Page 112
- Zoican "flat-crab" siege tanks, mentioned to be the size of "four or five" tanks together.
Page 112
Then it was the turn of the spiders, the largest and most fearsome of the Zoican siege weapons. A hundred metres from nose to tail and propelled by eight vast, clawed cartwheels set on cantilever arms extendign from the main bodies of their armoured structures, the spiders ground out of the smoke and rumbled towards the wall. Gun and rocket batteries on their backs blazed up at the defences of VErvunhive.
Generally speaking, being 100 metres long and wide enough to block the Vervunhive gates (later) suggests these things are almost certianly Titan grade constructs, and thus must mass manyy thousands of tons. ITs insane to consider what this suggests about Zoica's industrial capabilities.
Page 113
One was stopped by the VPHC Comissioner Vokane, who got his troops to roll munitions from the launcher dumps to the Wall head and tip them over onto the rising beast, charges set for short fuse. The spider was blown off the wall and fell backwards, crushing hundreds of Zoican troops under it. It lay on its back and burned. Vokane and fifty-seven of his men didn't live to cheer. The explosive backwash of the spider's death engulfed them and burned them to bone scraps.
This suggests again that the Imperium has possession of some some pretty insane explosives (incineration would require double digit GJs to do all that. That would almost be a side effect of a high explosive, and damn impressive for man-portable munitions. Hell, the explosive force to blast a Titan sized object off the wall is bound to be insane.)
PAge 113
It [a spider] settled sideways on its exploded wheels, half-blocking the entrance. [to Verveyr Gate].
The remaining spider clawed its way over the Curtain Wall west of Hass West Fort. General Grizmund was waiting for it. As it scattered and burned the wall defenders to the left and right, Grizmund's Narmenian tanks, assembled in the open placecs of the House Anko chem works, elevated and fired, ,blasting the vast thing backwards off the Curtain Wall. The force of the salvo took part of the inner wall down too, but it was considered worthwhile. The spider was destroyed.
As I noted before, the Spiders must be quite large (ttian grade) given the dimensions (and the bility to "half block" the gate (30-40 meters or so)./ Even assuming a height of only 5 metres (not much higher than a Russ, in other wordS) and a density of water and that they are 50% empty space on top fo that, each spider would mass 7,500 tons.
We know later that there are about 100-200 Narmenian tanks, which is roughly consistent with what a Tank regiment in the Guard should compose of. We dont know if all fo the m fired on the Spider, but conservatively ssume they did.
ASsuming all 200 tanks hit, ignoring the damage to the wall done.. and assuming the Spider was only knocked off at a mere .5 to 1 m/s (a rather slow speed ofr osmething that large.. whereas the effect is implied to blast the thing physically off, rather than tipping it off, and thus implying a greater velocity) this yields an output of around 18,000 to 38,000 kg*m/s worth of momentum impartted per tank. This is many times the momentum of a modern tank gun using a saboted round, of course (5-7 kg penetrator at around 1700 m/s, IIRC) and thus this is an indciator of just how powerufl Imperial Guard tnak guns are in comparison to modern tanks (Bearing in mind the inefficiencies, the situation, and the fact I am drastically under-representing these calcs)
Page 120
His hold was an expert move, just a millimetre or two of pressure away from clamping the cartoid arteries, just a centimetre away from dislocating the neck. Only a brilliant medic or an Imperial assassin could be that precise.
Dorden disables an attacker, it appears that Imperial assassins (supposedly) would have similar knowledge to a Guard medical doctor.
page 122
"I.. I was wonderign why they had gunshot wounds?"
..
"small calibre, maybe a needle gun. Easy to mistake it for shrapnel wounding."
"It says 'glass lacerations' here.
..
"I know a needle-gun wound when I see it. And I'm seeing over a dozen shared between the two of them. They wer shot at close range. I checked the records. Twelve others were brought in from the same site with identical wounds. But they were all dead on arrival."
Needle guns are "small calibre" bullets, but they can be mistkane for "Shrpanel" wounding, which tells us something about their damage profile.
Page 126-127
: House Chass is known for producing Servitors, cogitators and its mechanical development (working machines.) His hobby seems to be maintaining his "cybernetic garden" - mechanical vegetation that seems to mimic living plants (and that Chass allows to grow freely.) This carries interesting implications for Imperium computers and machines (not exactly AI, but not unintelligent or unsophisticated either, and fairly adaptable.)
Page 131
- visibility is stated to be "a few hundred metres" in the rain.
Page 132
- the Ghosts are dug in close to Verveyr Gate, over by the engine sheds. Given the above, that probably gives us an upper limit on the engagement to come.
