Imperial armour: Siege of Vraks analysis

[Simon_Jester]

Put it this way. It makes sense for civilian planetary societies to have starports, because it allows regulation of trade, centralizes the location of cargo handling equipment somewhere it can be easily maintained, and lets you build your surface transport network around the starport (putting it at the hub of roads and railroads).

For military purposes, the starport is the place you know for certain your ships can take off and land, and which hopefully already has cargo handling equipment, and which is equipped to send its cargo to distant parts of the planet. All that is nice.

It also avoids risks of damaging the ship on landfall, say when you try to set down on a salt flat and crunch through the surface. That's important if you look at a lot of 40k society: "small" things are often very expendable but "big" technological artifacts are regarded as precious. Even "small" things which are literally technological relics (like most plasma guns) can be used in an expendable way if it's important enough. But for "big" things like ships and Titans, the Imperium will go a long way to keep them safe. That's probably because of the Adeptus Mechanicus; they exhibit hoarding behavior when it comes to the most advanced and difficult-to-replicate technology, and they also have a sort of weird complex about how that stuff is extra-holy and the rest of the Imperium tends to buy into it.

This doesn't explain why, for protracted campaigns, the Imperium doesn't just find a random spot in the middle of nowhere with granite bedrock and blast the surface level with meltastuff or whatever, and then build a spaceport. Which may be part of what Skimmer was getting at; when you're committed to spending years capturing a planet, and manpower or expense of things like explosives are no object, there is no logical reason not to just build whatever random chunks of infrastructure you find convenient for fighting the war.

[Connor MacLeod]

There are lots of ways they avoid 'damaging' the landfall. If you go by Eye of TError interestellar starships have magical mass reducing fields that allow them to reach orbit on less than maximum thrust. Dark Adeptus mentions some ships having antigrav although it implies that its rare (at least for the 'huge starships to sit and hover' variety.) Those two could very well conflict with each other.

In Sons of Dorn they don't even bother landing on planets. Starships deliver cargo to orbital stations where it gets ferried down in space elevators. More than a few of the HH novels have similar setups (Deliverance for the Raven guard IIRC, and Mars for the Mechanicum.) You could probably replace 'space elevators' with 'small craft' rising or landing, which is also fairly common and won't need starports.

As to how wars are conducted, I think its been well established that out of universe it depends entirely on the sources you use (which can be kind of material - eg codexes, Forge World stuff, RPGs, or the novels - or specific authors, or any combination thereof.) because alot of them GIVE differing answers. The Imperial ARmour stuff is ample proof of this (differences in troop deployments and the scales of warfare between the IA books, logistics, etc. and other sources such as the Codex for example. Or the way the Codexes imply IG vehicles are supposed to be super rare, yet forge world indicats there are upteen kajillion types of vehicles for combat or transport, with innumerable variants. Hell Chimera and Leman russ hulls are apparently so common they can afford to convert them into medical and utility vehicles if you believe Forge World. That's not exactly 'super rare')

You either learn to a.) cherry pick the sources you're willing to accept or not accept and run the risk of being called biased or b.) go by the most recent material, which means your conclusions can change at least to some degree (if not significantly) with every new codex or c.) take it all at face value and try ot muddle along as best you can, trying not go go crazy in the process.

[Gunhead]

Actually, World War 2 showed that infantry with some mech/tank support is still highly viable. Only the US and British armies were able to truly have a fully motorised/mech army (see the liberation of France for their biggest success), but in a grinding attritional battle (i.e. Hurtgen Forest, Normandy Bocage) these forces still had plenty of trouble against the German army, which at this point was mainly composed of infantry and some Panzers. Because ultimately, you need to send in infantry (supported by tanks) to dig out entrenched infantry, or use a really huge amount of crushing artillery fire with infantry following in its wake to sweep up the remnants.

Post-World War 2 has allowed the creation of vast fleets of mechanized armies for both NATO and Warsaw Pact, but there's a growing realization that maybe you don't need to have every infantryman carried to battle in a Bradley. Because again mech is very expensive to maintain and keep in the field.

It's as I've said all along, nothing wrong with infantry if you can use them in an environment they are suited to and against an enemy they can be effective against. Holding and defending terrain is what infantry is good for, but for them to work they need to be helped out by more mobile elements so they aren't flanked or surrounded. Mech inf is good for both roles which makes them easily worth the cost of having. Another thing is ANY apc will greatly enhance the mobility and survivability of infantry. Simple BTR-70 or M113 will work for this purpose. This allows them to haul around more heavy weapons and ammunition while maintaining good level of mobility. It is cost prohibitive to field large forces all riding IFVs, but as you probably know, we reduced the amount of foot infantry and kept the armor to save money. Then as it was noted that we still have too much, we cut down on the rest.

