A Catachan Battalion vs Na'vi at Avatar 1

[The Whispering Monk]

Sadly no hydras are here.
But autocannons

Good point. Though I'm not sure you need them. The flyers are only useful in open space. In that environment, they're screwed by Lasfire. Speed-of-light weaponry they can't dodge that will tear them apart. I bet the Catachans will think they're fortunate when it starts raining cooked chicken. (Is that why they really like flamers so much? They can hunt and cook at the same time!)

 

[Zachowon]

We know that when ctatachans were sent to help the ork hunters to kill orks the catachans had fires going all over and orks were screaming as they died.


Yet for some reason facing a inferior enemy such as the Navi they lose according to some people here

 

[Scooby Doo]

Catachan beating Orkz is literally PIS and plot armor (As 90% of Catachan feats are) unless you want to debate Catachan are superior to Skitaari Rangers and Assassin's (Who have been beaten by the most primitive form of Orkz)


I'd be more than willing to settle a Skitaari Ranger and Assassin's vs Catachan debate

 

[Zachowon]

Catachan beating Orkz is literally PIS and plot armor (As 90% of Catachan feats are) unless you want to debate Catachan are superior to Skitaari Rangers and Assassin's (Who have been beaten by the most primitive form of Orkz)


I'd be more than willing to settle a Skitaari Ranger and Assassin's vs Catachan debate

That isn't how it works.

Orks can beat catachans and vice versa.
The thing about Catachans though, Orks and Tyranids are basically thier specialty

 

[Scooby Doo]

That isn't how it works.

Orks can beat catachans and vice versa.
The thing about Catachans though, Orks and Tyranids are basically thier specialty

It kinda does.

Orkz are supposed to have super human reflexes, Skitaari are augmented to be far beyond the physical reflexes of a human, Catachan are just peak humans but Games Workshop gives Catachan's plot armor thicker than a Ultra Marine which let's them hit far above their weight class by making every faction weaker and dumber than they should be via bad writing.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Good point. Though I'm not sure you need them. The flyers are only useful in open space. In that environment, they're screwed by Lasfire. Speed-of-light weaponry they can't dodge that will tear them apart. I bet the Catachans will think they're fortunate when it starts raining cooked chicken. (Is that why they really like flamers so much? They can hunt and cook at the same time!)

If Lasfire is so superior to using projectiles as anti-aircraft fire then why would Hydras exist? Wouldn't you just use multilasers instead of autocannons?

The Navi weren't exactly bullet timing around gunfire so "dodging" is negligible in either case. I think some dude with a lasgun and some dude with a rifle at the same rate of fire would be about similarly effective in hitting their enemy. Maybe the lasgun would have slightly better accuracy because its faster, but it's also literally a tracer far more noticeable then a bullet (even a tracer bullet) would be.

The RDA had lots of automatic weapons mounted on the Scorpions, the Shuttle, on the ground and on their gunships. Maybe Hydras would be better but it's far from a game winner and I don't think more lasfire will somehow surpass the anti-air benefits of the large amounts of automatic weapons fire the RDA had.

And just in general, I think most people would prefer an automatic weapon that shoots bullets then a semiautomatic laser rifle to shoot down baddies if the two weapons are remotely comparable.

The Navi having air superiority, especially in the Hallelujah Mountains, would be a tricky thing for the Catachans to overcome. It allows the Navi to engage and disengage far more easily and would impair the Catachans tracking/hunting of them as well.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

If Lasfire is so superior to using projectiles as anti-aircraft fire then why would Hydras exist? Wouldn't you just use multilasers instead of autocannons?

Hydras are awesome AA b/c they have air-bursting munitions. Lasguns have a burst fire mode. Sure auto-fire could be handy, but not necessary when the 'round' from a Lasgun is just as heavy as that fired by the RDA heavy machine guns. It's like each trooper has a HMG in hand.

The Navi weren't exactly bullet timing around gunfire so "dodging" is negligible in either case. I think some dude with a lasgun and some dude with a rifle at the same rate of fire would be about similarly effective in hitting their enemy. Maybe the lasgun would have slightly better accuracy because its faster, but it's also literally a tracer far more noticeable then a bullet (even a tracer bullet) would be.

So what if it's a 'visible' round? It won't be dodgeable, and every trooper was already visible in that scenario already.

The RDA had lots of automatic weapons mounted on the Scorpions, the Shuttle, on the ground and on their gunships. Maybe Hydras would be better but it's far from a game winner and I don't think more lasfire will somehow surpass the anti-air benefits of the large amounts of automatic weapons fire the RDA had.

It will VASTLY improve said AA firepower b/c, as already mentioned, it'll be equivalent of each trooper mounting an RDA HMG. So each round will be much more capable against the critters and Navi.