Page 133
The "thing" he referred to was the gigantic wreck of the spider siege engine which the NorthCol batteries had brought down during the First Storm three days before. Its massive bulk, slumped across the gatemouth barricades, half blocked the entrance and had proved impossible to shift, ,despite the efforts of pioneer teams and sappers with dozers and heavy liftsers
.
- again it is mentioned that the spider-machine that attacked Verveyr gate "half blocked" the entrance. It also proved impossible to shift despie acceess to dozers and heavy lifters. Enemy infantry, though, could worm around the bulk, ,though.
Page 133
He had eleven heavy weapon teams tied in here at intervals behind flakboards and bagging. Six heavy stubbers on tripod mounts, two autoguns on bipods with ammof eeders sprawled on their bellies next to the gunners, and three missile launchers.
Page 132 mentione sthat Corbec had around 200 ghosts, so we're probably talking at leat a company or so,a nd the above represents the numbers and distribution of heavy weapons (not including special weapons) that means slightly more than 1 heavy weapons team per squad.
Page 134
- Corbec notes that the gatehouse (which admittedly is damaged badly at this point) is "a hundred metres up." This is interesting insofar as it impacts earlier height estimates for the Wall (and the effects on artillery bombardment.
Page 134
- multiple, "fifty tonne" pieces of "rolling stock" rail forming a barricade of the Verveyr gate, are pulverized and turned into "whit hot' shrapnel by the initial barrages. (no idea of the weapons involved though)
Page 135
- in less than 10 minutes, flat crabs and other heavy artillery siege-crackers brought down the gate barricade and destroyed the Spider corpse blocking the gate.
The Flat-crab could also crush a chimaera under its tracks.
Page 136
- The Ghosts begin opening fire as Zoican troops starrt pouring through the hole that the flat-crabs opened in the gate. It seems that most did not exit the gate yet, since Milo only sees a few ochre shapes emerging from the gate mouth, at least initilaly. (howver, on the next page, someone DOES throw a grenade, so the range might not be as great by this point, and only the remainign troops were pouring out of the gate mouth.)
page 137
A las-round entered his skull through his nose-bone, blowing out the back of his head.
zoican las-round , blowing out (part?) of a Ghost's head.
Page 137-138
- a trooper (ghost?) is cut in two by Zoican fire. Not sure if its single trooper or multiple
PAge 139
- a VErvun Primary officer carrying 3 satchels of mines and grenades (light enough that he can run with it) is killed, but the explosives go off under the tank, and flip the flat-crab up and over onto its rear end. An armour anti-tank round sets off the crab's magazine and the resulting explosion vaporises the super tank. Flat Crabs would arguably be superheavies (300~ tons) meaning that severla terajoules would be needed to vaporize, assuming iron composition.
Page 139
He had sixteen men with him, including Larkin and Trooper Genx, who carried a bipod autocannon.
..
Genx opened fire and his heavy cannon made a distinctive "whuk-whuk-whuk" in the closed space.
Man portable autocannon, not sure if this is a squad weapon or a heavy weapon or what.
Page 139
Fire walloped back at them and Corbec marvelled at the way the las-rounds kissed and followed the stone walls. Trooper Fanck dropped, his chest gone. Trooper Manik was hit in the groin and his screams echoed around them.
It could imply bolter rounds, but the incident seems to be describing lasfire, suggesting that Fanck had most of his chest blasted out by a las-bolt. Assuming roughly a 15 cm wide, 10 cm deep hole (which could be "most of the chest" we could assume 3-5 kg at least.... which would translate (roughly) to 3-5 MJ assuming cauterization....no idea of a single shot or multiple shots.
Page 139
An enemy round took off his and at the wrist and Corbec scooped up the autocannon and fired it himself. Genx, his stump instantly cauterised by hte las-fire, got up without comment and began to feed his colonel's weapon.
the heavy weapons trooper has his wrist severed by las fire. Assuming a 10 cm section affected (diameter and lenth) you could assume about .6 kg affected.. we could figure at least 500-600 kilojoules for the las round.
Page 140
Larkin took his targets as they came, blowing off heads or blowing out chests with the powerful kick of his sniper gun. The las-fire of the normal weapons was superhot but lacked stopping power. Larkin blanched as men beside him hit enemy troops who kept going despite precise hits which had passed through them cleanly. Only Larkin's sniper gun and Corbec's autocannon were actually dropping the foe first time so they wouldn't get up again.
Effects and differences between LArkin's long-las with hotshots and regular las weapons. Again blasting apart heads or chests would e roughly the same mass (4-5 kg or so) and would be single digit MJ (As mentione dbefore) but that's a lower limit and probably single shot (this would mean Fanck, kiled earlier, either was by a bolt round or took multiple hits)