But we aren't talking about a society that has enough surplus to make all of their troops mech infantry. We're talking about the Imperium, which tends to have a lot more infantry than mech because of the level of development in many of its worlds. So again, why not use them against an enemy that is lacking in the one weapon that is most effective against them - artillery? Certainly more sense than sending them into melee against the 'nids.

I never thought it made any sense for the imperium to haul foot infantry all across the galaxy to fight when they obviously have the capability to build armored vehicles in massive quantities. For some random reason, they don't, but I'm sure it's a fucking stupid one. If a planet can't produce something as simple as an APC, I doubt the planet does anything worthwhile militarily anyway. Shortly put, if you're going to send people to fight a war on another planet, why not make them the best equipped you can make them, far more effective than just spamming riflemen.
In most cases mech inf + tanks + arty + air support = win for the imperium. Even if they'd take relatively high losses against the Tau, the Tau is not a major opponent to the imperium and any losses can be answered with IG standard of more.

-Gunhead

[Connor MacLeod]

Partly because logistics, along with the how that is handled/organized and the actual economic/taxation side of thigns (which is where the logistics is going to go, nevermind the building) has never been dealt with in any coherent manner, at least not in an agreed upon way. I mean fuck there's not even agreement about the whole armoury/depot/supply world things and what those represent - you can pick and choose that depending on sources.

Within the confineds of the codexes and Forge World, its obvious that game mechanics and gameplay influence alot of how the fluff is structured. Thats why you don't get lasguns with fully automatic settings or variable outputs (even though some sources like the uplifting primer treat that as standard.) In Forge World's case, they tend to base what 'planets' have available to fight with accoridng to what models they've released up to that point (which is why the Elysians in IA3 didn't have Tauros or tauros venators, but they do in IA8 and IA11.) Or the 'counterfeit baneblades' which disappear when they mystically decided to produce the Macharius tanks. Or where the Malcador transports (which crop up in IA11) never show up in IA5-7, even though they could amass 'thousands' of those for the IA11 conflict. My personal favorite is how 'rare' tank designs like the Valdor tank hunter or the Minotaur artillery platform (both silyl looking designs, btw) are super duper advanced and rare.. yet seem to creep into a good many armouries afterwards.

Or the proliferation of baneblades (maybe the counterfeits didnt disappear!)

[PainRack]

Just why would supply lines= Tau insta win? To get into position to target the convoy, they still need both an observer and a fire platform. Having mobile escorts that can also peel off to actually engage and destroy the enemy at a distance, along with recon forces to secure potential ambush sites would be all you need to defeat this Tau tactic.

Indeed, its one of the key complaints people directed at IA 3, just what were the dropship regiment doing?!?!?! Unlike the Tau, the Imperium has the numbers in air and ground power to actually suffer the occasional loss a raid would inflict, and compensate by damaging the raider at least.

Just look at what they were able to do subsequently when their suicide raid against the airbase was executed! If they had been used competently, with Valkryies as overhead air cover for their mobile columns, the Tau would had been punished heavily for using their Skyray attacks. Especially if they had landed the equivalent of the Tauros vehicles or just plain sentinels to serve as recce foces ahead. The Imps would had suffered a significant amount of Vulture/Valkyrie losses, but it wouldn't have been crippling if planned right.


Anyway, Zinnegan has done an utter about face, where he abandoned his I cover my supply lines with mutually supported positions and I use infantry positions to force the enemy to attack my fixed positions because I have more troops when the Tau lost the strategic initative somehow...

[Zinegata]

...

Painrack again proves he's an irrelevancy and a moron who can't read, by still claiming an "about face" when I already posted my position from two days ago and it hasn't changed.

Complete. Waste. Of. Time.

[Zinegata]

I never thought it made any sense for the imperium to haul foot infantry all across the galaxy to fight when they obviously have the capability to build armored vehicles in massive quantities. For some random reason, they don't, but I'm sure it's a fucking stupid one. If a planet can't produce something as simple as an APC, I doubt the planet does anything worthwhile militarily anyway. Shortly put, if you're going to send people to fight a war on another planet, why not make them the best equipped you can make them, far more effective than just spamming riflemen.
In most cases mech inf + tanks + arty + air support = win for the imperium. Even if they'd take relatively high losses against the Tau, the Tau is not a major opponent to the imperium and any losses can be answered with IG standard of more.

