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How do!

Came up in the Bolter Recoil thread about just how bad the background is with numbers. From a Chapter having an unfeasibly low number of Astartes, to supposedly staggering losses in a single campaign being fewer than in WW2. Which whilst I don’t want to understate the bravery and sacrifice of all WW2 Soldiers, is somewhat silly.

Now, one number I do like is that the attempted census of Hive Trazior gave up when it had barely covered the upper levels at around a billion. Which gives us some idea of just how many people live in Hive Cities.

Everything else just seems really low. Though perhaps not necessarily the headcount of an Imperial Guard Regiment. There I’m happy to write off such an individual combat unit seeming low, because we know it’s but one of innumerable others.

So…where do we begin rescaling and renumbering 40K? What works for you, Dakka? And of course because it makes for more interesting conversation, why?

Gonna repost this here, the thread is more suitable:

 kirotheavenger wrote:
Tbf yeah the Vraks bit is a bit outdated now 40k includes the 42nd millenium with more armaggeddons and black crusades.
That's not really the point though, the point is a massive planetary war famous for the attritional meat grinder so profound there's accusations of using cloning to maintain the numbers.
And it's not even that big by 1940s Earth standards.

It's very common in 40k. IIRC on Taros they deployed 8 regiments. 8 regiments to conquer a planet, that's nothing.

Vraks was published _after_ the Armageddon and 13th Black Crusade global campaigns had concluded. Those are very much in the lore prior to Vraks.

To be honest, I think you are overstating the importance and scale of Vraks in the setting, and conflating some of the lore. It was the focus of three IA books because it was interesting for the story they wanted to tell and the models they wanted to sell. The war is objectively smaller than, say, the Badab War in IA 9 and 10 though.

Vraks was a small world only important because it was essentially an Imperial Guard storehouse for the region. It had a low population but warehouses upon warehouses of munitions. The Imperium then does what the Imperium does and engages in a bloody meatgrinder to slowly recapture it in a pyrrhic victory.

_Krieg_ engages in something like cloning. Not because of Vraks specifically, but because it is a world dedicated to producing soldiers for the meatgrinder above all else. It is their primary export. There are Krieg regiments fighting and dying across the galaxy. 5 were deployed to Armageddon in the early phases of the 3rd war.

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time. Most Imperial planets are sparsely populated, and those that aren't are occupied more than integrated.

There are actually some lore examples that go into this "paradox".

I think the best approach for any scifi writer is to just not use actual numbers. Use comparisons or ambiguous numbers.

Like rather than say "this many millions died here" say "untold millions" or "enough to fill a hiveworld with the dead" or, "a billion coffins were issued without making a dent" - you imply a number enough to give the audience the impression you want them to have, without giving them an actual number they can think through and go "hmmm... actually that's not all that dramatic".

I think GW has started to learn this. IIRC in the more recent times they've listed the Leman Russes' armour it's now given as "inches of armour" rather than the previous "three inches of standard steel" or whatever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time. Most Imperial planets are sparsely populated, and those that aren't are occupied more than integrated.

I don't agree honestly. Even if you take the colonial framing - France lost 3% of its total population during the Napoleonic wars (20% specifically of military aged men).
In WW2 the military deaths only equated to about 1% of global population (although another 2% of the world civilians dying brings the total to 3% again).
The Imperium isn't engaging in small colonial wars pacifying stoneage natives, perhaps you could characterise the Great Crusade like that (but then the Great Crusade was a xenocide not colonial pacification). The Imperium in the 41st millenium is in a stage of constant total war against empires and species very much their equal or even greater in all but expanse.

And we know the Imperium has vast numbers of troops at its disposal. The Imperial Guard is greatly laboured to be in the billions or even trillions. Losing a couple million men would be a rounding error for them. If they mobilised a hive world, even just the accessible bits, you'd expect multiple billion soldiers right there.
So when GW tells us "this campaign was notable because so many people died" a few million just isn't gonna cut it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
How do!

