Warhammer 40K Imperial Guard force to beat an Armored Brigade Combat Team

JagerIV

Well-known member
The Lexicanum supposedly cites Imperial Armor Volume One and has some citations on armor thickness.


The Mars Leman Russ states:
Superstructure: 180mm
Hull: 150mm
Gun Mantlet: 100mm
Turret: 200mm

In which case due to it being Warhammer 40K and taking place many millenia into the future (Dark Ages notwithstanding) I would like to give Imperial Armor a benefit of a doubt and at least give them the three to five times armor effectiveness that was earlier cited for the Predators/Land Raiders. The Leman Russ is already poorly designed on the face of it, but having it so markedly inferior to a modern MBT just strikes me as wrong thematically. :p

IF you wish to accept that benefit of a doubt then the results would be:
Superstructure + Hull: 690 to 1050 mm as basic protection.
Turret: 780 to 1180 mm for the turret. Plus another 300-500 mm for the gun mantlet apparently.

I did a bit of math, and with how big the tank is, it makes sense: extremely roughly modeling a reasonablish leman Russ tank, I figured about 15 m^2 per side (30m^2 total), and roughly 8 ish meters on the front, gives roughly 12 tons on the front for 200mm front, and 36 tons for 150 mm on the side. So, extremely unoptimized that's about 48 tons of armor in a 60 ton tank. This is a spherical cow model though, so small optimizations such as the turret not being a square, angeling, thicker armor over crew and thinner over engine side, should be able to get that down to 30-40 tons of armor.

Thicker than an M103 Heavy tank, for a comparison of pre composite armor vehicle, which tend to be 120 mm generally, though those tend to be much more sloped in design.

Its not enough to reliably stop modern sabot rounds, though it is enough to give some angles of invulnerability, and specifics of design, maybe a heavier turret, helps. They seem to be about 600 mm penetration, maybe head on. 200 mm on the front stops penetration at 20-25 degrees. Still, I think its a reasonable assumption 120 mm should generally be able to penetrate.

It does however provide fairly good all round protection against anything less: autocannon rounds seem to be roughly 50-100 mm, so its enough that the Bradley's cannon's don't hurt.

So, its enough that relatively heavy AT weapons are necessary, while the Leman Russ's gun is also heavy enough to destroy an Abrams.

Neither side's armor is thus invunerable to the others.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
If I was in the Brigade's position I'd likely use a small detachment to penetrate the slowly advancing 30 kilometer wide column using my superior speed and maneuverability to bypass and circumnavigate the Levee forces entirely. The detachment's directive would be to engage with Overwatch group then retreat forcing them to slowly pursue suffering loses all the while.

Once they've taken the bait I'd use a larger force of Abrams and Bradleys' lying in wait to punch through the flank and slip behind the already engaged Overwatch and Rapid Reaction Forces to destroy the Artillery unit then turn to engage the Overwatch and RRF from the rear pinning them between the jaws of the two forces while the Brigade's artillery pummels them. Before the two detachments link back up and punch their way through the closing mobs of Leeve infantry to regroup, rearm and prepare for the next day's encounter.

If possible I'd choose for the engagement to take place at night to further hamper the Leeve's infantry ability to fight or coordinate themselves.

The Armored Brigade's superior maneuverability is part of the reason for the square: a perimeter of Levees form a square, and thus isn't flankable. Doing some further math/thinking, a 20 km on a side might make more sense, and it might need more levees. 20 km is good for artillery support: 20 km seems to be roughly the range of conventional artillery. So the artillery can either bring support fire against any location of the formation being overrun from any location in the square. Or, from a location roughly in the middle of the square, can shoot out to roughly 10 km past the square, which is about how far the whole square might reasonably advance in a day.

A company per km gives a fairly thin line of levees, probably broken up into platoon positions: line roughly advances by platoon: one platoon advances, one stays in overwatch, one in reserve. Also means there's always a platoon entrenched, a platoon entrenching, and one on the move. Advancing 8 hours a day the full formation might creep forward roughly 5-10 km per day. Overwatch is supposed to be spread out through the line.

The goal is that the Levees should hopefully almost always have the advantage of fighting from a defensive position: they come under fire, be in cover, call artillery, shoot at enemies advancing through defensive lines. Ideally thus crunching through the levees consumes the maximum amount of enemy firepower.

The goal of the overall formation is to minimize the chance of catastrophic failure: Levees are hopefully in good all round platoon defensive positions, a hedgehog defense of roughly 200-300 separate defensive positions.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
The Armored Brigade's superior maneuverability is part of the reason for the square: a perimeter of Levees form a square, and thus isn't flankable.
I do not understand how a "Square" is unflankable. It should have a side unless the topography itself is only 30km wide with the rest of the terrain impassable. Could explain what you mean?

A company per km gives a fairly thin line of levees, probably broken up into platoon positions: line roughly advances by platoon: one platoon advances, one stays in overwatch, one in reserve.
The issue is more how well troops of this caliber with their equipment can slow an armored thrust across a theater as wide as this. These aren't modern, disciplined soldiers with plentiful and accurate anti-armor weapons, and possessing capability to coordinate and converge on an axis of attack. Suffice it to say the actual IG are relatively helpless against armor compared to what Ukraine could do let alone the dregs who don't even rate a lasgun.

This is made worse by the fact the Levees are spread razor thin across the front with little ability for different segments to come to each other aid.

In contrast the Armor Brigade can concentrate almost as much firepower as it wants across the smallest segment it desires.

The goal is that the Levees should hopefully almost always have the advantage of fighting from a defensive position: they come under fire, be in cover, call artillery, shoot at enemies advancing through defensive lines. Ideally thus crunching through the levees consumes the maximum amount of enemy firepower.

Realistically it wouldn't consume that much firepower. We're talking a handful of soldiers huddling in foxholes rather than, say, the battle of Kursk and once the detachment has broken through a line it becomes a non-entity being too slow to engage even if they can be coordinated to do so. Far from preventing a catastrophic collapse spreading their forces so thin would ensure the Imperials suffer one with delayed, indiscriminate big barrages of artillery the Imperium favors likely killing more of their own troops sluggishly attempting to converge on the gap.

The fact Overwatch is scattered in penny packets through the formation means they'll be quickly isolated, overwhelmed and defeated in piecemeal formation against their more mobile and hard hitting foes amid the confusion and anarchy.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
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Sotnik
Be more effective if the Levy had more then Autoguns. I'm assuming they're meant to be low tier PDFish troops but one would assume it's not just Autoguns.

I could see Jager's strategy would be far more effective with like the reasonable assumption of a Heavy Stubber and a grenade launcher with every squad and maybe an autocannon and/or missile launcher launcher at the platoon level or something.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
Be more effective if the Levy had more then Autoguns. I'm assuming they're meant to be low tier PDFish troops but one would assume it's not just Autoguns.

I could see Jager's strategy would be far more effective with like the reasonable assumption of a Heavy Stubber and a grenade launcher with every squad and maybe an autocannon and/or missile launcher launcher at the platoon level or something.
That's completely fair. I mostly meant to refer to the fact that these are the troops the Imperium don't consider worth arming with the ubitiqious lasgun.

In the end I don't think a Heavy Stubber or a squad grenade launcher is going to alter the parameters much. Maybe if each and every soldier was armed with an RPG analogue and there was a hundred thousand rather than only ten thousand spread across four hundred square kilometers.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Well they'd have to be close enough to be mutually supporting I'd assume for actual overwatch. I didn't really care about doing math for it to see how the actual distances work out.

I'd reckon though that Levees would best be utilized in the actual holding of territory, perhaps coming up directly behind advancing mechanized forces who would mostly be Imperial Guard.

The Imperial Guard seem pretty strongly inspired generally speaking by World War One (exceptions of course) so I'm not sure the level of offensive mindset and personal initiative exists in their infantry like it would a US Army Brigade so it wouldn't be as dynamic on the offense but I think it could adapt a WW1 Era Bite and Hold Strategy.

Imperial Guard loves entrenchments and loves artillery so you'd have ImpGuard in Chimeras or whatever advance in the wake of a bombardment to overwhelm local defense, maybe roll bombardments outward to interdict counterattacks and then after taking an enemy position, dig in as ImpGuard like to do, then have the Levees pass through the line to take those positions and shift the imperial Guard to the next local offensive.

The Levees would hold. The ImpGuard would be the attacking (and counter attacking force) force and you'd use the tanks as assault guns or more likely as a reserve to counter enemy breakthroughs since the ImpGuard defense is designed to delay US Army advances as much as possible. I really do see Leman Russ tanks as more like infantry supporting from how they have two anti-tank weapons in the Battle Cannon and the Lascannon PLUS the Sponson mounted Heavy Bolters as opposed to being dedicated to destroying just enemy armor.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
I do not understand how a "Square" is unflankable. It should have a side unless the topography itself is only 30km wide with the rest of the terrain impassable. Could explain what you mean?

Because the square has 4 sides. Admittedly, this is a modification to my battle plan, rather than the original.

So, you have 2,500 levees per 20 km side, for 10,000 on the perimeter. Better to have closer to 20-30k for this. So you have 5,000 per side for 20,000 on the perimeter, and then maybe an additional 10,000 for reserves. Then you have the mobile reserves/artillery in the middle.

20 km a side is also useful for mutual support: where there's a breakthrough: depending on how the rapid reaction force is laid out, all 72 Russ's can start bombarding, since the Rus's cannon strikes me much more of an artillery like weapon. 10-20 km range with non-terrible shell velocity and some level of gun elevation.

So, under an ideal situation, the Brigade launches its attack, hitting the 2-3k levees on the front. This provides early warning for mobilizing the Russ tanks and organize for the counter attack. Since overwatch is spread over the full square, an atttack on one side would have about 6 Leman Russ. If they aren't immediately destroyed in the initial attack, they're job is to primary report and delay, falling back if they can.

The Levees during this are mostly expect to keep their heads down and huddle in their holes and shoot at people if they're not currently being shot at.

Expected casualties inflicted are low. If the Brigade is all in on the offensive, of the 5,000 involved, I'd figure the levees might inflict, say 50-200 casualties for 1-2k levee casualties. 5-1 to 40-1 casualties. But, the whole point of the levees is to 1) Preserve Leman Russes and 2) Disrupt the Brigade assault.

If the Levees delay the assault long enough for artillery to be brought to bear, they should inflict fairly heavy damage. 155 mm rounds can do serious damage to tanks, hitting within 30 meters was enough to cause mobility kills, and I'm not sure how much better Abrams would be. between the Rus and the basilisks the whole formation has about 138 150 mm guns. Maybe a theoretical output of 400 or so rounds a minute?

If the attack is over a 20 km^2 area, if each round has a danger zone against armor of 30 m, then each shell pounds an area of 3,000 m^2. 400 shells randomly distributed pounds 1.2 million m^2, or about 6% of the area. If the brigade is equally spread out through that area, that's about 5 Abrams and and 9 Bradley's destroyed per minute. Spotters and aimed fire would make this more deadly. Depends on competence of spotters and communication. If spotters narrow the area to 5 km for example, 24% of the area is battered per minute of bombardment. This also kills potentially 200-300 levees if the Abrams are co-located with them, but, well, $3 million in losses vs $52 million in losses.

Then whatever makes it through the levees artillery, and sniping from overwatch formations gets into the tank battle.

In summary:

1) Brigade hits Levees. This immediately causes heavy casualties, but alerts the entire formation. Probably 1-2k casualties to the levees, maybe a 100 casualties to Americans, 1-2 Abrams and 4-6 Bradleys.

2) If overwatch is still alive, provides covering fire and spotting to artillery. If the attacks not totally unexpected, at leas the artillery should be aware and begin firing, split between bringing fire onto the breach and counter battery fire. Hopefully the 2-1 artillery tube advantage provides enough counter battery fire to minimize the effectiveness of the American artillery and provide some support on the breach. Hard to say for sure how the artillery duel goes.

Leman Russ form up and add their firepower. Hopefully the levees drive the Americans into narrower fields so dumb fire has a higher chance of kills, or delays advances so there's more time to shell positions. Artillery fire kills or disables hopefully some 50 or so Abrams and 90 or so Bradley's, depending on how quickly they dig through levees, the artillery duel, and effectiveness of fires. The above casualties assume 10 or so minute of intense fires. Counter battery and other casualties would dramatically lower it, or a less concentrated assult.

3) Between some levees holding and keeping enemy armor out of the square and artillery casualties, the force that actually penetrates is something like 30-40 Abrams with 40 or so Bradley's. The Levees have hopefully as least bought enough time for the Rapid reaction force to get into formation, a force of roughly 70 Leman Rus and 30 Chimeras. These are engaging the enemy ideally on somewhat constrained terrain: say a road or valley within the square. This limits opportunity for maneuver and increases the effectiveness of the continuing artillery fire.

Hopefully, the Levees have further aided this battle by disorganizing the enemy force and providing some initial tiring and somewhat damaged: an Abrams might not be immobilized, but bolter gun fire or shrapnel might have destroyed a sensor, or the unit isn't intact, excetera.