-Gunhead

Aside from what Connor said, the problem really lies with the fact that some of the Imperium's worlds are still stuck on a specific level of technology. You can't really teach Ferals how to be a mech unit - these guys may not even know what a car is.

If there was a much more uniform level of tech development across the Imperium, you can probably standardize regiments more easily.

[white_rabbit]

This doesn't explain why, for protracted campaigns, the Imperium doesn't just find a random spot in the middle of nowhere with granite bedrock and blast the surface level with meltastuff or whatever, and then build a spaceport. Which may be part of what Skimmer was getting at; when you're committed to spending years capturing a planet, and manpower or expense of things like explosives are no object, there is no logical reason not to just build whatever random chunks of infrastructure you find convenient for fighting the war.

Well, they have done so in several examples. Its difficult to rationalise the behaviour of the Imperium on Vraks, because the whole thing is fucking silly.

Its basically a collection of scenarios injected with a dose of WW1 "thematic" which overrides everything else, then administered to 40k, which means we get years of grinding warfare, culminating in a daemorgasm and leaving Vraks a festering shithole.

its supposed to represent the futility of war, grim dark, blah blah, and be an opportunity to use all the WW1 inspired stuff that Tony Cottrell gets off on.

The Imperiums big landers ascend and descend on columns of nuclear fire, and the Ad-mech "rough out" facilities with orbital laser fire for the Achilus assault. Given some of the places the Imperium has built things, they can probably make a star-port inside an active volcano if they feel like it. (Mantle based command centres exist, for example, for when you don't want to get eaten by the tyranid horde devouring your planet)

[Gunhead]

Aside from what Connor said, the problem really lies with the fact that some of the Imperium's worlds are still stuck on a specific level of technology. You can't really teach Ferals how to be a mech unit - these guys may not even know what a car is.

If there was a much more uniform level of tech development across the Imperium, you can probably standardize regiments more easily.

True, but as it is feral planets produce.. ... body odor and furs? I mean with tech base so low you'll be forced to arm, equip and quite possibly feed them too. If you're going to do that you might as well teach them how to drive. I'm assuming there's some innate reason for the imperium to actually go to the extra effort of raising troops from a dungheap like this and send them off to fight someplace else. If they are just creating more PDF, well drop them lasguns and let them figure it out. There is a huge difference in cost in terms of having group x defending a planet and sending similar group y to fight on another planet. It's not like interstellar travel is exactly cheap or common in the imperium, even if in absolute terms there's a lot of it. Would be fun to see a comparative cost difference between a guardsman garrisoning a planet vs. guardsman sent to fight on a different planet.

-Gunhead

[Connor MacLeod]

It's not even 'uniform level of tech development' since that problem is far less prominent in the sector level 'sources' - the FFG RPGs, the ghosts novels, etc. The problem is there's a shit ton of information and not all of it agrees.

Weapons: What is a 'standard' IG issue lasgun? What is the energy output, number of shots, range, weight, features (rate of fire, charge settings if any, fire rate settings, etc.) What is the damage mechanism? does it cauterize or bleed? drill holes, slice, explode, or burn, or any combination.

And lets not get started on hotshot vs hellgun...

Vehicles: motorised and mechanised (including IFV as well as APCs) show up in novels (like the Ghosts stuff), but never in codexes or forgeworld, because they follow gameplay more closely.

Commonality of armoured vehicles is also 'variable' at best.

Structure: are they all 'one type' (EG all infantry, all armour, etc.) or mixed (tanks and arty with some mechanised infantry, or mech infantry with some light supporting vheicles, infantry that has all of the above, etc.) Forgeworld vs Codexes here, and the novels/RPGs add their own layer (gunships included as part of Guard regiments - helicopter analogues.)

logistics I already described. how they ship out, equip, raise and organize varies between IA, codex, RPGs and novels easily. I mean fuck, there are sources where the AdMech (or other forces) have built in manufacturing facilities (or starships that are mobile factories - admech forge ships.) That ought to GREATLY simplify logistics in a war.

Basically when you have the 'evidence' problems I described, there are no quick or easy answers without being selective. My advice? Fuck the codexes, fuck IA - but you risk accusation of cherrypicking (because in a sense you are, which is why I *try* not to do this.)

[Simon_Jester]

There are lots of ways they avoid 'damaging' the landfall. If you go by Eye of TError interestellar starships have magical mass reducing fields that allow them to reach orbit on less than maximum thrust. Dark Adeptus mentions some ships having antigrav although it implies that its rare (at least for the 'huge starships to sit and hover' variety.) Those two could very well conflict with each other.