Came up in the Bolter Recoil thread about just how bad the background is with numbers. From a Chapter having an unfeasibly low number of Astartes, to supposedly staggering losses in a single campaign being fewer than in WW2. Which whilst I don’t want to understate the bravery and sacrifice of all WW2 Soldiers, is somewhat silly.

Now, one number I do like is that the attempted census of Hive Trazior gave up when it had barely covered the upper levels at around a billion. Which gives us some idea of just how many people live in Hive Cities.

Everything else just seems really low. Though perhaps not necessarily the headcount of an Imperial Guard Regiment. There I’m happy to write off such an individual combat unit seeming low, because we know it’s but one of innumerable others.

So…where do we begin rescaling and renumbering 40K? What works for you, Dakka? And of course because it makes for more interesting conversation, why?

In general I agree. GW keeps its numbers too low. Changing it is possible but would have knock-on effects in the background.

The easiest and most straightforward would be to instead of having the Cadian 8th you have the Cadia 80234th regiment. However increased IG army sizes also then impacts Imperial Navy background where cruisers are said to have transport capacity for 1 regiment while individual escort sized transports can do 1 regiment themselves. Warzones would mean a constant stream of ships ferrying troops to the planetary beachhead.

Enlarged IG armies would also diminish the significance of Astartes as there is only so much they could do if the armies are many millions strong. Decapitating the command structure of a regiment would become an insignificant effect. Astartes then should conserve their ammunition except when going for mission objectives as the enemy would have more bodies than they have bolter shells.

It also means Craftworld and Tau armies would also need to upscale and like the Astartes problem above, the effectiveness of their Farseer visions or Fire Caste strategies would have to be greater otherwise again they would pale into insignificance.

On Imperial Navy ships? We know they’re already vast. And being able to carry (number for demo only!) 2,000 soldiers, and being able to carry 2,000 soldiers in comfort aren’t the same thing.

I mean, a Cobra Class, the smallest warp capable warship is 1.5km long and 300m at its widest point.

In length? It rivals an Imperial Class Star Destroyer, but is notable thinner. And that apparently carries 9,700 Stormtroopers. Again, not necessarily in comfort!

We then have dedicated troop ships, like the Universe Class, which can carry a cited 500,000 troops and their equipment.

There's not even a consistent size of what a "regiment" is.
Because that alone is a whole mess with depictions varying from approximately an IRL battalion to an entire IRL Army or larger.

GW certainly has a habit of using very poor military organisational structures, with poor use of terms that slip around. "Regiment" is clearly just thought of as "large cohensive group of Imperial Guard soldiers" that expands and shrinks as the narrative and author's interpretation requires.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Imperial Navy ships? We know they’re already vast. And being able to carry (number for demo only!) 2,000 soldiers, and being able to carry 2,000 soldiers in comfort aren’t the same thing.

I mean, a Cobra Class, the smallest warp capable warship is 1.5km long and 300m at its widest point.

In length? It rivals an Imperial Class Star Destroyer, but is notable thinner. And that apparently carries 9,700 Stormtroopers. Again, not necessarily in comfort!

We then have dedicated troop ships, like the Universe Class, which can carry a cited 500,000 troops and their equipment.

A Cobra class is about 0.5km long. An Imperial cruiser is about 3 km long and battleships are about 6 km long. That was the original BFG scale given by Andy Chambers, its designer.

FFG however went for crazy number inflation for the sake of it of both ship and crew sizes, creating the never before seen and nonsensical situation of troop transports having more crew than their troop transport capacity.

The Taros campaign adhered to the original BFG scale, which is why you see each standard transport in the order of battle carrying only 1 regiment or for the smaller capacity armed transports, only part of an infantry regiment.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
There's not even a consistent size of what a "regiment" is.
Because that alone is a whole mess with depictions varying from approximately an IRL battalion to an entire IRL Army or larger.