Leman Russ should be very scary to the Bradleys: 25 mm fire doesn't necessary threaten the Rus, especially at long range, while bolter, artillery, and lasgun fire are all potentially very dangerous to the Bradleys. Lascannon may be especially dangerous, depending on range. TOW supply is not huge. Bradley's probably trade at 1-1 or worse with the Rus.

Abrams should generally be only vulnerable to battle cannons and the Lascannon. Though bolter fire at closer ranges is still probably scarcely, and may be worthwhile to shoot just for some suppressive and damaging optics and stuff. Leman Russ probably benefit from more range: longer ranges makes it more artillery like, where the large Leman Rus round is at an advantage vs Discarding sabot, which loses energy. Slower vehicle and tracking speed are also less of an issue at longer range. Might trade still at a 2-1 in close tank combat.

So, in volley combat terms you have a a 130 vehicle fight (70 Rus, 30 Chimera, 30 Basilisk) vs 130 vehicle fight (40 Abrams x2 modifier, 40 Bradley's, 10 Artillery). Getting a roughly even fight that could go 50/50.

Hopefully that's not all too rambly.

The issue is more how well troops of this caliber with their equipment can slow an armored thrust across a theater as wide as this. These aren't modern, disciplined soldiers with plentiful and accurate anti-armor weapons, and possessing capability to coordinate and converge on an axis of attack. Suffice it to say the actual IG are relatively helpless against armor compared to what Ukraine could do let alone the dregs who don't even rate a lasgun.

This is made worse by the fact the Levees are spread razor thin across the front with little ability for different segments to come to each other aid.

In contrast the Armor Brigade can concentrate almost as much firepower as it wants across the smallest segment it desires.

Well, the expectation wasn't for the levees to do much anyways. Its more to disrupt the initial assault, so the most functional attack is relatively wasted, to provide a more vulnerable target for counter attack by the armor and artillery.


Realistically it wouldn't consume that much firepower. We're talking a handful of soldiers huddling in foxholes rather than, say, the battle of Kursk and once the detachment has broken through a line it becomes a non-entity being too slow to engage even if they can be coordinated to do so. Far from preventing a catastrophic collapse spreading their forces so thin would ensure the Imperials suffer one with delayed, indiscriminate big barrages of artillery the Imperium favors likely killing more of their own troops sluggishly attempting to converge on the gap.

The fact Overwatch is scattered in penny packets through the formation means they'll be quickly isolated, overwhelmed and defeated in piecemeal formation against their more mobile and hard hitting foes amid the confusion and anarchy.

Well, overwatch is there for prompt response against raiding forces. Against a heavy attack the rapid reaction force is there.

Be more effective if the Levy had more then Autoguns. I'm assuming they're meant to be low tier PDFish troops but one would assume it's not just Autoguns.

I could see Jager's strategy would be far more effective with like the reasonable assumption of a Heavy Stubber and a grenade launcher with every squad and maybe an autocannon and/or missile launcher launcher at the platoon level or something.

I am assuming a bit more than autoguns, though I realize that also isn't explict in the explanation. I was thinking it might be roughly a heavy weapon team per company, rather than the heavy weapon team per platoon as regular guard does. With elites seemly close to heavy weapon level firepower per squad.

I realize that's not explicit however, and maybe should be made so.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
20 km a side is also useful for mutual support: where there's a breakthrough: depending on how the rapid reaction force is laid out, all 72 Russ's can start bombarding, since the Rus's cannon strikes me much more of an artillery like weapon. 10-20 km range with non-terrible shell velocity and some level of gun elevation.
I'm going to need a source that shows a Russ can target anything at 10 to 20 klicks.

So, under an ideal situation, the Brigade launches its attack, hitting the 2-3k levees on the front.
I find that unlikely. As outlined the detachment isn't interested in the Levees and aren't going to waste time energy assaulting their entire length spread across twenty plus kilometers. The attack will be focus on a tiny fraction of that forward line across 1 to 2 kilometers at most involving a few hundred troops which will be rapidly overwhelmed, killed, overran or simply retreat.

This provides early warning for mobilizing the Russ tanks and organize for the counter attack.
Possibly. I don't think it proves sufficient warning from point of contact to the detachment breaching the square for the Guard to meaningfully react.

If the Levees delay the assault long enough for artillery to be brought to bear, they should inflict fairly heavy damage.
Certainly if a shell hits it's going to be pretty lethal and 30 meters is pretty accurate firing especially for the Imperium which doesn't do precision. But in all likelyhood by the time the Imperium realizes their line has been breached the detachment will already be inside their interior with the belated shells raining destruction harmlessly at the detachment's backside.


between the Rus and the basilisks the whole formation has about 138 150 mm guns. Maybe a theoretical output of 400 or so rounds a minute?
I really don't see the Russ tanks providing effective artillery.

f the attack is over a 20 km^2 area, if each round has a danger zone against armor of 30 m, then each shell pounds an area of 3,000 m^2. 400 shells randomly distributed pounds 1.2 million m^2, or about 6% of the area. If the brigade is equally spread out through that area, that's about 5 Abrams and and 9 Bradley's destroyed per minute.
There's no reason the detachment would be spread out equally through making that meaningless. Further it takes time to coordinate where the detachment is, to aim/position the Basiliks to fire and for the shells to reach their target making it very difficult to hit a mobile force.

Spotters and aimed fire would make this more deadly. Depends on competence of spotters and communication
Depends on competency, communication, the time-lag from report to action as well their ability to find the enemy. A square kilometer is pretty big area and at night, limited by mark I eyeballs accurately finding the detachment might be a problem.

Then whatever makes it through the levees artillery, and sniping from overwatch formations gets into the tank battle.
That's the problem. The Levee's aren't going to stop them or meaningfully slow them down. Which means the detachment can slip through and begin attacking the penny packets of Overwatch or simply drive straight towards the heart of your formation unopposed.

In summary:

1) Brigade hits Levees. This immediately causes heavy casualties, but alerts the entire formation. Probably 1-2k casualties to the levees, maybe a 100 casualties to Americans, 1-2 Abrams and 4-6 Bradleys.

2) If overwatch is still alive, provides covering fire and spotting to artillery. If the attacks not totally unexpected, at leas the artillery should be aware and begin firing, split between bringing fire onto the breach and counter battery fire. Hopefully the 2-1 artillery tube advantage provides enough counter battery fire to minimize the effectiveness of the American artillery and provide some support on the breach. Hard to say for sure how the artillery duel goes.

Leman Russ form up and add their firepower. Hopefully the levees drive the Americans into narrower fields so dumb fire has a higher chance of kills, or delays advances so there's more time to shell positions. Artillery fire kills or disables hopefully some 50 or so Abrams and 90 or so Bradley's, depending on how quickly they dig through levees, the artillery duel, and effectiveness of fires. The above casualties assume 10 or so minute of intense fires. Counter battery and other casualties would dramatically lower it, or a less concentrated assult.

3) Between some levees holding and keeping enemy armor out of the square and artillery casualties, the force that actually penetrates is something like 30-40 Abrams with 40 or so Bradley's. The Levees have hopefully as least bought enough time for the Rapid reaction force to get into formation, a force of roughly 70 Leman Rus and 30 Chimeras. These are engaging the enemy ideally on somewhat constrained terrain: say a road or valley within the square. This limits opportunity for maneuver and increases the effectiveness of the continuing artillery fire.

Hopefully, the Levees have further aided this battle by disorganizing the enemy force and providing some initial tiring and somewhat damaged: an Abrams might not be immobilized, but bolter gun fire or shrapnel might have destroyed a sensor, or the unit isn't intact, excetera.
In summary
1.) There is no reason for the detachment to engage across the full breadth of your line and I find it dubious said line will meaningfully slow let alone blunt the detachment. I think they'll breach immediately and push the front straight through the heart of the square.

2.) I don't think the Imperial OODA loop is sufficient to detect this breach and react to it with sufficient force in time. Coupled with other advantages such as mobility and detection I think the Imperials will be shooting at shadows not realizing the detachment is already through while they in turn quickly overwhelm and pick off the scattered and unaware Overwatch piecemeal. That the artillery is likely going to be firing "blind" because of that being unable to process the rapidly changing battle conditions.

That the entire time the Imperials will be lagging behind the Americans in data processing being swamped with conflicting data both real and phantom as the detachment seeks out the armored elements to engage. Possibly up to and including the Basiliks themselves depending on how protected they are.

3.) That once they've sufficiently stirred up the hornets nest inflicting heavy losses the detachment can turn about and retreat in good order punching through any segment of the line almost as easily as they entered easily outpacing the slower Leman Russ's luring them into a killzone of their own artillery.

Whether they take the bait or not of course the rest of the brigade's armored force can puncture through from an opposing side and destroy the artillery. At which point any remaining Leman Russ tanks and Chimera's can either retreat to attempt protect the Basiliks in which case they detachment can resume the attack with their own artillery support or dig in with the Levee infantry and be crushed between the two armies.

Leman Russ should be very scary to the Bradleys: 25 mm fire doesn't necessary threaten the Rus, especially at long range, while bolter, artillery, and lasgun fire are all potentially very dangerous to the Bradleys. Lascannon may be especially dangerous, depending on range. TOW supply is not huge. Bradley's probably trade at 1-1 or worse with the Rus.
A leman Russ is certainly dangerous to a Bradley but it is pretty much exactly what the Bradley was designed to defeat via a weapon, the TOW missile, the Leman Russ is ill-equipped to handle. Guided, precision weapons being extremely rare on the IG battlefield. With a four kilometer range and an accuracy unseen by the IG you'd likely need 3 tanks to defeat one Bradley and that assumes it can't disengage and retreat from the vastly slower tank.

Leman Russ probably benefit from more range: longer ranges makes it more artillery like, where the large Leman Rus round is at an advantage vs Discarding sabot, which loses energy. Slower vehicle and tracking speed are also less of an issue at longer range. Might trade still at a 2-1 in close tank combat.
The longer the range the more impactful slower vehicle and tracking would be since there would be a greater lag between firing and point of contact. Longer ranges also benefits the more accurate side which is likely going to be to be Abrams. The Leman Russ best bet would likely be to close as much as possible.

Well, the expectation wasn't for the levees to do much anyways. Its more to disrupt the initial assault, so the most functional attack is relatively wasted, to provide a more vulnerable target for counter attack by the armor and artillery.
Well expecting it to "disrupt" the assault is expecting a lot out of them. In practice this is like holding up a sheet of writing paper and expecting it to "disrupt" my fist to give you time to punch me back.

Well, overwatch is there for prompt response against raiding forces. Against a heavy attack the rapid reaction force is there.
Honestly it would make more sense just to roll Overwatch into the Rapid Reaction Force. As it is you've needlessly dispersed crucially needed heavier armor/firepower that is either going to be destroyed or force to link up with the RRF anyway

I am assuming a bit more than autoguns, though I realize that also isn't explict in the explanation. I was thinking it might be roughly a heavy weapon team per company, rather than the heavy weapon team per platoon as regular guard does. With elites seemly close to heavy weapon level firepower per squad.
A heavy weapon per company? So one heavy weapon per square kilometer? That's a lot lower than I was expecting. I'd assumed there would be at least a lascanon per squad, couple of grenade launchers ect. I really don't see how you expect them to blunt anything that poorly equipped and with such few troops.

The Imperial Guard seem pretty strongly inspired generally speaking by World War One (exceptions of course) so I'm not sure the level of offensive mindset and personal initiative exists in their infantry like it would a US Army Brigade so it wouldn't be as dynamic on the offense but I think it could adapt a WW1 Era Bite and Hold Strategy.

Imperial Guard loves entrenchments and loves artillery so you'd have ImpGuard in Chimeras or whatever advance in the wake of a bombardment to overwhelm local defense, maybe roll bombardments outward to interdict counterattacks and then after taking an enemy position, dig in as ImpGuard like to do, then have the Levees pass through the line to take those positions and shift the imperial Guard to the next local offensive.

The Levees would hold. The ImpGuard would be the attacking (and counter attacking force) force and you'd use the tanks as assault guns or more likely as a reserve to counter enemy breakthroughs since the ImpGuard defense is designed to delay US Army advances as much as possible. I really do see Leman Russ tanks as more like infantry supporting from how they have two anti-tank weapons in the Battle Cannon and the Lascannon PLUS the Sponson mounted Heavy Bolters as opposed to being dedicated to destroying just enemy armor.

I would agree with you both on the Guard lacking the personal initiative and that a Bite and Hold Strategy seems exactly the sort of warfare the Guard were built around. These short, brief but massively supported big pushes where the individual soldier just has to worry about carrying his rifle and shooting anything that tries to stop the advance.

And considering the wildly varying qualities of IG regiments, with everything from tribesmen to convicts to draftees depending on the world's customs, and their conditions, ranging from fresh green recruits to battle scarred veterans, and fighting styles this kind of lowest common denominator warfare might actually make the most sense for them. If you can't count on a consistent quality of troops you have to reduce things until the regiment differences even out.

And it would even explain the Leman Russ. The Guard isn't intended to perform meaningful maneuvers, it isn't rapidly punching through an enemy into their interior and thus Imperial planners aren't worried about a Leman Russ encountering an enemy tank on even ground. Instead its a mobile assault gun meant to blow up a fortified position and support the slow crawl of infantry advancing over it. An enemy tank that wasn't smashed to flinders by artillery is expected to have to deal with both cheap, disposable infantry as well as the Leman Russ.
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
I'm going to need a source that shows a Russ can target anything at 10 to 20 klicks.

