Macrocannon Size

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AniThyng
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by AniThyng »

For what its's worth, the largest "asteroid" in the solar system as per wikipedia is Ceres, which has a surface area of 2,770,000 km^2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

By comparison the smallest continent, Australia has a surface area of 7,692,024 km2.

So by surface area alone I'm not sure you can still describe it as "continent sized".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dw ... arison.jpg

The size of a medium size country, I guess. :P
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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AniThyng wrote: 2019-09-22 09:31am For what its's worth, the largest "asteroid" in the solar system as per wikipedia is Ceres, which has a surface area of 2,770,000 km^2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

By comparison the smallest continent, Australia has a surface area of 7,692,024 km2.

So by surface area alone I'm not sure you can still describe it as "continent sized".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dw ... arison.jpg

The size of a medium size country, I guess. :P
we do not know how big the asteroids in the 40k universe are, and even in our universe there are larger ones than those inside our solar system.But comparing it to the Phalanx which is as big as a moon or an asteroid I think it is undoubted that it refers to asteroids the size of a small moon.

But it could be as you suggested, we would have an estimate of the abyss class of about 1000 km (the diameter of the asteroid Ceres). It would be consistent with all the canon quotations I have quoted, of the continental dimension, of the mass capable of generating a gravity that hinders the navigation of the other ships, of the quote that says it rivals in power of fire and dimensions with the Phalanx, which is large like a small moon. Everything would coincide
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Elheru Aran »

...the Abyss class ships are -nowhere- near 1000 km long.

The length is never stated (40K lore doesn't really do hard numbers for the most part) but it's not described in such absurd terms. 1,000 km would be just about half the distance across the continental United States from its northern to southern borders. Or for another comparison-- that would be longer than the British Isles from Land's End to John o'Groats!

The largest Gloriana class craft that has actual numbers given is 26 kilometres, and those ships took up five percent of Martian manufacturing output, EACH. You're talking about something a couple orders of magnitude bigger than that.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by AniThyng »

WhiteLion wrote: 2019-09-23 10:01am
AniThyng wrote: 2019-09-22 09:31am For what its's worth, the largest "asteroid" in the solar system as per wikipedia is Ceres, which has a surface area of 2,770,000 km^2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dwarf_planet)

By comparison the smallest continent, Australia has a surface area of 7,692,024 km2.

So by surface area alone I'm not sure you can still describe it as "continent sized".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceres_(dw ... arison.jpg

The size of a medium size country, I guess. :P
we do not know how big the asteroids in the 40k universe are, and even in our universe there are larger ones than those inside our solar system.But comparing it to the Phalanx which is as big as a moon or an asteroid I think it is undoubted that it refers to asteroids the size of a small moon.

But it could be as you suggested, we would have an estimate of the abyss class of about 1000 km (the diameter of the asteroid Ceres). It would be consistent with all the canon quotations I have quoted, of the continental dimension, of the mass capable of generating a gravity that hinders the navigation of the other ships, of the quote that says it rivals in power of fire and dimensions with the Phalanx, which is large like a small moon. Everything would coincide


You might want to consider that Ceres is a very large asteroid, earth's Moon is also rather large - a better example of a small moon is Phobos, which is afaik about 25km in diameter and more in line with the scale others have been telling you regarding phalanx.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by AniThyng »

Elheru Aran wrote: 2019-09-23 11:13am ...the Abyss class ships are -nowhere- near 1000 km long.

The length is never stated (40K lore doesn't really do hard numbers for the most part) but it's not described in such absurd terms. 1,000 km would be just about half the distance across the continental United States from its northern to southern borders. Or for another comparison-- that would be longer than the British Isles from Land's End to John o'Groats!

The largest Gloriana class craft that has actual numbers given is 26 kilometres, and those ships took up five percent of Martian manufacturing output, EACH. You're talking about something a couple orders of magnitude bigger than that.
Still not close to the size of a small continent then ;)

Methinks people severely underestimate just how large the Earth's moon is - it's not by any means a small moon. Phobos is a small moon. And I picked Ceres to show even a very large asteroid is nowhere near "continental" size. Alas the point was missed...
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Imperial Overlord »

WhiteLion wrote: 2019-09-22 05:06am
What puzzles me is that we share it with ordinary ships when it took a whole fleet of spaceships, a battle platform, two orbital defense systems and a warship suicide attack to bring down the shields. Pretically he fought alone against a world.
This is utterly untrue.