GW certainly has a habit of using very poor military organisational structures, with poor use of terms that slip around. "Regiment" is clearly just thought of as "large cohensive group of Imperial Guard soldiers" that expands and shrinks as the narrative and author's interpretation requires.

Indeed. We have Cadian 8th at 8,000 while a Krieg line infantry regiment can be over 10x as big, and in the IA: Taros campaign book it gives the 114th Mech. Cadian at 39k in size. Originally in the 3rd edition IG Codex there was a snippet that said a regiment was a unit of accounting that the Administratum used to denote a group of roughly equal military strength to another regiment and which could be transported in one ship, so that even if ships got scattered or delayed, there would be somewhat cohesive fighting forces deployed. That original purpose seems to no longer hold true as I find it difficult to believe the fighting capability of a Cadian regiment of 8,000 to be equal to that of a Krieg regiment of over 10x as many troops or equal to that of another Cadian regiment 4x as big.

On ship transport numbers:

The closest IRL equivalents we can look is stuff like Operation Magic Carpet, which saw the US transporting their military back as fast as possible after WW2. They used battleships and stuff for transporting the men home.
USS Washington, a 220m long battleship transported 1,500 men home. If a cobra Class destroyer is double the length, it's presumably about 8x the volume as volume is a cube. Which would suggest about 12,000 men.
That's an actual military escort warship transporting very approximately a [perhaps small] regiment.

In Operation Magic Carpet the dedicated cruiseliners and stuff were transporting 10x that for the same size. (And even they were outfitted for transporting civilians in some level of comfort I doubt is afforded the Imperial Guard). Which would suggest our escort-sized troop transport could be transporting 120,000 men. Probably more like 150,000+ if it's built from the ground up to transport sardines-I mean His Emperor's Noble Guardsmen.
So an escort sized dedicated transport vessel really should be transporting multiple regiments (or perhaps one very large regiment). The larger cruiser or even larger sized troop transports... honestly 500,000 is probably a very lowball estimate

Personally, I'd start with Space Marines and put 3 0's whenever their chapter numbers are mentioned.
A chapter is 1 Mio Marines and there is 1 Billion Marines in the galaxy. That way it's less of a stretch that they appear all the time. Sometimes smaller numbers can be kept, like only a couple of squads of SW on Vigilus or what, other times it's far more appropriate to have, like, 20.000 Space Wolves appear on Sanctus Reach to actually have an impact on that battle and be able to hold the line on large fields against Morkanauts.
Also, Abaddon attacking Cadia with 200 Million Black Legionaires, yeah, that's certainly a thread and a number where the actual depiction of Marines works, in that they suffer severe losses all the time (loyalists as well as Chaos).
Right now, with only 1000Marines per chapter you'd either have to portray every single one of them as an Avenger (which is rarely done or only for characters), or you'd have to admit that even the Tau are a much more relevant player in the galaxy than all loyalist and heretic Marines combined...

Other numbers are not as obviously too small as the SM number to me, though there are outliers of course, like only 1 Million Guardsmen on Cadia. Make that 20 Billion or whatever and we're talking...

It is really annoying how FFG messed up the ship scale, and those numbers are now commonly accepted even though they do not make even internal sense (Cobra is 1.5km whilst long-prowed Sword is 1.6km, which would certainly make Cobra more massive than Sword.)

And marine numbers have always been too small. Even if we want to keep them as small cadres of elite warriors, the chapter should still be at least 10 000 strong.

And the both of the above contribute to the absurdity of the marine fleet. They have these fleets of absolutely humongous ships, that apparently can still transport only handful of marines. Over four kilometre ship can transport one company? Over 1.5 km ship can transport one squad? Really? It makes no sense whatsoever. And yes, I'm taking into account their gear and vehicles.

In any engagement the contributions of the actual fighting marines would be totally overshadowed by the firepower of their fleet.