Targeting being the magic word. If the Battle Cannon has anything similar or surpassing the ballistic properties of a Cold War era Soviet Tank... It should be reasonable to assume it could indirectly fire that far.



Obviously not plinking Abrams over the horizon in direct fire. :p
 

Husky_Khan

The Dog Whistler... I mean Whisperer.
Founder
Sotnik
Is there a normal ORBAT of some sort for an Imperial Guard company or regiment? I saw there was one for the Catachans in the other thread. They seemed to have an ample supply of heavier weapons.

I would assume a regular Cadian knockoff generic ImpGuard Regiment would have more vehicles at the very least if not more heavy weapons in general.

What I'd be most curious of all is if the ImpGuard is totally mechanized or motorized with only their own assets or if it's something that has to be added to the unit (like it seems it would be for the Catachans due to being Jungle Warfare types).
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
I would assume a regular Cadian knockoff generic ImpGuard Regiment would have more vehicles at the very least if not more heavy weapons in general.
The short answer seems to be it depends on the Regiment and the world they were raised from. The Imperial Guard codex itself states the following in regard to Chimeras

Imperial Guard Codex 2017 said:
Squads of troopers mounted in Chimeras are sometimes referred to as Armored Fist units...An infantry regiment does not typically include any mechanized troops, it being difficult for most planetary governors to obtain and maintain the vehicles needed for such formations. Because of this, it is quite common for commanders to attach individual Armored Fist squads from fully mechanized regiments in order to provide fast-moving armored transport.

On an earlier page, 15, it shows us an example of Regimental organization with the Cadian 24th Armored Regiment and the 180th Infantry Regiment with the latter seemingly an entire on foot affair if I'm reading this chart right.


But the book stresses how non-standard, adhoc or tailored a Regiment can be, fitting since it's a table top war game, due to available resources, commanders preference or battlegroups formed from depleted surviving Regiments.

 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
When it comes to the Guard. Most regiments are entirely defensive in nature.

The ones that get sent on the attack, such as planetary invasion are usually well equipped. Though, those regiments are often accompanied by others that will be used to fill in defensive positions as the more aggressive ones move on to other objectives. Those 'left behind' forces are often well supplied with arty and AT however.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
Is there a normal ORBAT of some sort for an Imperial Guard company or regiment? I saw there was one for the Catachans in the other thread. They seemed to have an ample supply of heavier weapons.

I would assume a regular Cadian knockoff generic ImpGuard Regiment would have more vehicles at the very least if not more heavy weapons in general.

What I'd be most curious of all is if the ImpGuard is totally mechanized or motorized with only their own assets or if it's something that has to be added to the unit (like it seems it would be for the Catachans due to being Jungle Warfare types).

Crom references several of them. Its also useful to look at the lower levels: your standard infantry squad is 10 men. 1 Sergeant with 9 guardsmen, 1-2 with support weapons or sometimes a heavy weapon, though that seems to conflict.

Cadian_Shock_Troopers_Squad.jpg


We then have heavy weapon squads of 6 men with 3 heavy weapons, though I think reasonably it should be 10 men at least to 3 heavy weapons.

800px-HWS9th.jpg


Finally for our purposes, there are conscript squads.

"A Conscript squad consists of a massive squad of anywhere from twenty to fifty conscripts, operating as one unit. Due to their lack of training and combat experience, they are denied access to the arsenal of special weapons the Imperial Guard has to offer. Instead, the squad is issued the basic load out of flak armour and lasguns.[1c] "

Might make sense to change levees to these conscripts/whiteshields, though I'm not sure how much it overall would matter.

Platoons then seem to be 3-6 guard squads, plus support which may or may not be organic.

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Then the generic company seems to be roughly 3-6 infantry platoons, with roughly equal number of heavy weapons, plus attachments. Command also seems to have scouting, logistical, and medical services, attached, which may be substansive.

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Regiments then seem to generally be some 3-6 companies, plus even more substantial HQs.


I'm going to need a source that shows a Russ can target anything at 10 to 20 klicks.

Basic physics more or less. 500 m/s muzzle velocity at 20 degrees (the max gun elevation of an Abrams) gives an ideal range of 16 km. This is very low elevation with very low velocity. Low velocity big guns seem to be roughly 650 m/s, with a 40 degree firing angle gives an ideal range of about 40 km. Real achieved is generally more in the 15-20 km range. High velocity artillery like the 130 mm M-46 achieve roughly 30 km range unassisted, and 40 km with rocket assistance.

So, depending on details and ammo, Leman Russ shooting out 10-20 km is very doable. As @Husky_Khan points out, this range is in a grid square artillery role, not targeting specific vehicles. As hopefully was clear in the example, where the Russ were being used in a 20 km^2 area barrage, counting on weight of fire to accidentally destroy enough. The more targeted the fire can get of course, the more dangerous things get: choke points for example.

Thus, on a 20 km square, all the tanks are capable of providing artillery fire on any point within the square, subject to communication, planning, and training on how effective it is.


I find that unlikely. As outlined the detachment isn't interested in the Levees and aren't going to waste time energy assaulting their entire length spread across twenty plus kilometers. The attack will be focus on a tiny fraction of that forward line across 1 to 2 kilometers at most involving a few hundred troops which will be rapidly overwhelmed, killed, overran or simply retreat.

Eh, this runs into problems with space actually. An Abram's platoon is supposed to maintain roughly 30-100 meter spacing from some quick google. Which makes sense: an Abrams is 8 meters long: you want to give each tank enough space so if it has to "dodge" left or right you don't risk coalitions. And if artillery does have a danger range of 30 meters, you don't want one lucky artillery shell to detrack the entire platoon, immobilizing them and leaving them venerable to further artillery.

However, a 100 meter spacing on Abrams means an attack on 1 km of front involves, well, 1,000 m/100m = 10 tanks. Round up to say 12, for three platoons/roughly a company. You can add multiple lines, but especially on flat terrain your increasing risk of friendly fire. Putting a 100 armored vehicles against a 1 km front is a spacing of 10 meters per vehicle, and remember these vehicles are about 3-4 meters wide! 100 vehicles in a line thus takes up roughly 400 meters, so level bind firing the enemy has a 40% chance to hit. A lucky artillery hit on the line might mobility kill 1-2 platoons of armored vehicles.

A single attack with all 240 armored vehicles of the Brigade with 30 meters spacing, which is still fairly tight for how big the vehicles are, artillery risk, and details of cover which may push for being more spread out, suggests an attack front of 7 km. Which is roughly what I've seen for Brigade offensive frontages in the 5-10 km range.

It is sometimes easy to forget that armies take up space: if the Brigade was a civil war era line infantry force 2 man deep, near soldier to soldier, 5,000 men take up about 3,000 km. A general attack on less than 5-10 km of frontage would be difficult with such a large force, and longer may be preferred.

Possibly. I don't think it proves sufficient warning from point of contact to the detachment breaching the square for the Guard to meaningfully react.

Well, lets take a worst case scenario: the Abrams start firing as 2 km from the infantry line, don't stop at all, and drive the remaining, say 10 km to hit the inner defensive positions. That's roughly 12 km to cover. Maximum overland speed is apparently roughly 40 km/h, or roughly 2 minutes a km, rounded up a bit. So, forewarning buys roughly 24 minutes of warning. This assumes basically zero time required to break through the levees, and generally favorable terrain. If any amount of time is required to fight through, warning from levee engagement to engagement with the rapid reaction force may be on the course of 1-2 hours from contact. Assuming further no scouts beyond the levee line.

Armies take up space, and space takes time to cross.

Certainly if a shell hits it's going to be pretty lethal and 30 meters is pretty accurate firing especially for the Imperium which doesn't do precision. But in all likelyhood by the time the Imperium realizes their line has been breached the detachment will already be inside their interior with the belated shells raining destruction harmlessly at the detachment's backside.

Well, you have a big shell with a 30 m radius (60m diameter) danger zone specifically to make up for lack of accuracy: Sabots you have to actually hit the vehicle. HE you have to get a shell in the general vicinity of the vehicle, and once its mobility killed, it doesn't really matter how many more rounds it takes to eventually score a true kill: the tank's not going anywhere without treads.

At 10-20 km as well, I believe the rapid reaction force will hear the Abrams firing on the Levees, even if for some reason no one radios in. Which is part of the overwatch's job, to make sure there's competent people watching the levees to report back exactly what's going on.

20-30 m is also I believe roughly what WWII-early cold war artillery could do at 10 km regularly, and I believe tank cannons have to be more accurate than artillery. So, if a Russ has a spotter telling one exactly where an Abrams is at 10 km, getting a round within 20-30 meters is quite doable, subject to general caveets over spotter and general targeting ability. Or, the gun can shoot that accurately, and a Rus might have enough of a targeting "computer" (this might be doable with slide rule tech) that its sort of automatic, as long as targeting data is accurate.

I really don't see the Russ tanks providing effective artillery.

I'm not sure why not. It has to be an accuratish gun for tank reasons, it obviously shoot a fairly large round, ignoring a bit of formal lore nonsense. I theorized a 150 mm gun, but even if its "only" a 130 mm, that's a substantial round still, and thus should have 10-15 km range with only Abrams level gun depression, and the body is so tall more gun depression should be quite doable, for more howitzer like arcs.

There's no reason the detachment would be spread out equally through making that meaningless. Further it takes time to coordinate where the detachment is, to aim/position the Basiliks to fire and for the shells to reach their target making it very difficult to hit a mobile force.

Sure, but this is describing more or less the worst case scenario for the Guard, where the most detailed firing plan is the km in front of/on top of the levees, and the Americans are equally spread out over such a mass area. The more concentrated the Americans, and the more targeting information the defenders have, the worse the artillery is for the Americans.

Depends on competency, communication, the time-lag from report to action as well their ability to find the enemy. A square kilometer is pretty big area and at night, limited by mark I eyeballs accurately finding the detachment might be a problem.

Well, were back to the issue that firing cannons is not a quiet, stealthy affair. A square km grid fire is "we can literally see and hear gunfire coming from that general direction" accuracy.

That's the problem. The Levee's aren't going to stop them or meaningfully slow them down. Which means the detachment can slip through and begin attacking the penny packets of Overwatch or simply drive straight towards the heart of your formation unopposed.

I'm not really convinced of this.

In summary
1.) There is no reason for the detachment to engage across the full breadth of your line and I find it dubious said line will meaningfully slow let alone blunt the detachment. I think they'll breach immediately and push the front straight through the heart of the square.

2.) I don't think the Imperial OODA loop is sufficient to detect this breach and react to it with sufficient force in time. Coupled with other advantages such as mobility and detection I think the Imperials will be shooting at shadows not realizing the detachment is already through while they in turn quickly overwhelm and pick off the scattered and unaware Overwatch piecemeal. That the artillery is likely going to be firing "blind" because of that being unable to process the rapidly changing battle conditions.

That the entire time the Imperials will be lagging behind the Americans in data processing being swamped with conflicting data both real and phantom as the detachment seeks out the armored elements to engage. Possibly up to and including the Basiliks themselves depending on how protected they are.

3.) That once they've sufficiently stirred up the hornets nest inflicting heavy losses the detachment can turn about and retreat in good order punching through any segment of the line almost as easily as they entered easily outpacing the slower Leman Russ's luring them into a killzone of their own artillery.

Whether they take the bait or not of course the rest of the brigade's armored force can puncture through from an opposing side and destroy the artillery. At which point any remaining Leman Russ tanks and Chimera's can either retreat to attempt protect the Basiliks in which case they detachment can resume the attack with their own artillery support or dig in with the Levee infantry and be crushed between the two armies.

I think the previous arguments show why I don't find this a particularly likely outcome. It pre-supposes an OODA loop superiority I'm not sure the US actually has, against a formation more or less designed to disrupt that, by breaking it a bit on materially irrelevant forces.

A leman Russ is certainly dangerous to a Bradley but it is pretty much exactly what the Bradley was designed to defeat via a weapon, the TOW missile, the Leman Russ is ill-equipped to handle. Guided, precision weapons being extremely rare on the IG battlefield. With a four kilometer range and an accuracy unseen by the IG you'd likely need 3 tanks to defeat one Bradley and that assumes it can't disengage and retreat from the vastly slower tank.

Battlecannon and lascannon is more or less the counter. A low velocity Battlecannon round in the 600-700 m/s range is twice as fast as a TOW missile, and a Bradley is even lighter armored than a tank, and thus more vulnerable to near misses. Lascannon is of course light speed, and seems to have an implied range in the 2-3 km range at least. Bolters may or may not be a danger, especially at shorter range, but hard to say.

If the Leman Russ sees the Bradley first, the Bradley's in a pretty bad position and likely dies. If a Rus gets the drop on several Bradleys, the group may be in a bad situation. If the Bradley sees the Rus first, it can fire a TOW, if not noticed pre impact get a kill, then probably get some return fire and need to retreat or die.