And just in general, I think most people would prefer an automatic weapon that shoots bullets then a semiautomatic laser rifle to shoot down baddies if the two weapons are remotely comparable.

They are NOT remotely comparable. Automatic weapon sprays and prays, consuming ammo at a high rate requiring frequent reloading. A Lasrifle is not. In addition, the Catachans will likely see a 50% hit rate vs the horrible accuracy demonstrated by the RDA. THAT combined with the heavier firepower will drop flyers in droves.

The Navi having air superiority, especially in the Hallelujah Mountains, would be a tricky thing for the Catachans to overcome. It allows the Navi to engage and disengage far more easily and would impair the Catachans tracking/hunting of them as well.

They don't really have to completely overcome it. They have to clear a path. Also, you can't hold ground if you're just flying. Gotta put boots on the ground. The flyers don't really help with that.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Hydras are awesome AA b/c they have air-bursting munitions. Lasguns have a burst fire mode. Sure auto-fire could be handy, but not necessary when the 'round' from a Lasgun is just as heavy as that fired by the RDA heavy machine guns. It's like each trooper has a HMG in hand.

So what if it's a 'visible' round? It won't be dodgeable, and every trooper was already visible in that scenario already.

It will VASTLY improve said AA firepower b/c, as already mentioned, it'll be equivalent of each trooper mounting an RDA HMG. So each round will be much more capable against the critters and Navi.

They are NOT remotely comparable. Automatic weapon sprays and prays, consuming ammo at a high rate requiring frequent reloading. A Lasrifle is not. In addition, the Catachans will likely see a 50% hit rate vs the horrible accuracy demonstrated by the RDA. THAT combined with the heavier firepower will drop flyers in droves.

They don't really have to completely overcome it. They have to clear a path. Also, you can't hold ground if you're just flying. Gotta put boots on the ground. The flyers don't really help with that.

Automatic weapons can do burst fire or "sprays and prays." An individual infantry weapon is generally a terrible platform for AA fire and I have no idea where you get a 50% accuracy from the Catachans? How is that even quantified? Are we to accept that a Catachan can just fire his gun twice in the air regardless of range, speed or visibility and something Navi will die? And a visible round is terrible because it's giving away your position way worse then any small arm the RDA using could. It's a giant laser pointer going right back to the shooter.

Plus again the Navi don't need to hold ground until the Catachans rumble to a place the Navi feel compelled to defend. And since the Catachans don't have any air transport that means they are going to have to slog through the jungle burning a path the whole way there. The flyers will help accommodate them on the entire length of the journey I am sure. I have no idea the distances required but whatever they are the Catachans are going to have to burn their way there. The Navi can choose to engage and harass at their leisure and advantage to attrite the battalion until they arrive at a battlefield of the Navi's choosing.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Hmm counter argument, while it's true they have a similar home planet their population and military power is significantly greater than 800 infantry with a squadron or two of tanks.

I feel like similar is really understating it. Catachan is orders of magnitude more horrible than Pandora. Pandora has some big cats, dragonish creatures, a rhino that's resistant to rifle fire, basically a few bits of typical megafauna.

Catachan has a creature that looks exactly like a freakin' towel, hides in your bathroom, and eats your face when you go in to shower. It has a toad that cooks off like a nuke if you disturb it. It has a scorpion 30 meters long. There are trees that shoot spikes into the victim that transforms them into new spike trees, trees that can attach a leaf to the back of your head that mind controls you, floating plants that throw diamond-hard razorblade shrapnel when they detect body heat, wasps that can strip you to the bone like piranhas, and a heck of a lot more. It also has a million and one horrible diseases, poisons so deadly they can kill you right through environmentally sealed power armor, and even the weather is stated to be deadly to all human life.

Saying the planets are similar is like saying Rambo and Sgt. Bilko are both soldiers and therefore similar.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

An individual infantry weapon is generally a terrible platform for AA fire and I have no idea where you get a 50% accuracy from the Catachans?

The Navi airforce is really just big birds, not true aircraft. It's like shooting skeet for the Catachans, just with MUCH bigger targets. I get the accuracy straight from TT math. They hit 1 out of every two times. The Navi are big enough they might need more than one shot to kill, but maybe only one shot to make sure the bird can't fly anymore.

And a visible round is terrible because it's giving away your position way worse then any small arm the RDA using could. It's a giant laser pointer going right back to the shooter.

Who cares? In this scenario it's open battle. Besides, fire and fade is a tactic the Catachans are experts in.

Plus again the Navi don't need to hold ground until the Catachans rumble to a place the Navi feel compelled to defend.

Which is EXACTLY the scenario we're talking about. The Navi have been forced to defend this already. The 'Awha radio tree' will be burned out if they don't.

The flyers will help accommodate them on the entire length of the journey I am sure.