On Astartes Fleets? The ships themselves of course come from the days of the Great Crusade. And following the 2nd Founding, Legion Assets were distributed among the resulting Chapters, with new ships being built throughout the past 10,000 years.

Given the infantry losses during the Heresy, it’s likely they had a really good ship to personnel ratio, hence Strike Cruisers that might once have housed a Legion Company (approx a modern Chapter, give or take) might only be carrying a relative handful of Astartes.

That allows the Chapter to get involved in more warzones, and focus on what they ostensibly do best. Find the core of the enemy war machine and give it a really rapid but thorough kicking, ideally leading to the collapse of its lines and giving the other Imperial Forces a considerably easier time.

So that doesn’t both me so much. And it kind of serves as testament to how wonky things are in the modern Imperium.

@Iracundus - making the Guard bigger doesn’t make decapitation strikes any less effective, they are just happening further up the food chain. Regiments are led by Colonels and Majors. You wouldn’t waste marine strikes at that level anyway. Even Corps level is probably a bit low for true strategic impact. It’s the Army, Army Group and (ideally) Theatre commands that you send the marines after.

Personally, having a Regiment at about 10k troops is fine as that is probably the practical limit for direct command in the field. A set of monoculture regiments of 10k each, split into 2 or 3 chunks to create combined arms field divisions. Regimental command to each unit is maintained, they just have a divisional layer to enable coordination.

Humans can only handle about 5 things at a time, so the GW build up of 5-6 squads in a platoon, 5-6 platoons in a company, 5-6 companies in a regiment also tracks nicely. To push up to 10k per "regiment" the battalion (about 1k troops) and brigade (about 5k troops) layers just need to be added in, and a logical command structure is maintained. Especially if we view the Regimental concept more in the UK model as an organisational designation rather than the US model of a field command.

To me the mismatch comes from having a planet- wide and huge conflict with only half a dozen regiments noted. There should be hundreds.

 Haighus wrote:

I think the scale of most 40k campaigns works when viewing the Imperium as a colonial empire. The comparison isn't WW2, it is the 16th-19th century European empires. How many British soldiers were needed to take and hold India? Not that many compared to the huge population in the region at the time.

Don't forget that the British soldiers were massively outnumbered by locally recruited troops.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

That original purpose seems to no longer hold true as I find it difficult to believe the fighting capability of a Cadian regiment of 8,000 to be equal to that of a Krieg regiment of over 10x as many troops or equal to that of another Cadian regiment 4x as big.

Well... one could be mech and one infantry with no integral transport.

 Crimson wrote:

And marine numbers have always been too small. Even if we want to keep them as small cadres of elite warrios, the chapter should still be at least 10 000 strong.

Well it kinda works if you imagine those 1000 marines are all the teeth of a fighting formation and behind them the tail is all unseen serfs. Western militaries had 8 enablers for every front line infantryman. So that would give a mobilised force of 9000 for a chapter but only those front line 1000 are Astartes.

In any engagement the contributions of the actual fighting marines would be totally overshadowed by the firepower of their fleet.

I think every time we have a fight in 40k you have to handwave away the fleet or its all over.

I’ve always interpreted it as the fleet being more concerned with stopping more enemies making planet fall, so is outward facing to intercept incoming enemy ships and fleets.

Plus, if the ground forces can claim the main objectives? Do you really want to flatten them from orbit, prolonging recovery efforts once inevitable victory is achieved?

I've always felt like actual ground combat should be a rarity in 40k.

Granted, this applies more to *30k* where you have the Great Crusade and their explicit intention is to exterminate a xenos planet, level their cities, and build a anew. Why not achieve all those objectives with a short-sharp orbital bombardment rather than committing to a massive planet wide ground invasion. It must take decades to flush out every basement on a planet! Just to bulldoze and buildover anyway.