The longer the range the more impactful slower vehicle and tracking would be since there would be a greater lag between firing and point of contact. Longer ranges also benefits the more accurate side which is likely going to be to be Abrams. The Leman Russ best bet would likely be to close as much as possible.

Eh, this does hinge a bit on the earlier assumptions regarding how effective an artilery platform the Leman Rus is.

Well expecting it to "disrupt" the assault is expecting a lot out of them. In practice this is like holding up a sheet of writing paper and expecting it to "disrupt" my fist to give you time to punch me back.

Honestly it would make more sense just to roll Overwatch into the Rapid Reaction Force. As it is you've needlessly dispersed crucially needed heavier armor/firepower that is either going to be destroyed or force to link up with the RRF anyway

Its a skirmish/scout force basically. Those are generally useful. The Brigade will need to employ those too. Lest its forces bumble into killing fields unaware.

A heavy weapon per company? So one heavy weapon per square kilometer? That's a lot lower than I was expecting. I'd assumed there would be at least a lascanon per squad, couple of grenade launchers ect. I really don't see how you expect them to blunt anything that poorly equipped and with such few troops.

Sorry, said team where I should have said squad. So, 3 heavy weapons per km. Assumedly there's probably at least some Krak grenades as well. Plus the overwatch, which are there to provide a bit of extra firepower/stiffening to the levees. To a general front (20 km) that's about 2 platoons (6) Leman Russ and 2 platoons of proper Guard infantry. Maybe thinking of it maybe that should be a heavy weapons company, so about 6 ish extra heavy weapons squad, or 18 heavy weapons.

So, on a probing attack on 1 km, which would be roughly on the scale of 10-30 vehicles, there's 3 heavy weapons immediately, plus 100 conscripts to absorb fire and dig trenches before hand, which warns the overwatch who can right away bring 6 long range Rus fire, and the Chimera's can get in place maybe some 10 heavy weapons into a defensive position to counter the attempted penetration. Which may be enough to repulse a probing attack, and buy time for rapid reaction force mobilization if larger.

I would agree with you both on the Guard lacking the personal initiative and that a Bite and Hold Strategy seems exactly the sort of warfare the Guard were built around. These short, brief but massively supported big pushes where the individual soldier just has to worry about carrying his rifle and shooting anything that tries to stop the advance.

And considering the wildly varying qualities of IG regiments, with everything from tribesmen to convicts to draftees depending on the world's customs, and their conditions, ranging from fresh green recruits to battle scarred veterans, and fighting styles this kind of lowest common denominator warfare might actually make the most sense for them. If you can't count on a consistent quality of troops you have to reduce things until the regiment differences even out.

And it would even explain the Leman Russ. The Guard isn't intended to perform meaningful maneuvers, it isn't rapidly punching through an enemy into their interior and thus Imperial planners aren't worried about a Leman Russ encountering an enemy tank on even ground. Instead its a mobile assault gun meant to blow up a fortified position and support the slow crawl of infantry advancing over it. An enemy tank that wasn't smashed to flinders by artillery is expected to have to deal with both cheap, disposable infantry as well as the Leman Russ.

More less. Thus the formation here designed to be as idiot proof as possible, concentrate losses in the most replaceable forces (conscripts) and achieve maxium self sufficiency, which I also see in the Leman Rus: its somewhat looks to me like a jack of all trades vehicle you'd use if you couldn't trust on the combined arms working seamlessly.

Need artillery, and not sure the artillery batteries will respond promptly? Well, a large caliber gun means you are the artillery! Large caliber also means close enough is good enough, in case your spotters (if you have them) also aren't the best.

But, having a large HE shell as your default with a lower muzzle velocity makes the main gun less effective in the direct fire role, makes it potentially overkill against lighter vehicles, and your main gun is now potentially ammo, and thus supply, hungry. And well, a HE round with a 100-500 meter danger zone really shouldn't be fired in close combat.

No problem, you have a Lascannon! Effective over pretty much all general direct fire ranges, ammo independent, so as long as you have fuel it should be workable, and if its like the other laser weapons, tunable to your target: if a Rus has a roughly 1 MW engine, if you need 1 MJ bursts roughly 75 mm cannon energies, you can theorically power one of those a second, or with batteries maybe even nearly autocannon those. If you need to penetrate enemy armor, that's closer to 10 MJ bursts, so you can "only" fire every 10 seconds. Or fire 1/10th as many shots per battery. But, you can shoot enemies close, and tune bust strength to any non-super heavy target.

Infantry support not supporting all that well, and the huge gun makes close infantry a bit in danger anyways? Well, sponson mounted Bolters gives at least 180 degree coverage, so if infantry misses the suicidal cultist trying to throw krak grenade, your sponson gunners give one last chance to see the danger and respond before you get hit.

Generally high all round armor also limits the risk of poor positioning or careless maneuvers. Better to have the side armor not be as vunerable to an ambush flank, or careless turn to the side while under fire than a very strong frontal armor. Plus strong frontal armor is so expensive weight wise anyways, and may not even grant immunity to 40k AT weapons, so side armor makes sense.

And if maintenance or artillery fire immobilizes the Leman Russ, well, good all round armor, 180 degree coverage, plus an artillery viable gun means being immobilized is less crippling. And a crew of 8 ish also means if you break down and lose track of your support you have enough hands around to fix more problems with just the crew than when the crew is 3. As well as some give on casualties.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
Basic physics more or less. 500 m/s muzzle velocity at 20 degrees (the max gun elevation of an Abrams) gives an ideal range of 16 km. This is very low elevation with very low velocity. Low velocity big guns seem to be roughly 650 m/s, with a 40 degree firing angle gives an ideal range of about 40 km. Real achieved is generally more in the 15-20 km range. High velocity artillery like the 130 mm M-46 achieve roughly 30 km range unassisted, and 40 km with rocket assistance.

I'm not sure why not. It has to be an accuratish gun for tank reasons, it obviously shoot a fairly large round, ignoring a bit of formal lore nonsense. I theorized a 150 mm gun, but even if its "only" a 130 mm, that's a substantial round still, and thus should have 10-15 km range with only Abrams level gun depression, and the body is so tall more gun depression should be quite doable, for more howitzer like arcs.

Thus, on a 20 km square, all the tanks are capable of providing artillery fire on any point within the square, subject to communication, planning, and training on how effective it is.

There is more to artillery than just a big gun and elevation. You have to detect that there's a target and be able to zero in on their position. You have to be able to calculate degree of fire as well as the drop rate of the shell to be able to aim it as well as adjust for any wind resistance. You have to be able to be feed back results in a smooth and coherent fashion to course correct. This is made all the trickier if the enemy isn't stationary.

So even if a Leman Russ could lob a shell 15 kilometers that wouldn't necessarily translate into being able to hit a target at 15 kilometers. Additionally the Basilisk is statted out thanks to Imperial armor. It has a range of 15 kilometers with a 132mm gun. And makes a point of highlighting how, due to the gun's massive recoil, Basilisks can't use the maximum charge with an enclosed compartment rather than the standard open-top design. And thus enclosed Basilisks are shorter ranged than their peers.


The fact Leman Russ tanks' canons can be used with an enclosed compartment heavily implies their weaker.

So, depending on details and ammo, Leman Russ shooting out 10-20 km is very doable. As @Husky_Khan points out, this range is in a grid square artillery role, not targeting specific vehicles. As hopefully was clear in the example, where the Russ were being used in a 20 km^2 area barrage, counting on weight of fire to accidentally destroy enough. The more targeted the fire can get of course, the more dangerous things get: choke points for example.
I'm still unclear on if this is indiscriminate or targeted fire. You say it isn't targeted but then a sentence later explicitly reference the fire becoming more "targeted" and elsewhere you make mention of spotters.


Eh, this runs into problems with space actually. An Abram's platoon is supposed to maintain roughly 30-100 meter spacing from some quick google. Which makes sense: an Abrams is 8 meters long: you want to give each tank enough space so if it has to "dodge" left or right you don't risk coalitions. And if artillery does have a danger range of 30 meters, you don't want one lucky artillery shell to detrack the entire platoon, immobilizing them and leaving them venerable to further artillery.

However, a 100 meter spacing on Abrams means an attack on 1 km of front involves, well, 1,000 m/100m = 10 tanks. Round up to say 12, for three platoons/roughly a company. You can add multiple lines, but especially on flat terrain your increasing risk of friendly fire.
Well I have, to my knowledge, never suggested I'd attack the entire brigade across 1 km front. I've spoken quite consistently about a detachment from the Brigade. Of the two of us, you have been the only person who has made that particular assumption.

For myself I've been running with an idea of about 15 Abrams, 2 Bradley's and 4-8 M113 personal carriers so which fits rather nicely with the above for an attack along a 1-2 kilometer segment.


Well, lets take a worst case scenario: the Abrams start firing as 2 km from the infantry line, don't stop at all, and drive the remaining, say 10 km to hit the inner defensive positions. That's roughly 12 km to cover. Maximum overland speed is apparently roughly 40 km/h, or roughly 2 minutes a km, rounded up a bit. So, forewarning buys roughly 24 minutes of warning. This assumes basically zero time required to break through the levees, and generally favorable terrain. If any amount of time is required to fight through, warning from levee engagement to engagement with the rapid reaction force may be on the course of 1-2 hours from contact. Assuming further no scouts beyond the levee line.
Well personally I'd likely want to push the point of contact with the Levee for as long as possible until I was right on top of them. Under the cover of darkness they're likely to be almost blind and they are almost defenseless against me. All in all that's faster advance than I was assuming since it will take time to hunt down and destroy Overwatch, the primary goal of this feint, with actually pushing into the heart of the square a bonus if the RRS units haven't taken the bait at that point.

However this feels like something of a goal shift on your part. My statement was in response to this claim of yours:

This provides early warning for mobilizing the Russ tanks and organize for the counter attack.

The context was a battle on the perimeter of the square, not a mad dash towards the heart of your square. Specifically from the point of first contact to the point of breaching the line wouldn't leave you sufficient time to organize a counter attack since the detachment would long be through before anyone could react.


Well, you have a big shell with a 30 m radius (60m diameter) danger zone specifically to make up for lack of accuracy: Sabots you have to actually hit the vehicle. HE you have to get a shell in the general vicinity of the vehicle, and once its mobility killed, it doesn't really matter how many more rounds it takes to eventually score a true kill: the tank's not going anywhere without treads.
And I'm saying a 30m radius isn't sufficient, at least within this specific context. There's already going to be a twelve second delay for a Basilisk shell to travel from the heart of the square to it's outer edges. An Abrams can move about 11 meters per second if I did the math right. So even if you had perfect up to the moment of firing the Abrams could move out of the blast radius.

But we're not really discussing anything as detailed as that. At best we're dealing with a spotter attempting to relay the detachment position, possibly to a field office somewhere, with all the inevitable delays that incurs and at worst blanket fire on the grid map you *think* the detachment might be in. Which even for one square kilometer is a million meters to hide in. A 60m diameter AoE seems rather dinky in comparison.

And of course it likely isn't going to be neatly contained to a solitary kilometer grid sector.

At 10-20 km as well, I believe the rapid reaction force will hear the Abrams firing on the Levees, even if for some reason no one radios in. Which is part of the overwatch's job, to make sure there's competent people watching the levees to report back exactly what's going on.

Well, were back to the issue that firing cannons is not a quiet, stealthy affair. A square km grid fire is "we can literally see and hear gunfire coming from that general direction" accuracy.
I'm not sure sound and light will allow you to narrow it down to a specific kilometer stretch of the front. You are almost certainly going to have segments up and down the front mistakenly believing their under attack on their flank deluging command with false reports which is going to take time to sort through and create the impression a much larger force is attacking the Square.

And seeing flashes and hearing explosions doesn't inform you who won, the enemy's position, what direction they're moving in which ties back into the OODA loop problem.


So, if a Russ has a spotter telling one exactly where an Abrams is at 10 km, getting a round within 20-30 meters is quite doable, subject to general caveets over spotter and general targeting ability. Or, the gun can shoot that accurately, and a Rus might have enough of a targeting "computer" (this might be doable with slide rule tech) that its sort of automatic, as long as targeting data is accurate.
I've already shown how getting a shell within 20-30 meters is much more difficult than you insinuate but I am curious if you have any evidence Russ tank crews have a slide rule, targeting computer or calculator etc.

Sure, but this is describing more or less the worst case scenario for the Guard, where the most detailed firing plan is the km in front of/on top of the levees, and the Americans are equally spread out over such a mass area. The more concentrated the Americans, and the more targeting information the defenders have, the worse the artillery is for the Americans.
I would have to quite disagree. The more concentrated the Americans are the better it is for them. The more spread out they are the more likely they are to be hit by a random chance. Instead it's smarter to move in tight units exploiting the wide open spaces of the Square interior. Rather them spreading out would be the best case scenario for the Guard since it maximizes the chance of them hitting anything.

I think the previous arguments show why I don't find this a particularly likely outcome. It pre-supposes an OODA loop superiority I'm not sure the US actually has, against a formation more or less designed to disrupt that, by breaking it a bit on materially irrelevant forces.