1)There were two Furious Abyss class vessels leading the attack

2) they were part of a combined traitor fleet, a combined fleet lead by two Glorianas.

Betrayer page 33.
The ship grinding into reality was a reflection of the slain colossus Lorgar had spoke of. A city of monasteries and cathedral rose from its back with the reverance of clawed hands sculpted to clutch at the stars. Where most Imperial battleships were spears of crenellated intent and iron-ridged might, this was a fortress in space, borne on the back of a great trident. The central tine served as the vessel's core, dense at the stern, encrusted with massive engines and tapering towards the prow, where it formed a pointed ram the size of lesser vessels. The trident's adjacent tines formed smaller blade-wings, each one barnacled with broadsides and cannon batteries.

If one were to clad the concept of spite in iron and set in sailing amongst the stars, it might approach the image of what burst back into the universe in that moment. It was, in every way, the Furious Abyss reborn.

"That," Lorgar smiled, "is the Blessed Lady."

Magnus released an unnecessary breath, watching as a ship too vast to exist left the wound in the material universe. It easily eclipsed even the Gloriana-class flagships of the combined Legion fleet, and the warp's cloudy tendrils lashed at its spires, shrieking into the silence, seemingly reluctant to let the vessel back into reality.

"You built two," the sorcerer breathed.

"Oh no," Lorgar didn't even open his eyes. He raised a hand to point into the void, where a second warp-slice ripped across the stars. "I built three."


And lets look at those lines

1) Its mass of command spires are compared to a city, which suggests that its huge but not continental in size. Mountain range would be where you would go for comparisons for a continent sized vessel.

2)Its compared to a fortress in space, again not a continent.

3) Its central tine, a major part of the vessel, is stated to be the size of a lesser vessel, which means the Furious Abyss class vessels are on the same general scale as other warships, not many orders of magnitude larger.

4) It dwarfs Gloriana's, but that description is only appropriate to objects where the size of both objects are relatively comparable, not where one is many order of magnitudes larger than the other.

So, in short, you're wrong. All size comparisons are "big city" to "big fortress" to "big ship".

As for moon sizes:

Phobos: 27 × 22 × 18 km (roughly)

Deimos: 15 × 12.2 × 11 km (roughly)

Both have measurable gravity. So no problem with the Phalanx, Speranza, and the Furious Abyss being larger than Gloriana sized and moon sized without being 100km+ monstrosities.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Imperial Overlord »

Priests of Mars
page 36

"The Speranza was all infrastructure and industry, a hive's worth manufacturies, refineries, crackling power plants and kilometer upon kilometer of laboratories, testing ranges, chemical vats and gene-bay arranged in as efficient a way as the ancient plans for its construction had allowed for. Its engines were larger than most starship's full mass, its individual void generators and Geller arrays large enough to shroud a frigate by themselves."

So hive city sized with engines ( a major component) as massive as a large starship. So the Speranza is huge, but not a 100km+ monster.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by WhiteLion »

Let's be clear I know very well that it is not 1000 km, but ours are all hypotheses, but it does not mean that it cannot be true.

@Imperial Overlord: discussing with you is a pleasure, your posts are full of references.
Having said that you say that its mass of command spirits are compared to a city, you cannot assume its dimensions precisely, there are cities that have an extension much greater than 1000km, New York 11,875 sq km, Boston 9,189 sq km, Tokyo 8,547 sq km, Atlanta 7,296 sq km, Chicago 6,856 sq km, etc.
For the size of the central tooth it could be a decisive element, could you kindly bring back the quotation?

Also completely ignore the comparison made with the Phalanx in both size and power. However I don't want to say that it can't be 40-50 km big, I don't have the absolute truth, in my small way I'm just trying to get an idea with the canon quotations we're trying to put together, trying not to ignore any of them. I think only reductive given the quotes being so sure of the non-continental dimensions

There are also moons like Ganymede of over 5000 km, taking into consideration only the smallest ones (such as Phobos and Deimos) is not objective in my opinion, rather it is limiting.