But even for 40k, precision-orbital bombardment is definitely a thing in lore. Like a lance strike is accurate enough to hit a bunker perhaps. There's also munitions, such as virus bombs, that can level an army whilst leaving a variety of strategically important assets untouched. Precision and/or low collateral munitions really means there's little reason *not* to bombard stuff. As long as one side as a ship in orbit free enough there should be little ability to confront them in open conflict.

Other excuses for why you can't just bombard enemy positions is void shields. But vessels in 40k are specifically designed to pummel the shields of opposing battleships down before striking the exposed ship. Especially a fleet should definitely be able to pummel down the voids of an enemy fortress-city before glassing the place.
Or - we know voids can be bypassed by slow moving items. That's torpedoes or attack craft in BFG, and often includes droppods and stuff in 40k stories. If you can drop a pod full of Marines you can drop a pod full of virus- or plasma- bomb through to do the job.

Really the only reason ground combat should ever often occur is intense subterreanean combat, such as cleansing the lower-reaches of a critical Hiveworld or Forgeworld perhaps.
For this honestly Marines are the worst possible soldiers. Imagine how useless a Space Marine must feel when the enemy disappears through a narrow hatchway or tunnel. The Marine would be completely unable to follow they would find themselves hopelessly incapable of conducting a war in such conditions.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
I've always felt like actual ground combat should be a rarity in 40k.

Granted, this applies more to *30k* where you have the Great Crusade and their explicit intention is to exterminate a xenos planet, level their cities, and build a anew. Why not achieve all those objectives with a short-sharp orbital bombardment rather than committing to a massive planet wide ground invasion. It must take decades to flush out every basement on a planet! Just to bulldoze and buildover anyway.

But even for 40k, precision-orbital bombardment is definitely a thing in lore. Like a lance strike is accurate enough to hit a bunker perhaps. There's also munitions, such as virus bombs, that can level an army whilst leaving a variety of strategically important assets untouched. Precision and/or low collateral munitions really means there's little reason *not* to bombard stuff. As long as one side as a ship in orbit free enough there should be little ability to confront them in open conflict.

Other excuses for why you can't just bombard enemy positions is void shields. But vessels in 40k are specifically designed to pummel the shields of opposing battleships down before striking the exposed ship. Especially a fleet should definitely be able to pummel down the voids of an enemy fortress-city before glassing the place.
Or - we know voids can be bypassed by slow moving items. That's torpedoes or attack craft in BFG, and often includes droppods and stuff in 40k stories. If you can drop a pod full of Marines you can drop a pod full of virus- or plasma- bomb through to do the job.

Really the only reason ground combat should ever often occur is intense subterreanean combat, such as cleansing the lower-reaches of a critical Hiveworld or Forgeworld perhaps.
For this honestly Marines are the worst possible soldiers. Imagine how useless a Space Marine must feel when the enemy disappears through a narrow hatchway or tunnel. The Marine would be completely unable to follow they would find themselves hopelessly incapable of conducting a war in such conditions.

In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.

From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040805101210/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/BFG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

Then we have also multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.

Summary: Static anti-orbital defensive installations can match or exceed the firepower of a typical Imperial ship and major facilities like hive cities can also have void shields. In a pure slugging match, the ship is likely to come out the worse for wear, and a warp capable ship's technology is likely more valuable than that of the laser silo or missile silo.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I think every time we have a fight in 40k you have to handwave away the fleet or its all over.

I am fairly sure there are only three situations where ground battle happens at all.

1. The battle is over something so vital you can't just bomb it from orbit. Say, an archaeotech relic with religious importance. You can't risk destroying it by bombing the thieves.

2. Space superiority is contested. You cannot linger exposed in orbit to bomb strategic targets. You can pass by and risk sending out landing craft which then can themselves take the planetside war from there, but no more.