In Sons of Dorn they don't even bother landing on planets. Starships deliver cargo to orbital stations where it gets ferried down in space elevators. More than a few of the HH novels have similar setups (Deliverance for the Raven guard IIRC, and Mars for the Mechanicum.) You could probably replace 'space elevators' with 'small craft' rising or landing, which is also fairly common and won't need starports.

Individual ships will no doubt have technology that lets them land even if they're huge. But a planetary civilization needs its facilities to accomodate everything that might come by to trade or visit, so having a large flat hardened space for ships to park on is desirable since some ships might damage the land under them or themselves get mired in dirt if they try to land just anywhere.

There are other advantages- for one, the locals know where the safe landing spots are; the visiting ship may not. God help you if you decide to just land on a random salt flat that turns out not to be able to hold up the weight of your ship; much better to land somewhere you know was engineered to carry the load.

For another there's that customs thing I mentioned earlier: giving merchantmen total freedom to land anywhere on your planet makes it a smuggler's paradise. In 40k this is actually a serious security hazard because genestealers and chaos cultists and such can use that to infiltrate your society without being monitored or tracked.

As to alternatives: if you use masses of small craft to ferry equipment, you need air traffic control which makes a port desirable. If you use a space elevator, the elevator becomes functionally equivalent to a port.

You don't have to have a port, but there are good and sufficient reasons for any 40k world to desire that most or all of its space traffic land at dedicated port facilities.

Or the way the Codexes imply IG vehicles are supposed to be super rare...

I never got that impression. The more recent IG codices are quite clear that there are massed armored units in the Guard, referencing thousands of vehicles amassed for relatively limited campaigns.

Incidentally, I've been counting them as "small:" tanks are easily manufactured by a class of 40k production technology that is fairly widespread throughout the Imperium's civilization, and is not totally limited to AdMech-controlled forge worlds where the technology is likely to be hoarded. So the Imperium treats vehicles (and artillery shells) as being fundamentally expendable, much like infantry. Whereas by and large it does not treat Titans and starships as expendable, except maybe for small or civilian ships.

...

Painrack again proves he's an irrelevancy and a moron who can't read, by still claiming an "about face" when I already posted my position from two days ago and it hasn't changed.

Complete. Waste. Of. Time.

Zinegata, let's be honest. You made a lot of statements over the past few days, many of them confusing, conflicting, or mutually exclusive. The position you gave from two days ago does not include other remarks you made that indicate a position at odds with this.

I am not at all surprised that people who can in fact read see you as having made an "about face" from "it's wasteful to send lots of armor into the teeth of the Tau because we should force them to choose between railgunning tanks and railgunning individual members of my conscript horde" to "yeah, I'm actually envisioning something like the 1943 Soviets with entire divisions and corps of armored troops interspersed with a long line of foot infantry."

You had a lot to do with the character of the argument between yourself and some of the other people here; if you'd stated clearly then what you now tell me you meant, it would have saved us all a lot of time.

[Connor MacLeod]

I know I've gottne fucking confused about what we were talking about. I think this started with me describing the IG as a reinassance army and degenerated from there....

I'll have to dig the 5th ed codex quotes I have re vehicles. I'm pretty sure when I covered IA1 there was similar there too (but at the same time they mentioned the trojan hull being adapted into a tank or troop carrier....)

There's a certain schizophrenic approach to codexes and IA that stems from them recycling old material (sometimes mindlessly) and injecting new material. The 5th edition SM codex was one such with the depictions of the Ultramarines - you literally can feel two different authors at work in it. IG Codex has similar.

Of course, novels and the RPGs are prone to this as well (they recycle too) but IMHO to a lesser degree. They also acknowledge the fundamental 'certain POV' logic to things... (EG FFG's black crusade vs Dark Heresy.)

[Ahriman238]

Aside from what Connor said, the problem really lies with the fact that some of the Imperium's worlds are still stuck on a specific level of technology. You can't really teach Ferals how to be a mech unit - these guys may not even know what a car is.

If there was a much more uniform level of tech development across the Imperium, you can probably standardize regiments more easily.