1.) You've shown your disagreement yes, your logic escapes me.
2.) You were and are welcome to bring up arguments in favor of the Imperials OODA loop rather than try to dismiss it in the Imperials favor.
3.) I do not see how spreading your forces thin across tens of kilometers in a static formation magically negates OODA loop or force concentration or mobility. If anything this is exactly what Germany invented Stormtrooper tactics to defeat.

Battlecannon and lascannon is more or less the counter. A low velocity Battlecannon round in the 600-700 m/s range is twice as fast as a TOW missile, and a Bradley is even lighter armored than a tank, and thus more vulnerable to near misses. Lascannon is of course light speed, and seems to have an implied range in the 2-3 km range at least.

It's a bit of a misdirection to compare the TOW missile to a battlecannon speed since that's not really going to affect whether or not a TOW missile is going to be effective against a Leman Russ. That boils down to whether a Russ could evade or shoot the missile down.

I'm going to ask for a source on a Leman Russ engaging at 2-3 km "at least". The below battle excerpt is from the novel "Honour Guard" and while exact ranges aren't given doesn't appear to start a particularly large range from each other. Indeed it appears they're close enough to distinctly make out individual tanks/ where those tanks are being struck.

Honour Guard said:
The ground shook, and mechanical thunder rolled through the still air. Troops dismounted in full strength from the trucks behind them, and then the transporters retreated to waymark 00.60, where Varl and his unit guarded the Chimeras, Trojans and tankers. The word was given and the word was ‘Slaydo’. Under Kleopas, twelve battle machines charged towards Bhavnager from the south, eleven Conquerors and the company’s single Executioner, an ancient plasma tank nicknamed Strife. By then, the enemy had seen the smoke and flash of the Destroyer kills in the woods and had launched out in force. Thirty-two AT70 Reavers, all painted gloss lime, plus seven model N20 halftracks mounting 70-mil anti-tank cannons. Major Kleopas considered ruefully that this was considerably more than Captain Sirus’s estimate of ‘at least’ ten Reavers and five self-propelled guns. This was going to be a major engagement. A chance to snatch glory from the din of battle. A chance to find death. The sort of choice the Pardus were bred to make. Despite the appalling odds, Kleopas grinned to himself. The Imperial Hydras, dug-in and locked out, sprayed their drizzle of rapid fire over the town from the tree-line. Two thousand Ghosts fanned out over the open approach in the wake of Kleopas’s charging armoured cavalry. Already, small arms fire was cracking at them from the town edge. The tank fight began in earnest. Kleopas’s squadron was formed in a trailing V with the Heart of Destruction at the tip. They had the slight advantage of incline in the cleared ground between the fruit groves and the town edge and were making better than thirty kph. The enemy mass, in no ordered formation, churned up the slope to meet them, kicking rock chips and dry soil out behind them as their tracks dug in. They played out in a long, uneven line. In the command seat of the Heart, Kleopas checked the readings of his auspex, glowing pale yellow in the half-light of the locked down turret, against the eyeball view through his prismatic up-scope. He used his good right eye for this, not his augmetic implant, an affectation his crew often joked about. Kleopas then adjusted his padded leather headset and flicked down the wire stalk of the voice mic. ‘Lay on and fire at will.’ The Conqueror phalanx began to fire. A dozen main weapons blasting and then blasting again. Bright balls of gas-flame flashed from their muzzles and discharge smoke streamed back from their muzzle brakes, fuming in long white trails of slipstream over their hulls. Three AT70s sustained direct hits and vanished in flurries of metal and fire. Two more were crippled and foundered, beginning to burn. A halftrack lurched lengthways as a round from the Conqueror Man of Steel punched through its crew bay and shredded it like a mess tin hit by a las-shot. The elderly Pardus Executioner tank Strife, commanded by Lieutenant Pauk, was slower on its treads than the dashing Conquerors, and trailed at the end of the left-hand file. Its stubby, outsized plasma cannon razed a gleaming red spear of destruction down the slope and explosively sheared the turret off an AT70 in a splash of shrapnel and spraying oil. The enemy mass began firing back uphill with resolved fury. The main weapons of the AT70s were longer and slimmer than the hefty muzzles of the Imperial Conquerors. Their blasts made higher, shrieking roars and sparked star-shaped gas-burns from the flash-retarders at the ends of their barrels. Shells rained down across the Imperial charge.

I will note it makes mention on how the Conqueror variant at least, possible all Leman Russ's, can fire on the move. And they have Auspex and laser ranged finder assisted targeting. All in all from what describes sounds similar to what an M60A3 Patton tank was equipped with.


The M21 FCS for the M60A3 was made up of a Raytheon AN/WG-2 flash-lamp pumped ruby-laser based range finder, accurate up to 5000 meters for both the commander and gunner, a solid-state M21E1 gun data computer incorporating a muzzle reference sensor and crosswind sensor, ammunition selection, range correction and superelevation correction were inputted by the gunner, an improved turret stabilization system along with an upgraded turret electrical system and solid-state analog data card bus. The M10A2E3 ballistic drive is an electro-mechanical unit.

If the Leman Russ sees the Bradley first, the Bradley's in a pretty bad position and likely dies. If a Rus gets the drop on several Bradleys, the group may be in a bad situation. If the Bradley sees the Rus first, it can fire a TOW, if not noticed pre impact get a kill, then probably get some return fire and need to retreat or die.
Can a Leman Russ Identify and target a Bradley up to 4km out? Even under ideal circumstances let alone a quick and dirty night fight as the Leman Russ tanks blunder around a 200 square kilometer death ground.


Eh, this does hinge a bit on the earlier assumptions regarding how effective an artilery platform the Leman Rus is.
I don't see why that would make a difference. The more mobile tank with the faster traverse would benefit the longer the distance.

Further even if we granted you're assumption of using the Russ as an artillery gun, which I don't think the fiction supports, the fact a Soviet-era tank could do it suggests the Abram could do it right back if they needed to match the Imperials in such an odd endeavor.

Its a skirmish/scout force basically. Those are generally useful. The Brigade will need to employ those too. Lest its forces bumble into killing fields unaware.
A static line is not a scouting force. If you want to call it a skirmish line that's fine but that's not what you've been treating it as either. Which has relatively consistently been claiming it will "disrupt" the detachment's attack in some fashion.

Sorry, said team where I should have said squad. So, 3 heavy weapons per km. Assumedly there's probably at least some Krak grenades as well.
Well certainly better but still quite a bit lighter than I've been assuming which is a heavy weapon per squad if not greater. Las cannon, rocket launchers ect. Without that I don't see how these guys are supposed to do anything. Are they supposed to run up and pitch a grenade at an Abrams hoping neither it nor any supporting infantry cut them down?

So, on a probing attack on 1 km, which would be roughly on the scale of 10-30 vehicles, there's 3 heavy weapons immediately, plus 100 conscripts to absorb fire and dig trenches before hand
Considering the size of Imperium heavy weapons they likely can be singled and destroyed quite quickly and the conscripts don't even have to be killed just forced out of the way long enough for the detachment to pass. As for the "trenches" I don't think they're going to be that big of the deal. The whole point of this is a creeping advancement where a Company would crawl forward each platoon steadily moving past the other. So these likely aren't going to be massive fortifications. Indeed since these would have been one of the last ones dug for the day before the formation halted it's likely going to be shallower than normal due to the exhaustion of the soldiers.

Further one of the reasons tanks were invented was to cross trenches so they are hardly a magic bullet.

6 long range Rus fire, and the Chimera's can get in place maybe some 10 heavy weapons into a defensive position to counter the attempted penetration. Which may be enough to repulse a probing attack, and buy time for rapid reaction force mobilization if larger.
The Rus doesn't have longer range fire. If anything it likely has a shorter effective range than the Abrams. At best it can fire wildly at trajectory which would be less than useless and serve only to help showcase their position. This is made worse by the fact Overwatch is spread out in penny packets and is only a couple of minutes inside the perimeter meaning they can't regroup in time before they are engaged by the Detachment.

More less. Thus the formation here designed to be as idiot proof as possible
That was in response to Husky Khan who offered a reasonable plan which plays to the Guard's strength in contrast to yours which plays to the Guard's every weakness.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
For warning, I have relatively limited time, so I might not get to everything.

There is more to artillery than just a big gun and elevation. You have to detect that there's a target and be able to zero in on their position. You have to be able to calculate degree of fire as well as the drop rate of the shell to be able to aim it as well as adjust for any wind resistance. You have to be able to be feed back results in a smooth and coherent fashion to course correct. This is made all the trickier if the enemy isn't stationary.

I mean, this seems to be verging on insisting the tanks don't have radios and or range tables. Which they obviously do, if not better. Obviously, more skilled and organized people will do this better, but that's not really an argument for why they can't.

So even if a Leman Russ could lob a shell 15 kilometers that wouldn't necessarily translate into being able to hit a target at 15 kilometers. Additionally the Basilisk is statted out thanks to Imperial armor. It has a range of 15 kilometers with a 132mm gun. And makes a point of highlighting how, due to the gun's massive recoil, Basilisks can't use the maximum charge with an enclosed compartment rather than the standard open-top design. And thus enclosed Basilisks are shorter ranged than their peers.


The fact Leman Russ tanks' canons can be used with an enclosed compartment heavily implies their weaker.

Well, actual weapons with its muzzle velocity like the M777 have ranges of 20-25 km. Which admitted does fit with their technical wording of "over 15 km". Half energy velocities compared to 800 m/s is 600 m/s, which is still in the 10-15 km range bracket.

Even though the explanation strikes me as a bit silly, it doesn't really change assumptions.

I'm still unclear on if this is indiscriminate or targeted fire. You say it isn't targeted but then a sentence later explicitly reference the fire becoming more "targeted" and elsewhere you make mention of spotters.

Well, obviously you want to make it as targeted as possible. If the level of detail communicated is "Fire zone Alpha" which is a 1 km^2 zone, the 3,000 m^2 danger zone vs tanks means any one artillery round has a 0.3% chance of randomly landing near a tank in that fire zone.

If you have a known kill zone mapped out, say a choke point about a 100 m across, then as long as the Rus can put fire in that 100 meter zone the chance of hitting something in that zone is roughly 30%, and you have a good chance of inflicting a casualty, or providing sufficient suppressive fire to discourage moving through that area. So, still area of effect, firing at a grid coordinate "Fire Zone Alpha-34", but its an area that the officers have figured out a a valuable place to suppress, and can coordinate that fire with other artillery to maximize effectiveness. Spotters can add info on what pre-mapped fire zones need to be shot at.

And of course if you have a live spotter feeding targeting info back, even better.

You fire with the most precision you can currently achieve. Which is thus subject to preparation, skill, and organization.

Well I have, to my knowledge, never suggested I'd attack the entire brigade across 1 km front. I've spoken quite consistently about a detachment from the Brigade. Of the two of us, you have been the only person who has made that particular assumption.

For myself I've been running with an idea of about 15 Abrams, 2 Bradley's and 4-8 M113 personal carriers so which fits rather nicely with the above for an attack along a 1-2 kilometer segment.

Fair enough, I miss interpreted you then. I guess I don't understand the criticism then? Is the plan for 15 vehicles to break through, fight 70 tanks by themselves, and then retreat under artillery? It seems too small a force to even get past overwatch.

Well personally I'd likely want to push the point of contact with the Levee for as long as possible until I was right on top of them. Under the cover of darkness they're likely to be almost blind and they are almost defenseless against me. All in all that's faster advance than I was assuming since it will take time to hunt down and destroy Overwatch, the primary goal of this feint, with actually pushing into the heart of the square a bonus if the RRS units haven't taken the bait at that point.

However this feels like something of a goal shift on your part. My statement was in response to this claim of yours:

The context was a battle on the perimeter of the square, not a mad dash towards the heart of your square. Specifically from the point of first contact to the point of breaching the line wouldn't leave you sufficient time to organize a counter attack since the detachment would long be through before anyone could react.

Oh, if the attack on the perimeter doesn't even try to push into the square, then I don't think the armored force would even respond besides moving to defensive positions facing and adding artillery. The goal more or less of the levees is to make sure the Armored, I guess is 3-4 armored regiments about, aren't destroyed in a surprise attack. The attack gets disrupted somewhat on the levees, buying time for the Armor to form a second defensive line 5-10 km in, which then breaks the assault and hopefully leaves them surrounded.

But, if they're not entering the bear trap, there's no reason to respond overly aggressively. Let the Americans waste effort and shells on a night attack, resume the advance in the morning until the brigade gets worn down or gets its back against a wall somewhere.

Probably do need more levees than initially planned though. To replace losses to the levee perimeter.

And I'm saying a 30m radius isn't sufficient, at least within this specific context. There's already going to be a twelve second delay for a Basilisk shell to travel from the heart of the square to it's outer edges. An Abrams can move about 11 meters per second if I did the math right. So even if you had perfect up to the moment of firing the Abrams could move out of the blast radius.

But we're not really discussing anything as detailed as that. At best we're dealing with a spotter attempting to relay the detachment position, possibly to a field office somewhere, with all the inevitable delays that incurs and at worst blanket fire on the grid map you *think* the detachment might be in. Which even for one square kilometer is a million meters to hide in. A 60m diameter AoE seems rather dinky in comparison.

And of course it likely isn't going to be neatly contained to a solitary kilometer grid sector.