How? How are the flyers going to operate in thick jungle? Will they fly down the jungle patch the Catachans are burning? Will they choke on the smoke and fumes? Will they even be able to see where to fly and not slam into trees as they try and pull away? Honestly, if we're forcing the Catachans to burn their way to the target, the flyers are completely useless.

The Navi can choose to engage and harass at their leisure and advantage to attrite the battalion until they arrive at a battlefield of the Navi's choosing.

How? Nothing the Navi have can penetrate a Chimera. The ONLY vehicle that's vulnerable here are the Scout Walkers because the pilots are exposed. The Navi already chose the field of battle per the movie AND were defeated. The Awha-hordes are the only thing that really made it a contest for the RDA.

 

[Zachowon]

Hydras are awesome AA b/c they have air-bursting munitions. Lasguns have a burst fire mode. Sure auto-fire could be handy, but not necessary when the 'round' from a Lasgun is just as heavy as that fired by the RDA heavy machine guns. It's like each trooper has a HMG in hand.

So what if it's a 'visible' round? It won't be dodgeable, and every trooper was already visible in that scenario already.

It will VASTLY improve said AA firepower b/c, as already mentioned, it'll be equivalent of each trooper mounting an RDA HMG. So each round will be much more capable against the critters and Navi.

They are NOT remotely comparable. Automatic weapon sprays and prays, consuming ammo at a high rate requiring frequent reloading. A Lasrifle is not. In addition, the Catachans will likely see a 50% hit rate vs the horrible accuracy demonstrated by the RDA. THAT combined with the heavier firepower will drop flyers in droves.

They don't really have to completely overcome it. They have to clear a path. Also, you can't hold ground if you're just flying. Gotta put boots on the ground. The flyers don't really help with that.

Lasrifles have full auto capability

 

[Husky_Khan]

The Navi airforce is really just big birds, not true aircraft. It's like shooting skeet for the Catachans, just with MUCH bigger targets. I get the accuracy straight from TT math. They hit 1 out of every two times. The Navi are big enough they might need more than one shot to kill, but maybe only one shot to make sure the bird can't fly anymore.

Who cares? In this scenario it's open battle. Besides, fire and fade is a tactic the Catachans are experts in.

Which is EXACTLY the scenario we're talking about. The Navi have been forced to defend this already. The 'Awha radio tree' will be burned out if they don't.

How? How are the flyers going to operate in thick jungle? Will they fly down the jungle patch the Catachans are burning? Will they choke on the smoke and fumes? Will they even be able to see where to fly and not slam into trees as they try and pull away? Honestly, if we're forcing the Catachans to burn their way to the target, the flyers are completely useless.

How? Nothing the Navi have can penetrate a Chimera. The ONLY vehicle that's vulnerable here are the Scout Walkers because the pilots are exposed. The Navi already chose the field of battle per the movie AND were defeated. The Awha-hordes are the only thing that really made it a contest for the RDA.

If anti-air fire with infantry weapons was like skeet shooting then the use of drones in modern combat should be negligible. Bruh... those DJI drones dropping grenades on you... pfffbbbbtttt its like plinking a clay pigeon. Helicopters flying overhead? Just plug the door gunner like he's a goose. Applying the 50% accuracy wholesale based off of a tabletop mechanic is just myopic IMHO. It'd be like looking at the onscreen accuracy of Navi arrows puncturing RDA pilots flying moving gunships and going... "Oh well... I guess that's 90% accuracy" for the Navi Hunters... from any range or distance or target." 🤷‍♀️

The fact that the Catachans are going to have to slowly burn their way towards a target is actually an advantage for the flyers. The jungle canopy isn't so dense as to preclude firing on them from above and if its burned away unless the Catachans are literally clustered directly behind their burny vehicles, they'll then be out in the open on this path being burned out and easy targets for plinking. The Catachans only have twenty armored vehicles, everything else in their battalion is vulnerable to giant armor piercing arrows laced with neurotoxin and your only counter to render flyers useless is handwaving tabletop mechanics to ensure the Catachans have 50% accuracy regardless of circumstance and having them perpetually huddled under smoke.

The battalion meandering their way through the jungle facing constant harassment from above and on the ground against increasingly numerous forces is going to attrite them. If they're all huddled next to their vehicles it'll be easier to plink them, same if they're cowering under the smoke of the jungle they are burning. And if they're going to take their sweet time, they'll eventually be swamped by numbers since, as per the movie, in a weeks time the Navi would have ten times the number of forces.

 

[JagerIV]

Eh, I'm not really convinced here that the Catachan's have enough superiority over the RDA to have a dramatically better chance, and if they have to move by foot, potentially significantly worse. People forget how much slower by foot can be. Even one hour of helicopter travel is 200-300 km. That's roughly 10-30 days on foot, with good conditions. The faster speeds requiring traveling lighter, which makes them more vulnerable to to arrow and skirmishing.