3. The target is hardened with void shields. Void shields are also why titans don't usually just get nuked from orbit. The way they are presented, they are absurdly efficient at stopping single large attacks (like a ship's lance shot) but more vulnerable up close. Stationary void shield installations, especially if equipped with anti-orbital batteries, benefit from not having to be mobile and can be built with immense power and scale, and often are futile propositions to try to fight head-on, so you have to crack them from the ground. The Siege of Terra is the most notable example of this, the Imperial Palace's void shields could withstand the entire fleet's firepower so the traitors had to physically go through the barriers with aircraft and ground assaults and try to destroy the void shield generators at point blank.

 Ashiraya wrote:

The_Real_Chris wrote:
I think every time we have a fight in 40k you have to handwave away the fleet or its all over.

I am fairly sure there are only three situations where ground battle happens at all.

1. The battle is over something so vital you can't just bomb it from orbit. Say, an archaeotech relic with religious importance. You can't risk destroying it by bombing the thieves.

2. Space superiority is contested. You cannot linger exposed in orbit to bomb strategic targets. You can pass by and risk sending out landing craft which then can themselves take the planetside war from there, but no more.

3. The target is hardened with void shields. Void shields are also why titans don't usually just get nuked from orbit. The way they are presented, they are absurdly efficient at stopping single large attacks (like a ship's lance shot) but more vulnerable up close. Stationary void shield installations, especially if equipped with anti-orbital batteries, benefit from not having to be mobile and can be built with immense power and scale, and often are futile propositions to try to fight head-on, so you have to crack them from the ground. The Siege of Terra is the most notable example of this, the Imperial Palace's void shields could withstand the entire fleet's firepower so the traitors had to physically go through the barriers with aircraft and ground assaults and try to destroy the void shield generators at point blank.

I'd actually argue that these things are rarely true.
GW loves a hostile battlefield, so choked with radiation or whatever nothing can survive. That's the battlefields of Armaggedon right now
And something like a titan may have the voidships to survive a single lance-strike, but what about 4 in quick succession? Even a warship like a Destroyer, many times the size of the largest titan, can't withstand such a bombardment and will be destroyed in short order. Titans are demonstrably vulnerable to a couple of Superheavy tank-hunters, again far less firepower than even a small escort ship let alone a capital ship can bring to bear.

They're not always true, but these reasons are absolutely often presented in the novels. Since you mentioned 30k, I can bring up Nuceria in the novel Betrayer, where space superiority was exactly the reason why orbital bombardment was not used earlier than it was.

Iracundus wrote:

In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.

From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040805101210/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/BFG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

Then we have also multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.

Summary: Static anti-orbital defensive installations can match or exceed the firepower of a typical Imperial ship and major facilities like hive cities can also have void shields. In a pure slugging match, the ship is likely to come out the worse for wear, and a warp capable ship's technology is likely more valuable than that of the laser silo or missile silo.

I can kind of see the orbital defences argument, but that shows a major hive has the firepower of approximately two cruisers. But also the major disadvantage of being unable to maneuvre at all. A fleet rocking by, or even performing torpedo-and-run attacks can easily overwhelm that. We saw in WW2 how vulnerable land-based defences were at simply being outnumbered and overwhelmed by fleets of ships despite being ostensibly superior to many of the ships in terms of firepower and protection.
The fact that your ground based defences are beholden to rigid orbital mechanics means they're just incredibly vulnerable to being bombarded from well, well outside the range they can hit back. Hell a torpedo salvo could be launched from the other side of the solar system if the firer has the patience to wait for it to orbit onto the target

I mean at that point you're just running into the issue of "Why are they using a chain-saw melee weapon? Why are they using Space Marines?" which is an issue that 40k just isn't interested in this level of common sense to begin with.