True, but as it is feral planets produce.. ... body odor and furs? I mean with tech base so low you'll be forced to arm, equip and quite possibly feed them too. If you're going to do that you might as well teach them how to drive. I'm assuming there's some innate reason for the imperium to actually go to the extra effort of raising troops from a dungheap like this and send them off to fight someplace else. If they are just creating more PDF, well drop them lasguns and let them figure it out. There is a huge difference in cost in terms of having group x defending a planet and sending similar group y to fight on another planet. It's not like interstellar travel is exactly cheap or common in the imperium, even if in absolute terms there's a lot of it. Would be fun to see a comparative cost difference between a guardsman garrisoning a planet vs. guardsman sent to fight on a different planet.

-Gunhead

You have feral worlders in the Guard for the same reason you have hive gangbangers and death worlders. They're tough and they're mean, and they know how to fight and kill before they turn old enough to enlist.

I've lost count of the times the Tanith 1st were dismissed as primitive barbarians, I believe once or twice they're even called feral worlders. But one reason they survive is because they're far more adept at stealth and navigating their environment than those regiments from high-tech world with their brightly colored armor.

We also see units with primitive tactics being held back for rearguard, garrison and police duties. At least one featured recently in Connor's Soul Drinkers thread.

Also, there are worlds like Sepheris Secundus and the Knight Worlds in older fluff, where the general tech level might be feral/feudal, but that's because advanced technology and weapons are strictly controlled by the ruling class.

[Connor MacLeod]

actually depending on the definitions you go by (IIRC I'm talking FFG stuff) Hive gangers and 'mad max/road warrior' type planets where society has broken down (and possibly some penal worlds) can also be treated as 'feral'. Some may overlap into death world territory as well.

Oh and 'armoured vehicle are rare' from the 5th IG codex:

Page 19

Mechanised infantry companies are normally quite rare in the Imperial Guard. This is because it is difficult for most Imperial Commanders and Planetary Governors to obtain and maintain enough of the vehicles needed for such a formation.

It's also strongly indicated that the bulk of the IG is infantry. Of course they also say Armageddon produces 'countless' chimeras for use across the Impeirum...

PAge 39

]These [armoured fist] squads lend speed and tactical flexibility ot the often slow and rigid formations of the Imperial Guard. An infantry regiment does not typically include any mechanised troops, it being difficult for most planetary governors to obtain and maintain the vehicles needed for such formations.

again 'rare'. And if they can't maintain chimeras I kind of question how they could have more Russes.

Page 51

Manufactured on hundreds of Forge Worlds, the Hydra is a common sight in the Imperial Guard, frequently deployed in support of armoured tank columns, fixed aritllery emplacements and regiments..

Hydras are 'common' sights.

Page 53

The Griffon armoured weapon carrier is one of the most frequently employed variations of the versatile Chimera chassis.

Griffons are more common than Hydras. Gotta love that consistency.

And like I said this doesn't include the Forge World lunacy. Funny fact, going by IA6 and IA7, alot of the vehicles on Vraks are older and decomissioned/mothballed shit.. basically second or third line shit or 'ancient' tech. Not unlike the navy mothballs for old or outdated designs. Guess that explains all those autoweapons but the apparent absence of lasweapons.

[Sea Skimmer]

Page 475

It was a flat disk, six hundred and forty metres in diameter, capable of berthing
ships up to five hundred and fifty metres across. Like all of the landing plates at the New Rynn Spaceport, it employed anti-gravitic suspension systems related to the grav-plates used on most space-faring vessels. Such powerful suspension allowed the plate to accept burdens of millions of tonnes without compromising the integrity of the structure below.

Okay, this does something to answer the question; dedicated structures are required to land large ships. Though I’d also say a ship weighing millions of tons would not in fact completely rule out landing on some bulldozed flat rock. You wouldn’t have landing gear, you’d just have giant skid plates on the bottom. Even weak rock can take 10,000psi, and its not like sinking in a little bit should be critical.

Now, fact that this is an actively powered system makes capturing spaceports a lot less plausible as an objective because they’d be much easier to demolish. If the landing surface was simply a giant concrete cradle as I thought it might be, it would also be much harder to seriously damage and easier to repair. That would make attempts at capture much more attractive. The fact that the anti grav system is actually negating the weight of the ship also suggest it should be possible to make a field deployable version as foundations proportional to the weight are not required. That plus ferrying from orbit means that yeah... attacking spaceports shouldn't be a real priority unless they are lightly defended.

[Gunhead]

You have feral worlders in the Guard for the same reason you have hive gangbangers and death worlders. They're tough and they're mean, and they know how to fight and kill before they turn old enough to enlist.