As for the Abyss class, in addition to the material regarding the world of Armor we can also examine the journey to the world of Macragge, during the journey alone the Furious Abyss destroyed an entire fleet of ships, proving what happened on the planet Armatura. He was so powerful that to destroy her they had to sabotage her from the inside with a commando of soldiers.

As always, I quote you the quote: https: //warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Furious_Abyss

"The juggernaut ship would be powerful enough to withstand the inevitable firestorm of Macragge's defense lasers"

"In the ensuing battle that followed, Cestus' fleet was slaughtered by the gigantic Battleship. The loyalists suffered disastrous losses: Fearless and Waning Moon, Ferox, Ferocious and the Boundless all remained as decomposing carcasses in a vacuum."

"The death toll of the viral strike would be almost total, wiping out the population of the Ultramarines homeworld

"Beams of blue light flared up to Wrathful's side, and within seconds the fiery fury of his Lances unleashed. The explosions rippled in the armored hull of the furious Abyss, along with the immense explosions of Void's shield blows. wounds were a mere puncture for a huge beast like the Abyss-class warship, and the Word Bearers ship responded with a devastating save. "

"Flashing spears, Wrathful poured out everything that was left on the Battleship of the Word Bearers. Unfortunately that wasn't enough. The Furious Abyss turned and unleashed the hell out of his own facade."

"Cestus, Brynngar and Skraal succeeded in sabotaging the plasma generator of the furious Abyss, starting a chain reaction that would have caused the destruction of the huge ship."


As we can read, only one Abyss Class has faced and destroyed a whole fleet of ships on its own, it is mentioned that the fire of normal ships is like a sting for the hull of the Abyss class.
It is also mentioned that he is able to resist the defense weapons of the planet Macragge and that he has viral exterminatus weapons, which would exterminate the planet Macragge.
Finally to destroy it the only way was sabotage from within.

I do not say falsehood, it is all contained in quotations I have quoted.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by WhiteLion »

moreover the hull of the destroyed Abyss was so large that a battle barge was able to pass through the holes of the destroyed hull.

cit. "The ship had been broken and imagined huge holes in the hull; some even big enough to let the battle barge pass" https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Ab ... Battleship
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Imperial Overlord »

Yes, but since a standard battlebarge is 6-10km long and a lot less wide and tall and the Furious Abyss is significantly larger than a 26km long Gloriana, this isn't a problem. This means that the hulk of say 30-40km ship had 2km+ wide holes in it. Which is exactly what your description says.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Imperial Overlord »

WhiteLion wrote: 2019-09-24 07:50am

@Imperial Overlord: discussing with you is a pleasure, your posts are full of references.
Having said that you say that its mass of command spirits are compared to a city, you cannot assume its dimensions precisely, there are cities that have an extension much greater than 1000km, New York 11,875 sq km, Boston 9,189 sq km, Tokyo 8,547 sq km, Atlanta 7,296 sq km, Chicago 6,856 sq km, etc.
You're comparing urban sprawl numbers that have with very little size in the third dimension: i.e. height with multi-kilometer warships. You're in fact giving no numbers in the third dimensions. Since we're comparing with vessels are measured in kilometers in the third dimension, those numbers are highly deceptive. And those are square kilometers, which is sprawl in two dimensions and you're comparing with length only. I don't think you have the grasp of how volume works to do this.

Also completely ignore the comparison made with the Phalanx in both size and power. However I don't want to say that it can't be 40-50 km big, I don't have the absolute truth, in my small way I'm just trying to get an idea with the canon quotations we're trying to put together, trying not to ignore any of them. I think only reductive given the quotes being so sure of the non-continental dimensions
There are also moons like Ganymede of over 5000 km, taking into consideration only the smallest ones (such as Phobos and Deimos) is not objective in my opinion, rather it is limiting.
Since the phrase is "large asteroid or small moon" small moons are relevant.
As for the Abyss class, in addition to the material regarding the world of Armor we can also examine the journey to the world of Macragge, during the journey alone the Furious Abyss destroyed an entire fleet of ships, proving what happened on the planet Armatura. He was so powerful that to destroy her they had to sabotage her from the inside with a commando of soldiers.
It was a scratch squadron, not a fleet, and it was a running battle that took the whole book. And the Abyss lost. Boarding actions count. I've already dealt with Armatura in my previous post.
As always, I quote you the quote: https: //warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Furious_Abyss

"The juggernaut ship would be powerful enough to withstand the inevitable firestorm of Macragge's defense lasers"

"In the ensuing battle that followed, Cestus' fleet was slaughtered by the gigantic Battleship. The loyalists suffered disastrous losses: Fearless and Waning Moon, Ferox, Ferocious and the Boundless all remained as decomposing carcasses in a vacuum."

