vox Channels, could do some pretty interesting psy-Ops. I’m told “nuh-uh”.

Transhuman Dread, from the actually quoted background (the excerpts provided earlier were real handy) just... Doesn't seem to have much of an impact. Like, at all. Now, given, those are some veteran as heck Guardsmen, but there's a reason that training exists-it's so when you see something scary, you don't freeze-you shoot.
Marine physiology has lots of advantages, no one has disputed that. But 9,999 extra bodies is an advantage as well.

As someone who's brought up the rules, I've never said "Consider the rules and NOTHING ELSE," I've said "The rules show that a couple of squads can reliably take down a Marine, but the tabletop isn't 1-to-1 reflective of the fluff. But unless it's off by a factor of around 1,000... The Guard win."

A Marine in single combat versus a Guardsman (assuming typical representatives on both sides) is almost always gonna go in the Marine's favor. Melee combat especially, but shooting will still favor the Marine by a vast margin.
But this isn't a thread about single combat-it's about 10,000 to one.

Edit: And you've completely ignored that, should a Marine be messing with the Guard Vox, they can be tracked.

Hecaton wrote:
Notice that Grotsnik isn't responding to the people who picked his argument apart and is trying to change the subject. This is bad-faith argumentation and is making the forum shittier.

It's ironic that you complain about Grotsnik doing that, buddy.

It's funny watching you complain about the stuff you do to other users.

I only mention this because, yanno, folks in glass houses maybe shouldn't be throwing stones.

'Give me a hundred space marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops'

Attributed to Rogal Dorn, Primarch of The Imperial Fists.

Excerpt from the 8th Edition Codex: SM


While the context is unknown, it seems that Rogal Dorn was of the opinion that a Space Marine is worth 10 other troops in a particular situation.

I will bow to the knowledge of a Primarch with the response, No, one space marine cannot beat 10,000 imperial guard. 10 maybe (50/50). but no more.