Yeah well I was looking for something a bit better than this. Not to go too deeply into it, this is just the ye olde "Graa! Tuff living conditions make good soldiers" argument. Which is pretty much bunk. I'm not going into it in detail here though, if you want we can make a separate thread for it though it's been covered on this board before.

I've lost count of the times the Tanith 1st were dismissed as primitive barbarians, I believe once or twice they're even called feral worlders. But one reason they survive is because they're far more adept at stealth and navigating their environment than those regiments from high-tech world with their brightly colored armor.

Oh you just need to slug a few rounds at the brightly colored people, they'll get the message pretty quick. Or die. Other than that battlefield stealth is a complex issue, but comparing people who might in fact have experience and training to "Oh I sneer at you because I'm badly written" idiots, sounds a bit redundant.

We also see units with primitive tactics being held back for rearguard, garrison and police duties. At least one featured recently in Connor's Soul Drinkers thread.

While "dig a hole and stay in it" might work part of the time, Military policing / policing is not a place for primitive tactics. It takes a lot of flexibility and specialized tactics to do it, competently I mean.

Also, there are worlds like Sepheris Secundus and the Knight Worlds in older fluff, where the general tech level might be feral/feudal, but that's because advanced technology and weapons are strictly controlled by the ruling class.

If general tech level is feral / feudal, it doesn't actually endear the place to producing mass quantities of military hardware mind you.

-Gunhead

[Connor MacLeod]

Okay, this does something to answer the question; dedicated structures are required to land large ships. Though I’d also say a ship weighing millions of tons would not in fact completely rule out landing on some bulldozed flat rock. You wouldn’t have landing gear, you’d just have giant skid plates on the bottom. Even weak rock can take 10,000psi, and its not like sinking in a little bit should be critical.

As White Rabbit reminds me, they do this. Hell you don't need SUPAR HUGE transports to land either, just some very big shuttles, lighters or transports (some sot of small craft or sublight warship.)

For the caes of freighters or transports it may not simple be ground stability or support issues for the terrain - the starshisp themselves might need some sort of support or assistance in landing (not all 40K starships use high tech torch drives or exotic magical metals.)

And failing that it makes controlling traffic on and off world (as well as controlling access to starships in general) easier if it's centralized. This is true of most universes with a 'starport'.
Of course as I said not all 'ports' neccesarily are on the ground, or solely on the ground.

Again it's varying source by source so its hard to generalize.

Now, fact that this is an actively powered system makes capturing spaceports a lot less plausible as an objective because they’d be much easier to demolish. If the landing surface was simply a giant concrete cradle as I thought it might be, it would also be much harder to seriously damage and easier to repair. That would make attempts at capture much more attractive. The fact that the anti grav system is actually negating the weight of the ship also suggest it should be possible to make a field deployable version as foundations proportional to the weight are not required. That plus ferrying from orbit means that yeah... attacking spaceports shouldn't be a real priority unless they are lightly defended.

If you don't need the port to land your ships then it probably is easier to demolish it.

Then again if you're intent on capturing a planet and you have a starport with fancy ass gravtech supports you (or at least the AdMech contingent) will probably demand it NOT be destroyed, since AG tech is pretty high up there in sophistication and advanced-ness.

[Connor MacLeod]

Yeah well I was looking for something a bit better than this. Not to go too deeply into it, this is just the ye olde "Graa! Tuff living conditions make good soldiers" argument. Which is pretty much bunk. I'm not going into it in detail here though, if you want we can make a separate thread for it though it's been covered on this board before.

That was how it was in earlier fluff, and its sort of held over from past times in some forms. On the other hand it can manifest in other ways: feral worlders might be used as conscripts/cannon fodder (if needed). Or they may be used as close quarters combat troops. Or they may be scouts/pathfinders/light infantry like the Tanith. Qualities Feral Worlders have can be natural survivalists or fieldcraft. They might also just be very unquestioningly harsh or brutal - depending on what the regiment is being recruited or used for. They're also more likely to be physically fit/in shape

Again as I noted some sources indicate 'feral' worlds include any sort of tribal structure: gangs, death worlds, etc. Also even in the old fluff they were sometimes given further training/instruction/indoctrination to bring them up to 'standard' (whatever the hell that may be, if there is a standard.)

(actually much of this I'm gleaning from the RPG, so depending on your source this may or may not be contradicted. I tend to ignore the contradictions because of my aforementioned opinion of the codexes.)

While "dig a hole and stay in it" might work part of the time, Military policing / policing is not a place for primitive tactics. It takes a lot of flexibility and specialized tactics to do it, competently I mean.