"The death toll of the viral strike would be almost total, wiping out the population of the Ultramarines homeworld

"Beams of blue light flared up to Wrathful's side, and within seconds the fiery fury of his Lances unleashed. The explosions rippled in the armored hull of the furious Abyss, along with the immense explosions of Void's shield blows. wounds were a mere puncture for a huge beast like the Abyss-class warship, and the Word Bearers ship responded with a devastating save. "

"Flashing spears, Wrathful poured out everything that was left on the Battleship of the Word Bearers. Unfortunately that wasn't enough. The Furious Abyss turned and unleashed the hell out of his own facade."

"Cestus, Brynngar and Skraal succeeded in sabotaging the plasma generator of the furious Abyss, starting a chain reaction that would have caused the destruction of the huge ship."

As we can read, only one Abyss Class has faced and destroyed a whole fleet of ships on its own, it is mentioned that the fire of normal ships is like a sting for the hull of the Abyss class.
That's a scratch squadron, not a fleet. The Furious Abyss is an impressive ship, but defeating a thrown together unit of a half dozen warships is not something that requires a 100km+ warship.
It is also mentioned that he is able to resist the defense weapons of the planet Macragge and that he has viral exterminatus weapons, which would exterminate the planet Macragge.
You can put exterminatus weapons on a frigate. Resisting Macragge's defences is an impressive feat, but it's not what is happening. From the wiki article you are quoting from. Pay attention especially to the bolded part:
Once in the Macragge System, the Furious Abyss intended to attack Formaska, a dead moon. A direct assault against Macragge would be suicide. But the debris from Formaska's destruction would achieve their ends indirectly. The XIIIth Legion would divert forces from the muster point on Calth to the aid of Macragge and would become caught in the subsequent asteroid storm of the moon's demise once they translated into the Macragge System from the Warp. The Word Bearers would then be able to strike the Ultramarines fleet as it was divided and damaged by the asteroid assault, allowing the Traitors to take them utterly by surprise. This assault would not destroy Macragge outright, but it would kill tens of millions of innocent civilians and eradicate a good portion of the Ultramarines Legion's strength. The Furious Abyss would then use the debris like a shield, allowing it to get past the warning stations and satellites around Macragge and draw close enough to unleash a viral payload on the world's inhabitants. The juggernaut vessel would be powerful enough to weather the inevitable storm of fire from Macragge's defence lasers. The death toll from the viral strike would be near-total, wiping out the population of the Ultramarines' homeworld, the jewel in the crown of their Realm of Ultramar.

Note that the Furious Abyss cannot survive a direct attack on Macragge. Your own source directly contradicts your claims and not for the first time. Did you actually read the whole article? Or is this a reading comprehension problem?
Finally to destroy it the only way was sabotage from within.
Yes, it was destroyed by that scratch force in a boarding action. An impressive accomplishment for a half dozen thrown together warships, but hardly a sign of the Furious Abyss's power given how commonly boarding tactics are used by Space Marines.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by WhiteLion »

the post is long, I try to answer the points you raised one by one.

- In a conflict that involved a fleet of warships, and that went on for hours, it necessarily led to numerous attacks and numerous holes in the hull; 20 holes of 2 km to cover the entire length. It is hardly credible that in such a fight, with a fleet of warships there were only 20 holes in the hull.

- As regards the comparison of the cockpit with a city what you say could be true, but the quotation refers in general to the size of a city, to say that it is necessary to reverberate to the vlumetria of buildings is a hypothesis, what you say is not reported in the quotation, it could be true how it could refer to the size of a city in its extension, furthermore we do not know how large the cities in 40k were. If they follow the criterion of size of the ships, the cities in 40k could be much larger than ours.

- As for the moons, once again you are making a comparison with the moons of our solar system, we don't know how big the moons of the 40k world are, assume that they mirror our own, and moreover only those of the system solar is a bit rough and speculative, but this is just my opinion.