Well, that's what volume of fire is for. And kill zones. I do agree hitting a specific moving Abrams is difficult, which is partially why so many elements are focused on limiting maneuverability. And making up for inaccuracy with volume of fire.

I'm not sure sound and light will allow you to narrow it down to a specific kilometer stretch of the front. You are almost certainly going to have segments up and down the front mistakenly believing their under attack on their flank deluging command with false reports which is going to take time to sort through and create the impression a much larger force is attacking the Square.

And seeing flashes and hearing explosions doesn't inform you who won, the enemy's position, what direction they're moving in which ties back into the OODA loop problem.

So now an attack on 1 km is an attack on the whole front? I may be exaggerating a little bit on light and sound, though not overly much.

I've already shown how getting a shell within 20-30 meters is much more difficult than you insinuate but I am curious if you have any evidence Russ tank crews have a slide rule, targeting computer or calculator etc.

Do they have radios? Manuals? If so, they already have things more complicated than a slide ruler, which is 3 sticks of wood bound together.

Targeting computers and calculators are much more hit and miss. How strict the Imperium is on the no-thinking machines thing seems to be fairly variable in the interpretations. On the one hand, guided missiles seem to be a fairly standard thing. Which suggests the Imperium does have mass manufacturing of targeting computers, because every missile squad has them.

And these appear on vehicles too, as hunter killer missiles, which seem to be addable to nearly any Imperial vehicle for 5 points (ctrl+F hunter-killer) a vehicle. Which might very roughly be $100-200k on very rough adjustment. Which isn't off modern costs. And this does seem to be quite substantial sensor and computer package:

"They are effectively Krak Missiles with massively extended range, although only one can be mounted on a vehicle due to their vast size. They are also unique in that they are guided weapons with an on-board artificial intelligence, known as a "logis-engine."[1] Sensors in the missile's nose transmit information on the target and surrounding environment to the logis-engine, which guides the missile in flight by manipulating its stabilising fins, allowing the missile to match the target's movements and avoid obstacles. "

That's a smarter weapon than a TOW, which is still a wire guided weapon, more in line with a Javelin. But, if the imperium can fit a targeting computer into AT missiles that might be mounted on every tank, and every missile soldier in a heavy weapons squad has a targeting computer, it seems somewhat ridiculous that tanks that are 10x as expensive wouldn't.

On the other hand, AI and computers are also sufficiently scary that a servo skull is seen as a reasonable substitute to a cell phone/laptop. And servitors in general, well, exist. Which suggests some variation of computer tech being banned/hard to get.

GamesWorkshop clearly wanted to copy some elements of Dune's Butlarian Jihad, to have a human controlled future rather than robotic/AI, but didn't want to go as absolute as Dune where all computers are banned, so what is/is not allowed is a much grayer area.

Were also possibly drifting into some of the stranger areas of 40k, such as the outright super human psykers and their issues, like how strong exactly divination is and how many pskykers an average regiment has. Or what a Leman Russ with a servitor skull computer or spotter looks like.

Basically, computers of some degree seems to be supported, and the low computer interpretation of the Imperium like Dune gets us into the superhuman seritor/psyker alternatives to computers. How well psykers can divine the future is a conversation I'm much less equipped to have than assuming some level of at least 1950s-70s targeting computers.


I would have to quite disagree. The more concentrated the Americans are the better it is for them. The more spread out they are the more likely they are to be hit by a random chance. Instead it's smarter to move in tight units exploiting the wide open spaces of the Square interior. Rather them spreading out would be the best case scenario for the Guard since it maximizes the chance of them hitting anything.

I'm not really sure why denser is supposedly less venerable to artillery, so one luckily artillery hit kills off a platoon than a single vehicle, though you also seem to be assuming forces too small to achieve your described ends. We'll have to narrow down on what your describing.

1.) You've shown your disagreement yes, your logic escapes me.
2.) You were and are welcome to bring up arguments in favor of the Imperials OODA loop rather than try to dismiss it in the Imperials favor.
3.) I do not see how spreading your forces thin across tens of kilometers in a static formation magically negates OODA loop or force concentration or mobility. If anything this is exactly what Germany invented Stormtrooper tactics to defeat.

And you seem to assume everything is thrown into chaos without actually attacking most things. Or that the Imperial guard doesn't have radios and has sub Iraq levels of competence. Either your attacking a platoon position, in which case is pretty darn obvious where the attack is, or your engagin on a wider front and things are thown into chaos.

You seem to critize the formation for being dispersed, while recommending the American be even more dispersed and attack in even more piecemeal fashion.

It's a bit of a misdirection to compare the TOW missile to a battlecannon speed since that's not really going to affect whether or not a TOW missile is going to be effective against a Leman Russ. That boils down to whether a Russ could evade or shoot the missile down.

Well, no. I don't generally expect the missile to be evaded or shot down, outside the Bradley being forced to maneuver by incoming fire pre guidance. The 1-1 loss assumption is more or less the Bradley shoots 1 Russ, the second Russ responds and kills the Bradley. Unless it is at very long range and the Rus has cover. Depends how bad the shots Bradleys are forced to risk, depending on terrain.

I'm going to ask for a source on a Leman Russ engaging at 2-3 km "at least". The below battle excerpt is from the novel "Honour Guard" and while exact ranges aren't given doesn't appear to start a particularly large range from each other. Indeed it appears they're close enough to distinctly make out individual tanks/ where those tanks are being struck.



I will note it makes mention on how the Conqueror variant at least, possible all Leman Russ's, can fire on the move. And they have Auspex and laser ranged finder assisted targeting. All in all from what describes sounds similar to what an M60A3 Patton tank was equipped with.


Well, that told me basically nothing. It neither argues for or against any particular interpretation. It seems like the fights over a hill of some sort, in which case sight lines matter more than absolute range. In my area peak to peak for rolling hills seems to be roughly 500-600 meters on google, for a maximum general line of sight. Simular issue with making use of speed: a vehicle might be able to go 60 mph, but down a winding valley you can't practically drive that speed.

I also don't know why it couldn't fire on the move. Its not like the gun won't break the suspension when stationary, but will at 10 km/h. Firing on the move is as far as I'm aware always a question of accuracy, which then is a factor of crew skill and targeting computer.


Can a Leman Russ Identify and target a Bradley up to 4km out? Even under ideal circumstances let alone a quick and dirty night fight as the Leman Russ tanks blunder around a 200 square kilometer death ground.

Will a Bradley have 4km sight lines on the battlefield, which aren't already garrisoned? If your not even pushing for a night fight, why centralize on this?

I don't see why that would make a difference. The more mobile tank with the faster traverse would benefit the longer the distance.

Not really. it comes down to basic angles: at longer ranges, it takes a longer movement to move x degrees. Moving 50 meters at 500 m range is 6 degrees. 50 meters at 1,000 meters is 3 degrees. If, to pull numbers from the either, an Abrams turret rotates at 10 degrees a second, and a Leman Rus rotates at 5 degrees, the Abrams has an advantage at 500 meters, maybe moving faster than the Abrams can track, while at 1,000 meters, they're equal because the degree change for both is slower than their turret speed.

Further even if we granted you're assumption of using the Russ as an artillery gun, which I don't think the fiction supports, the fact a Soviet-era tank could do it suggests the Abram could do it right back if they needed to match the Imperials in such an odd endeavor.

Sure. Its just an indevoured that I think the imperials win, with heavier shells, possibly deeper ammo reserves, and more expendable assets to absorb artillery.

A static line is not a scouting force. If you want to call it a skirmish line that's fine but that's not what you've been treating it as either. Which has relatively consistently been claiming it will "disrupt" the detachment's attack in some fashion.

I mean, it is mobile during the day. Just very conservative. I think the criticism here might rest on disrupt. You seem to assume its a large effect, while I'm not sure I do.

Lets do a simple 2 platoon attack: platoon 1 breaks through in 10 minutes, platoon 2 breaks through in 15 minutes. The attack has been disrupted, either by one advancing without the other, or the line is held up as platoon 1 waits for platoon 2 to finish its target so they can advance together. If there are lingering infantry threats, the platoons may have to be buttoned up more, lowering visibility. If they're really luckly, one of the vehicles might have a damaged main gun and have to pull back. Some amount of ammo has been expended, and the soldiers are a little bit more tired, a little bit more stressed.

Some small amount of chaos is entering the system: the plan is now 5 or so minutes off, there's 1 less tank available. Local and command have to adapt to the new situation. Not a lot, but it adds up.


Well certainly better but still quite a bit lighter than I've been assuming which is a heavy weapon per squad if not greater. Las cannon, rocket launchers ect. Without that I don't see how these guys are supposed to do anything. Are they supposed to run up and pitch a grenade at an Abrams hoping neither it nor any supporting infantry cut them down?


Considering the size of Imperium heavy weapons they likely can be singled and destroyed quite quickly and the conscripts don't even have to be killed just forced out of the way long enough for the detachment to pass. As for the "trenches" I don't think they're going to be that big of the deal. The whole point of this is a creeping advancement where a Company would crawl forward each platoon steadily moving past the other. So these likely aren't going to be massive fortifications. Indeed since these would have been one of the last ones dug for the day before the formation halted it's likely going to be shallower than normal due to the exhaustion of the soldiers.

Further one of the reasons tanks were invented was to cross trenches so they are hardly a magic bullet.

Sure, but how is this a critism? They're not supposed to stop a strong assault.

The Rus doesn't have longer range fire. If anything it likely has a shorter effective range than the Abrams. At best it can fire wildly at trajectory which would be less than useless and serve only to help showcase their position. This is made worse by the fact Overwatch is spread out in penny packets and is only a couple of minutes inside the perimeter meaning they can't regroup in time before they are engaged by the Detachment.


That was in response to Husky Khan who offered a reasonable plan which plays to the Guard's strength in contrast to yours which plays to the Guard's every weakness.

This gets into the strangeness where you assume a tiny force can strike one area of the line, and simultaneously attack the entire front. I think were picturing different things, but you seem to keep suggesting teleporting Abrams.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
Well, that told me basically nothing. It neither argues for or against any particular interpretation. It seems like the fights over a hill of some sort, in which case sight lines matter more than absolute range.
The Imperials were on a hill moving downward to engage the local army without any particular indication of LoS issues but both sides waited until they seemingly were quite close to start blasting. Incidentally it's confirmed that the local forces are eye targeted the only explicit advantage the Imperials are said to possess is one of accuracy, due to laser and auspex guided aiming as well as being able to fire on the move.

I also don't know why it couldn't fire on the move. Its not like the gun won't break the suspension when stationary, but will at 10 km/h. Firing on the move is as far as I'm aware always a question of accuracy, which then is a factor of crew skill and targeting computer.
The Conquer, and presumably all Leman Russ variants, *can* fire on the move. The locally produced knock-off Leman Russ's are described in the same section where it mentioned the former as being unable because they specifically are of sub-Imperial standard technology lacking gyrostablizers and other features which means any movement throws off their aim.

I mean, this seems to be verging on insisting the tanks don't have radios and or range tables. Which they obviously do, if not better. Obviously, more skilled and organized people will do this better, but that's not really an argument for why they can't.

Do they have radios? Manuals? If so, they already have things more complicated than a slide ruler, which is 3 sticks of wood bound together.

The issue wasn't on if the Imperium could build a slide ruler, but whether they gave one to tank crews. Specifically how you just *assume* they had one or something similar to attempt to brush off the myriad issues with trying to use a tank as an artillery piece.

Well, actual weapons with its muzzle velocity like the M777 have ranges of 20-25 km. Which admitted does fit with their technical wording of "over 15 km". Half energy velocities compared to 800 m/s is 600 m/s, which is still in the 10-15 km range bracket.

Even though the explanation strikes me as a bit silly, it doesn't really change assumptions.

We're not talking about the M777, we're talking about the Imperials Basilisk. Their medium to long rang artillery unit. And there's no honest way to read "over fifteen" as really being 25km range.

And I see you just ignored the implication the Leman Russ has a weaker cannon than the 15km range Basilisk.

Well, obviously you want to make it as targeted as possible. If the level of detail communicated is "Fire zone Alpha" which is a 1 km^2 zone, the 3,000 m^2 danger zone vs tanks means any one artillery round has a 0.3% chance of randomly landing near a tank in that fire zone.

Personally I think going with spotters is superior whether we're talking about 100 meters or 1 square kilometer. Saves on ammunition, wear on the barrel and potential friendly fire accidents. This switching between "Fire zone Alpha" and actual targeting seems unlikely to make help matters and is likely just going to tie up guns that could be put to better use.

Fair enough, I miss interpreted you then. I guess I don't understand the criticism then? Is the plan for 15 vehicles to break through, fight 70 tanks by themselves, and then retreat under artillery? It seems too small a force to even get past overwatch.
Because you claimed the Detachment would strike across 5-10 kilometer front and waste resources killing a 1000 conscripts.

And on the contrary its a mobile, highly powerful strike force that likely can engage and disengage at will sniping Leman Russ's and Chimeras 500-1000m distant under the cover of darkness. Which is contrasted with Overwatch whose tanks are slower and far more spaced out and who aren't really designed with tank combat in mind.