If 40k was "realistic" it would not have the kind of spaceship it does in the first place. 40k may give superficial answers to how things work but you are not expected to really think about it too much.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

In the 40K universe paradigm, space power is one arm, an important one, but not the only one that matters. In particular, with reference to the BFG rulebook, the firepower of ground defense installations actually is superior to a bombarding ship, and is likely far more affordable in terms of cost. The average planetary defense laser silo packs almost as much firepower as the broadside of a Gothic cruiser, with greater range than the Gothic. Likewise, the average planetary defense missile silo has the launch capacity of a full cruiser, and the average planetary defense air base has enough short range aerospace fighters and bombers to match a Dictator cruiser.

From the old GW Armageddon 3 website archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20040805101210/http://www.armageddon3.com/English/Campaign/BFG/BFGmap.html

we can see the defenses of each hive on Armageddon comprised at least 4 air bases, 8 missile silos, and 8 laser silos. That kind of firepower would be enough to shred your average navy frigate, and even your average cruiser, if they tried to bombard the hive. Even if one takes Armageddon to be a more heavily defended than usual hive world, it still gives a rough gauge of the defenses a typical hive or fortress might have, which still is likely to overpower most spaceships.

Then we have also multiple examples extant in the universe of facilities and cities shielded by void shields or other more esoteric shields, so orbital bombardment isn't some instant "I win" card.

Summary: Static anti-orbital defensive installations can match or exceed the firepower of a typical Imperial ship and major facilities like hive cities can also have void shields. In a pure slugging match, the ship is likely to come out the worse for wear, and a warp capable ship's technology is likely more valuable than that of the laser silo or missile silo.

I can kind of see the orbital defences argument, but that shows a major hive has the firepower of approximately two cruisers.

The gap in firepower is more extreme than that. Each laser silo has the equivalent firepower of a Retribution class battleship's dorsal lance turrets. A hive's 8 laser silos would in BFG terms have 24 lance shots at 60cm range. That is about 6 Gothic cruiser broadsides with double the range or the dorsal lance turrets of 8 Retribution battleships. Each missile silo launches the equivalent of a full cruiser's torpedo salvo. Each air base has enough to match a Dictator class cruiser's launch capacity. So each hive city has the launch capacity of 4 cruisers, the torpedo capacity of 8 cruisers, and the lance capacity of the equivalent of the dorsal lances of 8 Retribution battleships. That kind of firepower is enough to shred any single standard ship, including battle barges, again using BFG rules as reference. That also assumes that there are no overlapping arcs of fire into orbit between multiple hive cities. A single hive city's defenses are enough to overwhelm the average fleet and make any larger fleet think twice given how painful it would be. Ship damage and losses are not easily recovered from in 40K as repair of major damage can take weeks to months and require the services of a shipyard or dock, and construction of new capital ships can take many years.

 kirotheavenger wrote:

And something like a titan may have the voidships to survive a single lance-strike, but what about 4 in quick succession? Even a warship like a Destroyer, many times the size of the largest titan, can't withstand such a bombardment and will be destroyed in short order. Titans are demonstrably vulnerable to a couple of Superheavy tank-hunters, again far less firepower than even a small escort ship let alone a capital ship can bring to bear.

Having used lances a lot against ground targets in Epic A I can tell you... Lance strike does D3 unsavable hits on a 2+. Warlord titan has 6 void shields. A salvo of 4 lances would do 6 2/3's points of damage on average. So would slightly damage a fully shielded titan, or mostly kill and give a critical to an unshielded titan and break it. Get into cover though like ruins or a forest and you are hit on a 3+ so taking 5 1/3 hits. You just hope there isn't a second barrage coming your way in that case

Against a battleship 4 lances wouldn't get through its shields. Against a cruiser you are hitting on 4's so probably won't get through the shields, though if you lock on you will get 2 hits so knock down shields and do a point of damage.

A significant fortification might have layered and interlocking Void Shields.

Where that technology rocks is that until the first shield is knocked down? The second and subsequent ones haven’t even been tickled.

And in most cases, but far from all? The shield going down is due to its generator overheating, rather than being destroyed. You can overcharge the generator to strengthen your shields of course, but that raises the risk of the generator being destroyed quite significantly.