Burning through requires constant resupply: flamethowers are, well, not particularly ammo efficient: quick google suggests WWII back pack ones had about 10 seconds of flaming. The Churchill Crocodile got 80 seconds of flaming out of 400 gallons of fuel, roughly 1.2 tons of fuel. A battalion looking at the force structure has something like 4-8 Hellhounds.

Promethium seems to just be a generic word for hydrocarbon fuel, so it might be marginally better, but I'm not sure an order of magnitude better than conventional flamethrowers.

Still, keeping those 8 flame tanks in fuel to burn through the forest is maybe 50-100 tons of fuel per day on a conservative side? Roughly 30,000 gallons of flame fuel per day? Conventional off road fuel trucks have about 3,000 gallon capacity. So, this 800 man group needs 10 fuel trucks just on flamer fuel. 20 overall Bradley scale vehicles is maybe 200 gal each, maybe 4,000 gallon of fuel? Bradley nominally has 400 km of range, so theoretically not a huge need of fuel, but combat can also make the practical range on a tank much lower.

So, even this force potentially has a fairly extensive logistic trail, which would be very venerable to guerilla and harassing. And the slow and methodical is also going to burn through immense amounts of material, which may not be easy to replace, and is another target of attrition.

The Catachan force present here might be less qualified for the mission than the RHA.

 

[Zachowon]

We can base how much is used and how much ammo a flamer has based on a couple things.
That we have a comic series that shows hellhounds able to contuinuesly fight off tau for a lot longer then what realistically would be possible.

Then again, we never really see the logistics for then and from various books and games we can see that a BN is somewhat self sufficient and should be able to last a majority of a campaign by themselves.
Especially Cadians. Whose whole thing is to do EXACTLY what is being done here

 

[Bear Ribs]

It's worth noting that a Catachan Flamer has a ludicrously tiny fuel container on the bottom that looks to be a quart, maybe a quart and a half, and that's sufficient for an entire battle at least, whereas in real life a backpack-sized tank for something like an M2 flamethrower lasts about seven seconds.

Spoiler

 

[Zachowon]

It's worth noting that a Catachan Flamer has a ludicrously tiny fuel container on the bottom that looks to be a quart, maybe a quart and a half, and that's sufficient for an entire battle at least, whereas in real life a backpack-sized tank for something like an M2 flamethrower lasts about seven seconds.

Spoiler

Don't forget Terminators only have one as well as far as I can tell

 

[Scooby Doo]

It's worth noting that a Catachan Flamer has a ludicrously tiny fuel container on the bottom that looks to be a quart, maybe a quart and a half, and that's sufficient for an entire battle at least, whereas in real life a backpack-sized tank for something like an M2 flamethrower lasts about seven seconds.

Spoiler

Tbf that's not always the case, some flame throwers for the Imperium are outright said to only have 12 seconds of fuel.

So hyper ammo efficient flammers are not universal

 

[Agent23]

I feel like similar is really understating it. Catachan is orders of magnitude more horrible than Pandora. Pandora has some big cats, dragonish creatures, a rhino that's resistant to rifle fire, basically a few bits of typical megafauna.

Catachan has a creature that looks exactly like a freakin' towel, hides in your bathroom, and eats your face when you go in to shower. It has a toad that cooks off like a nuke if you disturb it. It has a scorpion 30 meters long. There are trees that shoot spikes into the victim that transforms them into new spike trees, trees that can attach a leaf to the back of your head that mind controls you, floating plants that throw diamond-hard razorblade shrapnel when they detect body heat, wasps that can strip you to the bone like piranhas, and a heck of a lot more. It also has a million and one horrible diseases, poisons so deadly they can kill you right through environmentally sealed power armor, and even the weather is stated to be deadly to all human life.

Saying the planets are similar is like saying Rambo and Sgt. Bilko are both soldiers and therefore similar.

So as it says on the tin a Deathworld with everything eveloved to be deadly and everything out to kill you.

I'd wager that a few thousand years of inhabiting such a planet would alter the human colonists into being far deadlier than even a 40k baseline human.

And Catachans IIRC started training for combat and survival at an absurdly young age.

For them this would be more like a pleasant vacation on a Resort Planet with some added entertainmnet to keep them from going totally slack.

By now it should be painfully obvious that the Catachans stomp.

 

[Blasterbot]

yeah the main issue I think they would have compared to home is the unbreathable atmosphere. otherwise there is nothing Pandora has that they aren't used to.

 

[Scooby Doo]

Catachan have good collection of accolades (Even if I think most is PIS/Plot armor) tbh but my debating standard is preferably on the "How" aspect of the debate.

And I just don't see how a small force of them get it done realistically under these exact conditions without utterly downplaying the Navi's capabilities.