He means they were Napoleonic infantry. Putting them on policing duty was a means of getting them out of the way without actually letting on how useless they were. As it turned out, they were only a bit more useless than the Space Marines were (and a whole lot less harmful to their own side.)

If general tech level is feral / feudal, it doesn't actually endear the place to producing mass quantities of military hardware mind you.

How this is handled depends on your source, like always.

Example: Baal is a 'Feral world' technically, but its inhabitants possess vehicles, rad suits, rad counters, etc. (although little to no actual manufacturing capability.)

[Simon_Jester]

]These [armoured fist] squads lend speed and tactical flexibility ot the often slow and rigid formations of the Imperial Guard. An infantry regiment does not typically include any mechanised troops, it being difficult for most planetary governors to obtain and maintain the vehicles needed for such formations.

again 'rare'. And if they can't maintain chimeras I kind of question how they could have more Russes.

That doesn't necessarily mean there aren't a lot of Chimeras being produced; it may simply mean that most planetary governors lack the prestige or pull to get large Chimera forces assigned to their own planetary forces. Cadians can probably get as many as they want because they're respected as a planet of tough fighters, but if the Bumfuckians want to raise mechanized Guard regiments they have to convince someone to ship the damn Chimeras out from a forge world or set up their own production line, both of which are difficult for the Bumfuckians to accomplish. Meanwhile, planets like Armageddon normally equipped their whole planetary army with Chimeras, because they can make that many.

Page 51

Manufactured on hundreds of Forge Worlds, the Hydra is a common sight in the Imperial Guard, frequently deployed in support of armoured tank columns, fixed aritllery emplacements and regiments..

Hydras are 'common' sights.

Page 53

The Griffon armoured weapon carrier is one of the most frequently employed variations of the versatile Chimera chassis.

Griffons are more common than Hydras. Gotta love that consistency.

What? How is "one of the most common" meaning "more common than all others?"

Okay, this does something to answer the question; dedicated structures are required to land large ships. Though I’d also say a ship weighing millions of tons would not in fact completely rule out landing on some bulldozed flat rock. You wouldn’t have landing gear, you’d just have giant skid plates on the bottom. Even weak rock can take 10,000psi, and its not like sinking in a little bit should be critical.

Now, fact that this is an actively powered system makes capturing spaceports a lot less plausible as an objective because they’d be much easier to demolish. If the landing surface was simply a giant concrete cradle as I thought it might be, it would also be much harder to seriously damage and easier to repair. That would make attempts at capture much more attractive. The fact that the anti grav system is actually negating the weight of the ship also suggest it should be possible to make a field deployable version as foundations proportional to the weight are not required. That plus ferrying from orbit means that yeah... attacking spaceports shouldn't be a real priority unless they are lightly defended.

It may be that dedicated structures make landing huge ships easier, safer, and cheaper- say, because otherwise that million-ton ship has to land in a plume of its own rocket exhaust and if they miss the blast channels by a little there'll be a huge sheet of fire washing across the tarmac.

That doesn't mean the ships couldn't land on a huge bulldozed slab of bedrock if you really wanted to do it that way; it just means you'd prefer something a little more elaborate.

Also, there are worlds like Sepheris Secundus and the Knight Worlds in older fluff, where the general tech level might be feral/feudal, but that's because advanced technology and weapons are strictly controlled by the ruling class.

If general tech level is feral / feudal, it doesn't actually endear the place to producing mass quantities of military hardware mind you.

-Gunhead

Imperium COIN tactics involve a lot of the mass manpower/mass brutality approach common to, say, 19th century colonials. So using ferals can actually suit them just fine, doctrinally. It has costs, but they're really too brutal and hamhanded a state to care.

[Sea Skimmer]

And failing that it makes controlling traffic on and off world (as well as controlling access to starships in general) easier if it's centralized. This is true of most universes with a 'starport'.
Of course as I said not all 'ports' neccesarily are on the ground, or solely on the ground.

Well I wasn't really questioning the civilian use for space ports, because they would be centers of warehousing and ground based transportation. The question was this military theme of wanting to capture them as some kind of priority.

If you don't need the port to land your ships then it probably is easier to demolish it.

Then again if you're intent on capturing a planet and you have a starport with fancy ass gravtech supports you (or at least the AdMech contingent) will probably demand it NOT be destroyed, since AG tech is pretty high up there in sophistication and advanced-ness.

I'm not talking about the invader destroying it, I'm talking about the defender destroying it in ordered to slow down an invasion; and thus making even attempting to capture the ports questionable as they get blown up in your face.