Oh, if the attack on the perimeter doesn't even try to push into the square, then I don't think the armored force would even respond besides moving to defensive positions facing and adding artillery. The goal more or less of the levees is to make sure the Armored, I guess is 3-4 armored regiments about, aren't destroyed in a surprise attack. The attack gets disrupted somewhat on the levees, buying time for the Armor to form a second defensive line 5-10 km in, which then breaks the assault and hopefully leaves them surrounded.
Okay. I'll try to be more clear. You have your square. At the heart is your artillery. Further out, roughly 19km, you have Overwatch. Then 1km further you have your conscripts. My goal is to punch through, get inside the Square and with in those 19km get behind Overwatch and proceed to murder them. If, at a certain point, this hasn't gotten the RRF's attention they'll turn towards the center to try and draw them out.

Well, that's what volume of fire is for. And kill zones. I do agree hitting a specific moving Abrams is difficult, which is partially why so many elements are focused on limiting maneuverability. And making up for inaccuracy with volume of fire.
Volume of fire can compensate somewhat, at expenditures of resources, but that makes it even more crucial you are as accurate as possible to saturate the target as close to the Detachment as you can because you can't keep that volume of fire up forever or project it everywhere at once.

So now an attack on 1 km is an attack on the whole front? I may be exaggerating a little bit on light and sound, though not overly much.
No, I'm saying that your ill-disciplined, poorly trained troops huddling in their foxhole are going to see those flashes and hear those booms and think their being hit right next to them even if 2km down the line instead of right next to it. It can be hard to tell distances with sound or flashes of light. So an attack on 1-2 km segment will likely have reports along 4-5 km stretch.

Targeting computers and calculators are much more hit and miss. How strict the Imperium is on the no-thinking machines thing seems to be fairly variable in the interpretations. On the one hand, guided missiles seem to be a fairly standard thing. Which suggests the Imperium does have mass manufacturing of targeting computers, because every missile squad has them.
Key point is the Imperium doesn't understand how their tech works, broadly speaking, and believe it operates via spirits and belief. So they could build a guided missile because they happen to have a guided missile blueprint and not put computers into a tank because they don't have a tank computer blue print. That's the issue when your industrial base operates on learned rot memorization rather than actual understanding.

And I wouldn't say guided missiles are "standard" on the 40k battlefield. While not non-existent they don't pop up a lot in most of the stories I've read of the IG likely because of their relative complexity.

And these appear on vehicles too, as hunter killer missiles, which seem to be addable to nearly any Imperial vehicle for 5 points (ctrl+F hunter-killer) a vehicle. Which might very roughly be $100-200k on very rough adjustment. Which isn't off modern costs. And this does seem to be quite substantial sensor and computer package:
Well the tabletop game and the actual universe aren't 1 to 1 albeit they are supposed to be reflections of each other. One is geared towards both balance and player choice while the other isn't. We get a good look at Imperial air power in the novel Double Eagle. Suffice it to say it was very Korean War era with a focus on gun-canon ranges as opposed to modern, missile dominated.

Further the wiki description is vague enough that it doesn't sound much different than the original AIM-9 Sidewinder


Were also possibly drifting into some of the stranger areas of 40k, such as the outright super human psykers and their issues, like how strong exactly divination is and how many pskykers an average regiment has. Or what a Leman Russ with a servitor skull computer or spotter looks like.
Well most Regiments don't seem to have Pyskers. Cain's Valhalans don't seem to. Off the top of my head I don't think the 11th Brimslock did. I don't think Guant's Ghosts had one but I'm not super familiar with the latter so I could be hard wrong on that. And I don't think the Guard typically has servo skulls let alone uses them in a spotter role.

Basically, computers of some degree seems to be supported, and the low computer interpretation of the Imperium like Dune gets us into the superhuman seritor/psyker alternatives to computers. How well psykers can divine the future is a conversation I'm much less equipped to have than assuming some level of at least 1950s-70s targeting computers.
I really don't see it as an either/or situation. We have had tanks long before we started putting computers in them. The IG could functional perfectly well with limited or none in their tanks without requiring pyker divination.

I'm not really sure why denser is supposedly less venerable to artillery, so one luckily artillery hit kills off a platoon than a single vehicle, though you also seem to be assuming forces too small to achieve your described ends. We'll have to narrow down on what your describing.
I don't think it's that mysterious. As I've said I don't think you'll be able to generate accurate fire on the detachment and be forced to rely on blind fire. By keeping between say only 50m-100m apart I keep a compact enough force to reduce the chances of being hit by such a bombardment while stay far enough apart that a lucky strike won't take everyone out. So large advantage, limited disadvantage compared to spreading equal distant across the entire square kilometer where its far more likely you'll hit something.

I am also banking on mobility/speed to push the initiative hoping to keep ahead of your reactions and control the battlespace and in general keeping moving so the number of potential grids just grows too large for you to effectively bombard.

This, along with advantages of night fighting, are why I feel fifteen tanks, plus 2 Bradley's, are more than sufficient to seriously threaten Overwatch and bait out the RRF.

And you seem to assume everything is thrown into chaos without actually attacking most things. Or that the Imperial guard doesn't have radios and has sub Iraq levels of competence. Either your attacking a platoon position, in which case is pretty darn obvious where the attack is, or your engagin on a wider front and things are thown into chaos.
I've never claimed the Imperial Guard lacks radios. In fact I earlier stated the Guard might have better access to radios than the American forces. I simply don't think the Guard command structure is organized to make use of it however. Nor have I spoken too much on the Guard's competency other than the conscripts' which are supposed to be poorly disciplined rabble per your own description of them.

I'm assuming the Detachment will sow chaos due to a number of factors. 1.) Of course is that poorly trained/disciplined troops are likely going to be confused and panicked when all hell starts breaking lose misjudging the exact distance of the explosions they see and hear. This will result in command receiving reports of a larger attack than it actually is. 2.) The Detachment punching through the perimeter far swifter/faster than anticipated and start to overwhelm Overwatch 3.) due to the Detachments mobility, the Imperials limited ability to detect them and the large mostly empty 200 square kilometers to hide in will put the Imperials on the back foot as they scramble to corner and fight the Detachment.

You seem to critize the formation for being dispersed, while recommending the American be even more dispersed and attack in even more piecemeal fashion.
Untrue. The Brigade as I outlined only breaks down into three components. That's a lot more concentrated than spreading out Overwatch or your conscripts.

Well, no. I don't generally expect the missile to be evaded or shot down, outside the Bradley being forced to maneuver by incoming fire pre guidance. The 1-1 loss assumption is more or less the Bradley shoots 1 Russ, the second Russ responds and kills the Bradley. Unless it is at very long range and the Rus has cover. Depends how bad the shots Bradleys are forced to risk, depending on terrain.

Will a Bradley have 4km sight lines on the battlefield, which aren't already garrisoned? If your not even pushing for a night fight, why centralize on this?

My primary concern, at this moment, is to see if you have any evidence of Leman Russ's targeting multi-kilometers out. So I'm interested in any examples period even if they aren't necessarily a hundred percent applicable to the current scenario.

I'm not quite sure I understand your question about the Bradley. Could you elaborate?

Not really. it comes down to basic angles: at longer ranges, it takes a longer movement to move x degrees. Moving 50 meters at 500 m range is 6 degrees. 50 meters at 1,000 meters is 3 degrees.
Not sure I follow. If 50 meters at 1,000 meters is 3 degrees wouldn't the turret which traverses 10 degrees per second still do it quicker than the one who traverses 5 degrees per second? Which would become more pronounced if they had to traverse 100m instead of just 50.

Sure. Its just an indevoured that I think the imperials win, with heavier shells, possibly deeper ammo reserves, and more expendable assets to absorb artillery.
I meant using it against the tanks. The very non-expendable assets.

I mean, it is mobile during the day. Just very conservative. I think the criticism here might rest on disrupt. You seem to assume its a large effect, while I'm not sure I do.
Which still doesn't seem to deserve the label of a scout force.

The "criticism" rests on that you think a company of space afgan conscripts is going to meaningful slow/derail the Detachment while I think its going to be target practice. That this is ideally the sort of target this type of warefare was created to defeat.

Some small amount of chaos is entering the system: the plan is now 5 or so minutes off, there's 1 less tank available. Local and command have to adapt to the new situation. Not a lot, but it adds up.
War is Chaos. No one can plan a battle down to a timetable which is why it's important to put emphasis on junior officers to be able to dictate and adjust the plan as needed due to changing circumstances. So nothing you described is special or unique to the scenario.

Sure, but how is this a critism? They're not supposed to stop a strong assault.
Because, by design, the line has to stop a strong assault long enough for you to respond. Personally I'd go with a layered defensive with multiple trench lines across a shorter front, minefields, tank traps with Basilisk partitioned off to company command, and moved up to protective firing positions, so they can more swiftly respond to a sudden threat creating kill zones and allowing a big enough buffer for more mobile units to respond. In your example if the line is broken through you don't really have anything but a very small and spread out Overwatch to try and stem the tide.

This gets into the strangeness where you assume a tiny force can strike one area of the line, and simultaneously attack the entire front. I think were picturing different things, but you seem to keep suggesting teleporting Abrams.
A tiny force can strike one area of the line, force a break through then proceed to flank and ambush the Overwatch forces that are scattered out just a kilometer behind the front line. And then move on to ambush the next group positioned only a couple of minutes away while Imperial command is struggling to process what happened and where the Detachment is.
 
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ATP

Well-known member
I forget about drones.USA could use tem for recon and coordinate their artillery,when IoM would fire reling on observers.
Unless Mechanicum come,IoM would fight blindly with enemy knowing all their positions.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
The Imperials were on a hill moving downward to engage the local army without any particular indication of LoS issues but both sides waited until they seemingly were quite close to start blasting. Incidentally it's confirmed that the local forces are eye targeted the only explicit advantage the Imperials are said to possess is one of accuracy, due to laser and auspex guided aiming as well as being able to fire on the move.


The Conquer, and presumably all Leman Russ variants, *can* fire on the move. The locally produced knock-off Leman Russ's are described in the same section where it mentioned the former as being unable because they specifically are of sub-Imperial standard technology lacking gyrostablizers and other features which means any movement throws off their aim.

Okay, we agree then.

The issue wasn't on if the Imperium could build a slide ruler, but whether they gave one to tank crews. Specifically how you just *assume* they had one or something similar to attempt to brush off the myriad issues with trying to use a tank as an artillery piece.

since they now apparently have gyrostabilizer and laser range finders, they have better than a slide ruler as standard, so this is fairly mute.

We're not talking about the M777, we're talking about the Imperials Basilisk. Their medium to long rang artillery unit. And there's no honest way to read "over fifteen" as really being 25km range.

And I see you just ignored the implication the Leman Russ has a weaker cannon than the 15km range Basilisk.

I think "over fifteen" can reasonably be interpreted to be "more than 15". 15-20 is reasonable interpretation of that. Half powered rounds gives you 10-15 km.

And I didn't ignore the implication. The implication is right here:

"Half energy velocities compared to 800 m/s is 600 m/s, which is still in the 10-15 km range bracket. "

Half powered shells is about 25% less range, due to energy being the square of velocity.

Basic math says a 810 m/s shell does 60 km pre air resistance. Real life examples show you can do 15-25 for that. 15 km being the effective firing range also seems perfectly reasonable, but can fire further.

So, I'm perfectly happy to go with the Basilisk standard ammo having effective range in the 15-20 km range, with specialty rounds going further, but were not focused on that, and Leman Rus half strength shells (600 m/s) by basic math suggest a pre-air resistance range of 30 km, which suggests a max of roughly 10km, maybe 15 km depending on how aerodynamic (lower speed rounds have less drag, so practically the difference in range between a slower and faster round is smaller). Specialty rounds or higher quality rounds will be able to do better, coming back to the issue of Imperial variability. 130 mm shells made off the tiny industrial capacity of a generally feudal world will likely be poorer quality than "regular" worlds, which may be less than on a forge world.

So, for this force these artillery bands make sense for the imperium: for all obviously good returns to closer.

Mortars (heavy weapons squad): 1-10 km.
Leman Russ indirect fire: 5-15 km
Basilisk: 5-20 km


Personally I think going with spotters is superior whether we're talking about 100 meters or 1 square kilometer.

Sure, said as much myself.

Saves on ammunition, wear on the barrel and potential friendly fire accidents. This switching between "Fire zone Alpha" and actual targeting seems unlikely to make help matters and is likely just going to tie up guns that could be put to better use.

Sure, sometimes doing nothing is better than doing something. I'm not sure what your saying in the "switching" issue: this is more or less how our own fire models do things when you don't have specific targets. And even when you do have specific targets you still generally have fire zones: battery A is responsible for Zone A, with a direct comm line to their spotter in zone A, and a couple of pre-aimed locations, for example known choke points.


Because you claimed the Detachment would strike across 5-10 kilometer front and waste resources killing a 1000 conscripts.

And on the contrary its a mobile, highly powerful strike force that likely can engage and disengage at will sniping Leman Russ's and Chimeras 500-1000m distant under the cover of darkness. Which is contrasted with Overwatch whose tanks are slower and far more spaced out and who aren't really designed with tank combat in mind.