- The quote exactly defines a fleet of warships ("In the ensuing battle that followed, Cestus's fleet was slaughtered by the gigantic Battleship.")
moreover it was not destroyed by the fire of the arms of the fleet but by an internal sabotage precisely because they could not in any way tarnish their defenses, the weapons are cited as simple bites for the Abyss class.
On the planet Armor then it is specifically reported that the Abyss class faced a defense platform, two orbital attack systems, a fleet and a suicide attack. Even a suicide attack is impossible to face for any ship.
The blessed woman faced even two glorian classes:
cit. "The Blessed woman easily eclipsed the Glorian-class battleships" https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Ab ... Battleship
These are not ordinary ship enterprises, and they are all canons as you can read.

- Even if he did not exterminate the planet Macragge with viral weapons he was rigged to do it: "he is able to resist the defense weapons of the planet Macragge and that he has viral weapons of extermination, which would exterminate the planet Macragge."

- From the events if you know well the source does not contradict what I write, in fact the Abyss attacks the forces separately. After the fleet would have advanced on the planet Macragge. The quotation in fact speaks of the defenses of the planet, not of the fleet that it faces before.

- consider boarding tactics as normal, but any ship would be destroyed by internal sabotage, instead we are evaluating the ship in combat, shields and weapons against a fleet. The sabotage is decisive because it is clear proof of the inability of the fleet to damage the defenses of the Abyss and to resist its weapons.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Imperial Overlord »

WhiteLion wrote: 2019-09-25 03:29am the post is long, I try to answer the points you raised one by one.

- In a conflict that involved a fleet of warships, and that went on for hours, it necessarily led to numerous attacks and numerous holes in the hull; 20 holes of 2 km to cover the entire length. It is hardly credible that in such a fight, with a fleet of warships there were only 20 holes in the hull.
This post is nonsense. Spaceship battles routinely go on for hours in 40K. The average turn in Battlefleet Gothic is between 10 and 30 minutes long. Your quoted passage said essentially "it had a lot of holes in it and some were really big". Length is also only one dimension.

- As regards the comparison of the cockpit with a city what you say could be true, but the quotation refers in general to the size of a city, to say that it is necessary to reverberate to the vlumetria of buildings is a hypothesis, what you say is not reported in the quotation, it could be true how it could refer to the size of a city in its extension, furthermore we do not know how large the cities in 40k were. If they follow the criterion of size of the ships, the cities in 40k could be much larger than ours.
The comparison is between the sky scrappers at a city's core and the spire towers of the Abyss, not the suburban sprawl. Even the Hive Cities of Necrumdia are nowhere near continental in size (it has over 500 surviving Hive Cities).
- As for the moons, once again you are making a comparison with the moons of our solar system, we don't know how big the moons of the 40k world are, assume that they mirror our own, and moreover only those of the system solar is a bit rough and speculative, but this is just my opinion.
You're the one who is assuming that the writers mean something else than "size of the moons we know" when they say "moon sized." The comparison is for the reader and based on what the reader is familiar with. Your argument is ridiculous.
- The quote exactly defines a fleet of warships ("In the ensuing battle that followed, Cestus's fleet was slaughtered by the gigantic Battleship.")
moreover it was not destroyed by the fire of the arms of the fleet but by an internal sabotage precisely because they could not in any way tarnish their defenses, the weapons are cited as simple bites for the Abyss class.
A fleet of six, of varying size. Squadron remains more accurate. Nothing impressive.
On the planet Armor then it is specifically reported that the Abyss class faced a defense platform, two orbital attack systems, a fleet and a suicide attack. Even a suicide attack is impossible to face for any ship.
The blessed woman faced even two glorian classes:
cit. "The Blessed woman easily eclipsed the Glorian-class battleships" https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Ab ... Battleship
These are not ordinary ship enterprises, and they are all canons as you can read.
Wrong. The Glorianas were part of the fleet the Blessed Lady was leading. They were on the same side. That you're trying to distort this in saying the Blessed Lady fought two Glorianas (and you've missed the other Abyss class and the combined fleet they're leading) either means you're having trouble comprehending what you're reading or you're dishonest.
- Even if he did not exterminate the planet Macragge with viral weapons he was rigged to do it: "he is able to resist the defense weapons of the planet Macragge and that he has viral weapons of extermination, which would exterminate the planet Macragge."
Already proven wrong in the last post. Your own source stated a direct attack on Macragge is suicide, thus the elaborate gambit that is proposed to get the Furious Abyss in position to attack with the same viral weapons loaded on the frigate Eisenstein without directly engaging Macragge's defences.
- From the events if you know well the source does not contradict what I write, in fact the Abyss attacks the forces separately. After the fleet would have advanced on the planet Macragge. The quotation in fact speaks of the defenses of the planet, not of the fleet that it faces before.
Boarding tactics are resisted by shields, small craft, defense turrets, as well as internal defenders. All of these factors increase with ship size. Teleporters are blocked by shields, Assault craft and torpedoes are destroyed by small craft and defense turrets and occasionally weapon batteries. A larger craft has more security troops as well as more Space Marines (if they have them). Vital areas are better defended and harder to get to. Vital areas are also larger and harder to destroy, with more redundancies. So yes, a larger and more powerful ship is harder to destroy in a boarding action.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by WhiteLion »