So, any fortification or city could have sufficient VSG’s buried within it that you stand barely a chance of knocking them down in sufficient number and for long enough to damage the structure.

Titans are arguably going to have the nominally weakest VSG. Not because of some inherent design flaws, but because compared to a static fortification or a space borne battle ship? Space is at an absolute premium. Which limits your cooling options for them.

So, I don’t think it’s entirely handwavium to argue that using a Titan’s shields as a benchmark is perhaps misleading.

If they’re well maintained, by a staff with at least a decent understanding of their operating principles and why keeping the VSG as cool as possible, then we can likely expect a Fortification’s void shields to provide a greater degree of protection.

Not to the put of absolute invulnerability, no. That would be a silly and baseless argument. But it seems entirely possible, if not outright likely, that such Void Shields could be raised back up more quickly during a battle or assault,

For a Lance Gunnery Crew attacking it? You’re best off staggering your attacks somewhat. If they’re all hit at the same time? You’re only likely to collapse a single shield. Stagger your shots as much as you can? Then you stand to batter down multiple shields, and hope that if you strip them entirely that you’re next volley is swift enough the shields are still down when it hits.

Edited to specify a Lance Gunnery Crew.

The biggest number I want to fix in 40K is the height of space marines and especially primarchs!

Space Marines should be max around 7 feet tall in armour. Primarchs should generally be the same size, perhaps with some exceptions like Magnus who is really big.

Space Marines being physically enormous just makes them too easy to beat by having fortifications and corridors that are too small for them to enter. And Primarchs being really massive has always been supremely silly since it was introduced. The Khan was supposed to lead a culture of horse warriors - did he run along while they rode horses? Did they find him a really massive horse to ride?

And on none of these planets was anyone freaked out that these gigantic men kept growing? All of the background about primarchs is better if they're normal marine sized, and you can still have them being superhumans with super heroic strength and toughness.

And fully agreed on the ridiculous size of 40K space ships. I don't mind some sort of long range colony ship or ancient space habitat being absolutely sprawling and massive, but there's no reason for the warships to be so big. And lots of the stories involve people running to and from different areas of the ships, or walking between them. If the ships are as big as described this would take hours, the ships would be ridiculously unwieldy to manage.

 Da Boss wrote:
The Khan was supposed to lead a culture of horse warriors - did he run along while they rode horses? Did they find him a really massive horse to ride?

Yes, actually. I've not gotten to the Scars novels yet, but Descent of Angels presents Lion El'Jonson as "a little under three metres tall", and mentions that his horse was the largest specimen bred by the horsemasters of Caliban. Given the weird alien fauna of the world, we shouldn't assume that this horse was a biologically unchanged Equus ferus caballus horse.

And on none of these planets was anyone freaked out that these gigantic men kept growing?

Oh they absolutely were. Again, to use Caliban as an example, the Lion struck awe into all around him. No one could explain what exactly he was, but his unnatural charisma carried him through just about all suspicion.

Wouldn't it just make more sense if the Primarchs were not giants? Those things are obvious retcons from the decision to make the Primarchs massive, because they likely wanted to make really huge models for them at some point and sell them for high prices.

I allow a certain poetic license there. I mean, it’s not uncommon for physical stature to be exaggerated in tales or art. Either to paint them as quite incredibly ‘ard, or in more formal art to show who the boss is.

I mean yeah, the giant primarchs are stupid. Apparently the Imperium is now orks, and you can tell who's in charge by their height.

 Da Boss wrote:
Wouldn't it just make more sense if the Primarchs were not giants? Those things are obvious retcons from the decision to make the Primarchs massive, because they likely wanted to make really huge models for them at some point and sell them for high prices.

This novel is from six years before the 30k game launched, for what it's worth, and even at that point they didn't launch any Primarch day 1.

I think they just figured big is cool. Same reason why Titans are unrealistically big.