Okay. I'll try to be more clear. You have your square. At the heart is your artillery. Further out, roughly 19km, you have Overwatch. Then 1km further you have your conscripts. My goal is to punch through, get inside the Square and with in those 19km get behind Overwatch and proceed to murder them. If, at a certain point, this hasn't gotten the RRF's attention they'll turn towards the center to try and draw them out.


Volume of fire can compensate somewhat, at expenditures of resources, but that makes it even more crucial you are as accurate as possible to saturate the target as close to the Detachment as you can because you can't keep that volume of fire up forever or project it everywhere at once.

Hm, I might have to just draw this out, because I'm not sure the distances work out as you suggest. Maybe you are correct once I draw it out. Have to see.

No, I'm saying that your ill-disciplined, poorly trained troops huddling in their foxhole are going to see those flashes and hear those booms and think their being hit right next to them even if 2km down the line instead of right next to it. It can be hard to tell distances with sound or flashes of light. So an attack on 1-2 km segment will likely have reports along 4-5 km stretch.

I would be more concerned about under reporting, rather than over reporting to be honest. You attack the forward platoon, the company commander reports to their regiment they're under attack. The regiment should be roughly 5 km if I'm doing my math correctly. Also a good length for a foot mobile force, since its "only" an hour to walk along the front. He then contacts the overwatch attached force, which would be, well, 2 Leman Russ and 2 Chimera's per regiment. He also reports up to, I guess this would be something like a divisional command, who then directs the artillery.

Platoon commander -> Company Commander -> Infantry Regiment commander -> Divisional commander -> Artillery Regiment Commander -> Artillery Batteries is not great, but immensely bad either. 5 -10 minutes for the whole change. And then once you know where the attack is and can assign other forces to support others. If company commander is still around, he can be connected directly to Artillery battery three and do spotting.

Key point is the Imperium doesn't understand how their tech works, broadly speaking, and believe it operates via spirits and belief. So they could build a guided missile because they happen to have a guided missile blueprint and not put computers into a tank because they don't have a tank computer blue print. That's the issue when your industrial base operates on learned rot memorization rather than actual understanding.

And I wouldn't say guided missiles are "standard" on the 40k battlefield. While not non-existent they don't pop up a lot in most of the stories I've read of the IG likely because of their relative complexity.


Well the tabletop game and the actual universe aren't 1 to 1 albeit they are supposed to be reflections of each other. One is geared towards both balance and player choice while the other isn't. We get a good look at Imperial air power in the novel Double Eagle. Suffice it to say it was very Korean War era with a focus on gun-canon ranges as opposed to modern, missile dominated.

Further the wiki description is vague enough that it doesn't sound much different than the original AIM-9 Sidewinder


Eh, everything seems to suggest they have at least some targeting assistance.

Well most Regiments don't seem to have Pyskers. Cain's Valhalans don't seem to. Off the top of my head I don't think the 11th Brimslock did. I don't think Guant's Ghosts had one but I'm not super familiar with the latter so I could be hard wrong on that. And I don't think the Guard typically has servo skulls let alone uses them in a spotter role.

I really don't see it as an either/or situation. We have had tanks long before we started putting computers in them. The IG could functional perfectly well with limited or none in their tanks without requiring pyker divination.

Its one of those things that there's conflicting interpretations on, depending on how one leans on thing. Games, video and tabletop, seem to suggest fairly common. The regimental example page has 10 psykers attached to a regiment.

I don't think it's that mysterious. As I've said I don't think you'll be able to generate accurate fire on the detachment and be forced to rely on blind fire. By keeping between say only 50m-100m apart I keep a compact enough force to reduce the chances of being hit by such a bombardment while stay far enough apart that a lucky strike won't take everyone out. So large advantage, limited disadvantage compared to spreading equal distant across the entire square kilometer where its far more likely you'll hit something.

I am also banking on mobility/speed to push the initiative hoping to keep ahead of your reactions and control the battlespace and in general keeping moving so the number of potential grids just grows too large for you to effectively bombard.

This, along with advantages of night fighting, are why I feel fifteen tanks, plus 2 Bradley's, are more than sufficient to seriously threaten Overwatch and bait out the RRF.

This is another thing were I think I just need to draw on a map to see how the space works out. I do think at this point 10,000 is too few for the scale, but you might still be overestimating how much space they have to maneuver in.

I've never claimed the Imperial Guard lacks radios. In fact I earlier stated the Guard might have better access to radios than the American forces. I simply don't think the Guard command structure is organized to make use of it however. Nor have I spoken too much on the Guard's competency other than the conscripts' which are supposed to be poorly disciplined rabble per your own description of them.

I'm assuming the Detachment will sow chaos due to a number of factors. 1.) Of course is that poorly trained/disciplined troops are likely going to be confused and panicked when all hell starts breaking lose misjudging the exact distance of the explosions they see and hear. This will result in command receiving reports of a larger attack than it actually is. 2.) The Detachment punching through the perimeter far swifter/faster than anticipated and start to overwhelm Overwatch 3.) due to the Detachments mobility, the Imperials limited ability to detect them and the large mostly empty 200 square kilometers to hide in will put the Imperials on the back foot as they scramble to corner and fight the Detachment.

Untrue. The Brigade as I outlined only breaks down into three components. That's a lot more concentrated than spreading out Overwatch or your conscripts.

Map question.

My primary concern, at this moment, is to see if you have any evidence of Leman Russ's targeting multi-kilometers out. So I'm interested in any examples period even if they aren't necessarily a hundred percent applicable to the current scenario.

Basic logic and reality.

I'm not quite sure I understand your question about the Bradley. Could you elaborate?

How many places are they likely to have 4 km line of site anyways?

Not sure I follow. If 50 meters at 1,000 meters is 3 degrees wouldn't the turret which traverses 10 degrees per second still do it quicker than the one who traverses 5 degrees per second? Which would become more pronounced if they had to traverse 100m instead of just 50.

If your turret tracks faster than the target moves, you don't get much advantage to tracking faster. And the less turning you need to do, the less harmful a slow track is.


I meant using it against the tanks. The very non-expendable assets.


Which still doesn't seem to deserve the label of a scout force.

Scouting is how it functions however.

The "criticism" rests on that you think a company of space afgan conscripts is going to meaningful slow/derail the Detachment while I think its going to be target practice. That this is ideally the sort of target this type of warefare was created to defeat.

War is Chaos. No one can plan a battle down to a timetable which is why it's important to put emphasis on junior officers to be able to dictate and adjust the plan as needed due to changing circumstances. So nothing you described is special or unique to the scenario.

It increases Chaos, which makes the later Leman Russ fight with the armor more likely to win than if the surprise attack was on the Tanks directly.

Because, by design, the line has to stop a strong assault long enough for you to respond. Personally I'd go with a layered defensive with multiple trench lines across a shorter front, minefields, tank traps with Basilisk partitioned off to company command, and moved up to protective firing positions, so they can more swiftly respond to a sudden threat creating kill zones and allowing a big enough buffer for more mobile units to respond. In your example if the line is broken through you don't really have anything but a very small and spread out Overwatch to try and stem the tide.

A tiny force can strike one area of the line, force a break through then proceed to flank and ambush the Overwatch forces that are scattered out just a kilometer behind the front line. And then move on to ambush the next group positioned only a couple of minutes away while Imperial command is struggling to process what happened and where the Detachment is.

And even under your more optimistic assumptions it does. Everything your suggesting is much more expensive. And doesn't I think reasonably take into account what the space actually looks like.
 

Crom's Black Blade

Well-known member
since they now apparently have gyrostabilizer and laser range finders, they have better than a slide ruler as standard, so this is fairly mute.
That's the sort of dishonesty that is making me tired of this. You made a claim simply to justify an outcome you find favorable. All I've asked is that you back it up. Show me a reference to a tank computer , a slide rule, anything to justify you asspulled claim a Leman Russ could crunch the trajectory numbers. And you've done nothing but Dodge.

I wish you the best Jager but I'm done. I no longer believe anything of value can come out of continuing.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
That's the sort of dishonesty that is making me tired of this. You made a claim simply to justify an outcome you find favorable. All I've asked is that you back it up. Show me a reference to a tank computer , a slide rule, anything to justify you asspulled claim a Leman Russ could crunch the trajectory numbers. And you've done nothing but Dodge.

I wish you the best Jager but I'm done. I no longer believe anything of value can come out of continuing.

You insult me. But, I will give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not being a bad actor here, and simply being a petulant child mistaking an argument you don't agree with or understand to be a lie. Given the benifit of the doubt, I will try to respond to this tantrum. We were also getting extremely broad, so its probably helpful to the conversation to come to some agreement on this specific issue first, rather than juggle 10 different, then 12, excetera different topics.

1) Asking for a specific direct reference. This is an absurd request. I don't have access to 40k novels, which generally would not have any reason to mention whether or not specifically Leman Rus have a targeting computer. Nor would most other 40k sources. If we did find some obscure single reference somewhere, it also wouldn't mean much on its own. A) sometimes a writer will write something stupid and contradictory. Especially on something as banal as a tank computers. Why would your average writer even have any special knowledge on if a tank had a computer and what it did exactly? B) with the variation of the imperium, you have no guarentee even if the specific reference isn't a mistake that the given example is universally applicable: the Leman Rus could be a backwater monkey model where the stabilizer/targeting computer broke 40 years ago. Or it could be a Leman Rus built on an above average more advanced world and have more than average Mecanicus super tech in it.

2) Given these limitations, we instead need to apply more general logic and evidence. Logic and broader exidence can lead to reasonable extrapolations. Is a Leman Russ at least generally a WWII -cold war level vehicle? More or less yes, with some WWI features. Did those have stablizers, which are basically mechanical targeting computers, or at least 30%-60% of one? Yes. So, since the tech is generally at least WWII tech, and in places higher, and fire control computers are WWII tech, it makes sense they would have one.

Do other comparable weaponry in the setting have targeting computers? Yes, unambiguously. I already gave the example of guided missiles, a common weapon for the tabletop, with no lore suggestion they're in any way uncommon. Hunter Seeker missiles, another common tabletop weapon without any lore suggestion they're rare. We also have as a common Imperial vehicle the Hydra, which also is strongly implied to have a decent targeting computer. And of course we have Mechanicum and Space Marines with targeting computers too. This all suggests it would be reasonable to assume a Leman Russ has some sort of targeting computer.

Finally, we have the rest of the parts of a fire control system, which a computer of some sort very neatly plugs into. What does a fire control system need, of which a computer is a part?

a) it ideally has some automatic gun laying system. Stabilizers are an automatic gun laying system.

b) it needs some sort of input system: you have that. You noted a range finder. This wiki says a Russ has "a variety of high-tech scanners and Auspex systems". Some of the information can also be imputed manually. This is how early WWII era fire control worked. Weather Intelligence had to provide the the soldiers with current weather conditions, who manually update the computer. A Leman Rus system sufficiently primitive may have 4-6 of the most commonly adjusted on some nobs for manual updates every couple of hours.

c) You then need some way to turn those sensor reading into a targeting solution. This complex, but not overly so: WWII technology. If you have a laser range finder, that produces a range. Having the gun be able to read that range finder's reading and adjust to it is not that difficult if you already have a stabilized gun. Same with maintaining artillery pointing: if your already ranged your weapon on a target, and you have a stabilized gun, that ballistic arc being stabilized is not much different than a direct fire being stabilized. Nor a situation where your stationary but the gun is stabilized on a target with known heading: say a vehicle moving down a road at a known speed. If you can establish a definite start point, stabilizing to that target is somewhat simple. WWI-WWII computers could do it.

Some level of fire control thus seems very reasonable: its in other systems of the same force, and most of the rest of the equipment that go around a fire control computer/system is present. But, even with all that,

3) It was not necessary anyways for what I had the Leman Rus doing. You seem to have mis-interpeted the slide rule comment as "well if they had this bit of strange tech they could do it", but instead as "this is such a basic task the tools you need are one step above doing it in your head, and if your very experienced you probably do just do this in your head". A slide rule is basically a very slightly more advanced version of a range table. Would you demand proof of a range table? Proof that a battle cannon has a manual, which at least some range table would be part of? Or are army manuals something you think I need textual proof of existence? Or would the Uplifting Primer be sufficient proof of the existence of army manuals?

Not only are slide rules and range tables pre WWII technology, and so simple and so basic that its seems absurd you would not have either or, possibly glued to the wall, but these kinds of things often are even built into the sights. Once again since WWII.

So, to summarize my argument, which you seem to regard as a lie,

1) Such a specific reference request of such a minute detail, that a random author is just as likely to as not get wrong, is absurd, and not stopping all argument unless I can find some abcure reference that confirms or denys it, which by the nature of its obscurity doesn't actually prove all that much, is a bad faith demand and not how internet argument about imaginary space forces. It would be a bad faith if we were arguing actual history.

2) However, looking at surround evidence in the setting, drawing on related topics (real life) that we have more concrete information on, and applying reason and logic to those facts, it seems more reasonable than not that a Leman Russ has some sort of targeting computer in it, though its exact quality is harder to determine.

3) But, even given all that, the targeting needed from the Leman Russ can be accomplished (I believe) by a radio and a slide rule, which is one tiny step above feeling it out and rule of thumbing it.
 

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