If I am wrong in writing or understanding the text I apologize, since I am not a native English speaker I do not have your competence in the English language. I still apologize for any misunderstandings or if in my writing I convey a wrong impression.

your point of view is a possibility, but you must recognize that my point of view is also, I do not say that yours is wrong, I only say that we cannot be sure of it, I just try to keep the mind open in the absence of descriptions precise canons.

Both for the comparison with the city and for the comparison with the moon, in my opinion both our assumptions could be true, because neither of us has canon support evidence, I don't try to say that I'm right, I'm just looking for to say that both of our hypotheses could be plausible.

For the two Gloriana classes and the Abyss I read this quote on wikia: "The Blessed woman easily eclipsed the Glorian-class battleships used as flagships by most other space naval legions." https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Ab ... Battleship
Maybe it's me that I didn't understand the meaning, but from the sentence I understand that they weren't on the same side, but if you read the book and say they were on the same side then I trust what you say.

As for the attack on the planet Macregge, I read either that an attack would have been a suicide, that the Abyss class was able to withstand the fire of weapons in defense of Macragge, is a bit of a contradiction.

As for the Cestus fleet we are talking about six ships, in my opinion they are many, you say that it can be threatened by lower class ships, but 6 ships have not even made a scratch and they have been destroyed quickly.

To summarize the meaning of my speech, what I am arguing is that it is wrong to say that the Abyss class is a normal ship, which could be put in difficulty by normal ships. A Glorian-class ship is described as capable of exterminating entire fleets on its own, an Abyss-class ship is described as much more powerful. This is why I say this.
In fact, to break down his shields, as I wrote earlier, they use a defense platform, two orbital attack systems, warships, and a suicide attack by a battleship, and they had to bomb for a whole hour. And all this breaks down the shields, I quote the quote: "The size and scale of the ships have made all the countermeasures obsolete. For the first hour, nothing could pierce their Void Shields. Nothing even managed to scratch the skin. it took the combined firepower of a battle station, two orbital defense platforms and a suicide attack from an imperial warship to finally penetrate the blessed Madam shields. " https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Ab ... Battleship Let's talk about a non-naval firepower, but for planetary defense, which other ship would have been able to sustain so much?
How can we say that other lower class ships could be a threat if they have endured all this for an hour?

While for the Furious Abyss instead they had to resort to internal sabotage because the weapons of the other ships were completely useless against his shields. Cit: "These wounds were a simple puncture for a huge beast like the Abyss-class warship, and the Word Bearers ship responded with a devastating save." https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Furious_Abyss

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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by WhiteLion »

@Imperial Overlord : I don't know if it can be interesting, but for the size of the ark Speranza of friends gave me this topic:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comme ... r/ez9x6jf/

at first sight they seem to be coherent calculations
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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Ok, can I please clear something up here as an actual astronomer? Please stop using Ceres as an example of an asteroid. Since 2006 it's been a dwarf planet, a very different classification based on it's size - a classification it would share with Ganymede, Europa, Titan and our moon if they orbited the Sun and not their respective planets.