[Zinegata]

Zinegata, let's be honest. You made a lot of statements over the past few days, many of them confusing, conflicting, or mutually exclusive. The position you gave from two days ago does not include other remarks you made that indicate a position at odds with this.

Well, next time I just won't honor half of the replies period because it seems to just sow confusion.

"it's wasteful to send lots of armor into the teeth of the Tau because we should force them to choose between railgunning tanks and railgunning individual members of my conscript horde" to "yeah, I'm actually envisioning something like the 1943 Soviets with entire divisions and corps of armored troops interspersed with a long line of foot infantry."

Well, that's fair. Like I said the initial COIN analogy was off.

But again, I'm being accused of advocating a pure infantry approach. Two days after I explicitly said that's not what I'm aiming for, and even after I advocated sending Air Cav instead of Armoured Cav.

[Zinegata]

I'm not talking about the invader destroying it, I'm talking about the defender destroying it in ordered to slow down an invasion; and thus making even attempting to capture the ports questionable as they get blown up in your face.

It'd probably require a rapid assault to capture it; justifying the original role of the Space Marines.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned though is that the Starport may also include the orbital defense or shielding facilities, and these need to be taken down before you can actually land even rough-terrain landers anywhere nearby.

Connor->

It's not even 'uniform level of tech development' since that problem is far less prominent in the sector level 'sources' - the FFG RPGs, the ghosts novels, etc. The problem is there's a shit ton of information and not all of it agrees.

The Ghosts at least have the excuse of being a couple hundred years behind the "present" day, so Abnett can essentially handwave any differences to "It changed in the next hundred years" .

[Simon_Jester]

Zinegata, let's be honest. You made a lot of statements over the past few days, many of them confusing, conflicting, or mutually exclusive. The position you gave from two days ago does not include other remarks you made that indicate a position at odds with this.

Well, next time I just won't honor half of the replies period because it seems to just sow confusion.

...

If it keeps you from quote spaghetting, good.

Otherwise- seriously, just write a few paragraphs at the top detailing exactly what your argument is, or what you think would be a good plan. Then write your two-page essay on the excruciating details of what you think about this, that, and the other thing. If your opinions are scattered all over three thousand words of writing and mixed in with exasperated remarks and weird one-off stuff you disown later... people will have no clue what you're talking about.

But again, I'm being accused of advocating a pure infantry approach. Two days after I explicitly said that's not what I'm aiming for, and even after I advocated sending Air Cav instead of Armoured Cav.

I could go back and point to a number of places where your descriptions of your strategy create vivid images of walls of marching foot troops.

[Zinegata]

Otherwise- seriously, just write a few paragraphs at the top detailing exactly what your argument is, or what you think would be a good plan.

...

I could go back and point to a number of places where your descriptions of your strategy create vivid images of walls of marching foot troops.

Point taken; always qualify.

[Gunhead]

That was how it was in earlier fluff, and its sort of held over from past times in some forms. On the other hand it can manifest in other ways: feral worlders might be used as conscripts/cannon fodder (if needed). Or they may be used as close quarters combat troops. Or they may be scouts/pathfinders/light infantry like the Tanith. Qualities Feral Worlders have can be natural survivalists or fieldcraft. They might also just be very unquestioningly harsh or brutal - depending on what the regiment is being recruited or used for. They're also more likely to be physically fit/in shape

Again as I noted some sources indicate 'feral' worlds include any sort of tribal structure: gangs, death worlds, etc. Also even in the old fluff they were sometimes given further training/instruction/indoctrination to bring them up to 'standard' (whatever the hell that may be, if there is a standard.)

(actually much of this I'm gleaning from the RPG, so depending on your source this may or may not be contradicted. I tend to ignore the contradictions because of my aforementioned opinion of the codexes.)


He means they were Napoleonic infantry. Putting them on policing duty was a means of getting them out of the way without actually letting on how useless they were. As it turned out, they were only a bit more useless than the Space Marines were (and a whole lot less harmful to their own side.)


How this is handled depends on your source, like always.

Example: Baal is a 'Feral world' technically, but its inhabitants possess vehicles, rad suits, rad counters, etc. (although little to no actual manufacturing capability.)

Meh.. that's well.. more or less true depending on the source as it is. I still don't see the value of getting "brutal" troops from some forgotten hell hole, or wasting time and resources on making niche troops. If I want either I'll just train some from a place that already has all the mechanisms in place. People are easy to come by in the imperium so they'd need to be ungodly special to be worth the time and effort.

-Gunhead