Also saying that asteroids are bigger in other solar systems is outright bollocks - we can barely see Earth-sized planets based on transits, we can't see something as small as asteroids, which range from a few metres to a few hundred km. Moons, funnily enough, run in the same range, from the 15-20km or so Phobos and Deimos around Mars right up to the aforementioend Ganymede at 5268 km diameter (Ganymede, incidentally, is the 9th largest object in the solar system and is bigger than freaking Mercury, which is an actual planet).

Saying something is "asteroid sized" or "moon sized" is a completely useless metric. It's like me saying something is "the size of a building" when I mean a small cottage somewhere but you think I mean, oh, the Vehicle Assembly Building at Cape Canaveral! Or "the size of a ship" which can range from a hundred-foot fishing ship to a supertanker.

I don't think anyone is saying the Furious Abyss is a "normal ship" that doesn't outclass a Gloriana. What they're saying is that the Furious Abyss doesn't have to be an order of magnitude bigger or more powerful. You can say with total sincerity that an M1A1 Abrams tank (or a British Challenger-2) considerably outclasses a 1960's era tank like (off the top of my head) an M47 or a Centurion. The Abrams outguns the M47, has better armour, better fire control and completely outmatches the older tank but is not ten times as large or as heavy.

To put it back in naval terms, the USS Iowa significantly outclasses the HMS Queen Elizabeth - the American ship is about 130% the length and about 180% of the weight but is a lot more dangerous. So I see no reason for the Furious Abyss to be the size you are claiming. It can be bigger, sure, it can be more powerful, substantially so, but that could just be better weapons. Or hell, the same weapons but with better fire control or a higher rate of fire. Size is not an automatic indicator of strength.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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For the firepower we have all the above facts that show the superiority of the ship even against the glorian classes. The size involves macrocannons and upper scale weapons, and a larger reactor that feeds the laser lances. In fact, if we look at the photos, the dimensions of the Gloriana weapons are greater than those of the lower classes. Larger bullets have more mass and therefore more energy, and a larger reactor means more energy for the lances.

I was only making an external contribution regarding the dimensions, I thought it could be appreciated. Because in every site and forum I visited, the common opinion was that it was as big as a continent, as mentioned in the novel (both ships, both Hope and Abyss class).

I'm trying to keep an open mind and to understand your point guys. However I am reading the book, as soon as I finish it again I will try to find citations about it, so we will have canon material to evaluate
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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Simply having a larger calibre weapon does not guarantee a more dangerous weapon. Cannons in the middle ages had much larger bores than those used in, say, 1750 but were a lot less effective. An American Civil War-era rifled musket was (IIRC) a .577 calibre weapon but would be completely outclassed by modern assault rifles that fire .223 calibre bullets. HMS Inflexible from around 1870 mounted 16.25 inch rifles as her main battery, but those guns were massively inferior to even the 12 inch guns mounted on HMS Dreadnought just under forty years later.

I'll say it again, a bigger gun does not automatically equate to a more powerful gun. Your point about a larger reactor to power the lance batteries is more reasonable, but again simply having more power available in the ship does not automatically mean more power available to the individual guns - a larger ship needs more power for shields, sublight engines and so forth, and will mount more of those lance batteries, so the per-gun energy available is not automatically higher.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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but consider that larger Macrocannons will fire bullets of greater mass, and consequently of greater kinetic energy. For example, on cruisers, a 30-meter bullet is canonically recognized in 40k weighing thousands of tons and is accelerated to over 0.2c (depending on the model), and has over 10 gigaton of power (let's talk about the kinetic energy alone, not considering the destructive potential of the explosive warhead, which may also be of the type that generates a black hole). A Macrocannone for bombardment (Stygies Pattern Bombardment Cannon) instead has projectiles up to three times larger, and they are accelerated at the same speed, it has an enormous power because of the greater mass of the bullets. The power gap is so high that they are usually used as exterminatus weapons or for planetary attacks.

In 40k the dimensions of the macrocannons increase with the size of the ship.

For example, if we look at the photos, a glorian class has macrocannons visually 4 times larger than the macrocannons of a cruiser. An abiss class or an Ark Speranza being cited as large as a continent will have even larger macrocannons.

As for the correlation between the Lance and the reactor, the efficiency of the Lances depends essentially on two factors, the energy supplied to them and the number of projectors in the lance. A bit like the superlaser of the eclipse, which is not as powerful as the super star of the Death Star because it has only one projector instead of six, and because the reactor is less powerful than that of the Death Star.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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Well when you fired physical projectiles you got things like recoil to consider, so still bigger isn't always better no matter what you hear in porn ;). A bigger gun might have lower rate of fire or lower velocity.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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WhiteLion wrote: 2019-11-05 11:24pm An abiss class or an Ark Speranza being cited as large as a continent will have even larger macrocannons.
Or more of the same size, which also means it has more firepower....

At a certain size, there are diminishing returns for making stuff bigger (barrel wall thickness, bracing to keep the gun physically in place when fired, recoil systems to aid that, autoloading systems, ammo transport systems, ammo storage, service crew accessibility, dedicated supersized powered tools needed to service the supersized components on the gun, etc.) will make it easier to not use a 40m gun, but instead install two 30m guns in the same space needed.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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Ghetto edit:
Especially with projectile weapons - a 30m projectile weighing thousands of tonnes, acellerated to 0.2 c probably needs a gun weight of hundreds of thousand tonnes (most of it bracings and recoil systems) to keep recoil from simply driving it out of the other side of the ship when fired.

A gun the size of this bombardment cannon ( three times larger) built into the ARK Speranza, used in ship-to-ship comabt would mean uses t a similar V0 as the 30m one.

I doubt the bombardment cannon would have that, since a planet can't dodge - so there is an argument they just upped the weight up to 27 times so they can use less energy to launch them with lower c-fractional speeds.

Anyway - for a gun that size with similar initial velocity, the recoil will be 27 times worse (3 times cubed). The moorings of that gun alone will be needed to be upgraded by insane factors - this isn't going to be held on with a couple additional 1/2 inch screws or welds - they alone would be the size of a substantial warship (which would carry Macrocannons, itself).
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Re: Macrocannon Size

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@LaCroix @Lord Revan

In reality your speech does not make a turn, but in 40k the bombing cannons that are 3 times larger than normal, shoot at 0.25C, or at the same speed as the smaller macrocannons.

Execution Hour:
"Even before they got there, the line had disintegrated. The Arbites strike cruiser's formidable bombardment cannons opened fire, their linear accelerator systems hurtling stream of lethal magma bomb warheads through the void at something approaching quarter light speed. "

If in warhammer they followed your reasoning, the bombing cannons, which fire projectiles 2-3 times larger, would have had a bullet speed lower than the classic macrocannons. Instead it is even superior.

this because from what I have seen, in 40k realism counts for little, it prefers spectacle and brute power, regardless of realism.
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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by Eternal_Freedom »

That should not remotely surprise you. 40K is a setting entirely built on "Rule of Cool." Consider that they are fighting actual Daemons and Gods, where your FTL drive involves traveling through Hell. Looking for "realism" in this setting is a complete waste of time.

Oh, and finally, since bombardment cannons are described (in the source you just quoted) as firing magma bomb warheads, clearly it's not a weapon using pure kinetic energy as a damage mechanism, so I have no trouble imagining they have a lower muzzle velocity than macrocannons.
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Baltar: "What are you babbling about other...it's impossible!"
Centurion: "No. It is a Battlestar."

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Re: Macrocannon Size

Post by WhiteLion »

In reality, not even standard macrocannons are weapons of pure kinetic energy, only those mounted on simpler ships that do not have key roles in battle. Basically they are shells with various types of heads, but the quotes in the novels never mention lower speeds:

- shell piercing in adamantium
- plasma shell
- shell with deuterium charges
- Melta shell
- Doppler Shells: releases large quantities of grapevine waves that bounce off ship hulls and expose hidden enemies
- Electromagnetic shells - Designed to interfere with enemy sensors and communications

then there are the most powerful warheads, often used mostly on large guns (also on the Nova Cannon):

- Rift Shell: vortexes are tested, they open a vast laceration in the warp swallowing everything in a large area
- Grav Shell: Shell collapsing, creating a real black hole that annihilates with its pure gravity all that surrounds it

The speed is always the same, but being accelerated magnetically or by other technologies usually the speed varies, the recoil is not a problem for the ship (because the realism as we said above is not well seen), imagine that the Nova cannon shoots a bullet of 50 meters in diameter at 0.9c, and in some novels there are precise quotations that bring the bullet back to the speed of full light. If you are interested I can post some quotes about it.
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