Warhammer Warhammer General discussion thread: Now with 100% more Space Marines

LindyAF

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I imagine for the majority of the great crusade and for imperium-unaware human worlds even in 40k, "conquering the world" meant "we found a nephew who's willing to sign on" and then sending a few space marines to simplify the succession and back him up and maybe train up some of his forces. Putting down rebellions in 40k is probably pretty similar - wipe out the rebelling governor or nobles, find the highest ranking person who stayed loyal, and clean out everyone above them. And unless chaos is involved, there probably will be someone who stayed loyal and is fairly high ranking, since it's a huge opportunity for advancement.

My headcanon is that worlds like Barbarus were also fairly common. 99.99% of the world is human, with a tiny minority of alien overlords (or sorcerers, or something else) who were pretty awful. Kill them in surgical strikes and the rest of the planet greets the Imperium as liberators, or at least greets them as the new boss.
 

LindyAF

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Thing I was thinking about - given the weaponry available in 40k, what would a sensibly constructed tactical squad or IG squad, etc. actually look like, if it was made in-universe and wasn't constrained by game balance (or elements of the game)?

IIRC tactical squads were 10 space marines - 7 bolters, 1 heavy weapon, 1 special weapon, and 1 veteran sergeant (typically with chainsword). This can be divided into two fireteams, one with the sergeant and special weapon, and the other with the heavy weapon. The heavy weapon could be heavy bolter, multi-melta, missile launcher, or plasma cannon, and the special weapon could be a flamer, meltagun, or plasma gun. In the codexes I have "standard" was that the heavy weapon was a missile launcher and the special weapon was a flamer.

Comparing this to IRL squads, this seems light on machine guns / automatic riflemen. US squads seem to typically have gone for one SAW or historical equivalent per like 4-5 people. Some other countries only have one automatic rifleman in a squad, but they're typically smaller than ten man squads. And if a tactical squad has a different heavy weapon, they wouldn't have a machine gun at all. This squad also feels fairly underwhelming to me in the amount of firepower it can unleash. I can't really see this chewing through enemy formations unless specifically tailored to them, and then it doesn't have much flexibility.

So my proposed tactical squad would be a twelve man squad, with two heavy bolters, two missile launchers, two specialist weapons, one stalker boltgun DMR, and five bolters (including the veteran sergeant). Special weapons would be flexible, with the tactical squad selecting whatever special weapons best suited for their mission, subject to what's available to them. Meltaguns preferred when enemy armor is expected, flamers against orks or tyrannid swarms, and plasma guns prized when going up against traitor marines.
 
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Navarro

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I imagine for the majority of the great crusade and for imperium-unaware human worlds even in 40k, "conquering the world" meant "we found a nephew who's willing to sign on" and then sending a few space marines to simplify the succession and back him up and maybe train up some of his forces.

...

My headcanon is that worlds like Barbarus were also fairly common. 99.99% of the world is human, with a tiny minority of alien overlords (or sorcerers, or something else) who were pretty awful. Kill them in surgical strikes and the rest of the planet greets the Imperium as liberators, or at least greets them as the new boss.

According to the lore the vast majority of the worlds "conquered" in the Great Crusade either willingly signed on or surrendered without a fight.
 

Battlegrinder

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Thing I was thinking about - given the weaponry available in 40k, what would a sensibly constructed tactical squad or IG squad, etc. actually look like, if it was made in-universe and wasn't constrained by game balance (or elements of the game)?

IIRC tactical squads were 10 space marines - 7 bolters, 1 heavy weapon, 1 special weapon, and 1 veteran sergeant (typically with chainsword). This can be divided into two fireteams, one with the sergeant and special weapon, and the other with the heavy weapon. The heavy weapon could be heavy bolter, multi-melta, missile launcher, or plasma cannon, and the special weapon could be a flamer, meltagun, or plasma gun. In the codexes I have "standard" was that the heavy weapon was a missile launcher and the special weapon was a flamer.

Comparing this to IRL squads, this seems light on machine guns / automatic riflemen. US squads seem to typically have gone for one SAW or historical equivalent per like 4-5 people. Some other countries only have one automatic rifleman in a squad, but they're typically smaller than ten man squads. And if a tactical squad has a different heavy weapon, they wouldn't have a machine gun at all. This squad also feels fairly underwhelming to me in the amount of firepower it can unleash. I can't really see this chewing through enemy formations unless specifically tailored to them, and then it doesn't have much flexibility.

So my proposed tactical squad would be a twelve man squad, with two heavy bolters, two missile launchers, two specialist weapons, one stalker boltgun DMR, and five bolters (including the veteran sergeant). Special weapons would be flexible, with the tactical squad selecting whatever special weapons best suited for their mission, subject to what's available to them. Meltaguns preferred when enemy armor is expected, flamers against orks or tyrannid swarms, and plasma guns prized when going up against traitor marines.

You're overlooking a few key points.

Heavy bolters are not SAW equivalents, they're HMG equivalents. They are not as mobile, require bracing in order to fire accurately, and derive thier power both from greater fire rate and greater individual power per shot (Incidentally, WW2 German sqauds used a HMG and several rifleman in a ten mad sqaud). The SAW equivalent would IMO be the storm bolter, which GW is reluctant to give out too freely.

Stalker bolters are not DMRs either, they're sniper weapons. Every marine in the sqaud is accurate enough and sharp eyed enough to use his bolter like a DMR. Hell, if you've seen Astartes, then you should have seen them using pistols like DMRs.

I would also note that with this sqaud organization, you've effective duplicated the function of a devastator sqaud with the number heavy weapons you're having them tote, which makes this formation a bit wasteful. You Don want to load a sqaud down with specialist weapons that they're not going to use, which this squad likely won't, they'll be kept back to engage from long range. Remember, the 5 guys with bolters in a normal dev sqaud are not there to hand out some minor chip damage, they're supposed to be spotting targets, reloading heavy weapons, etc, they are not intended to take a direct part in the fighting (that's why they're in dev sqauds in the first place).

Also, marines are supposed to insert with weapons tailored to the enemy, the idea of a generic take all comers loadout is an invention of the tabletop, not the setting. Lore space marines are a bunch of insufferable list tailoring HQ ganking WAACers, they'll drop in with exactly the weapons they need to tear the enemy apart.
 
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Zachowon

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The guard are the ones that try to fight everything with a general loadout. Access to more but they aren't Astartes and don't get the cream de la crop
 

Battlegrinder

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The guard are the ones that try to fight everything with a general loadout. Access to more but they aren't Astartes and don't get the cream de la crop

Not exactly. Guard will switch up thier gear given the chance, but they're much more likely to not have the intel to know what to bring, or they might not have the required equipment.

They might be better off in some other ways, though. Marine tanks have modular weaponry much like some IG vehicles, but the marines can't always take advantage of that because the tank's machine spirit gets used to having a certain set of weapons and gets upset if you try and remove them. It's not a very good idea to upset anything that's packing a lascannon, for obvious reasons.

I have not heard the same of the guard vehicles, so they might actually be able to swap out weapons on their vehicles as needed, assuming they have the capability.
 

Zachowon

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Not exactly. Guard will switch up thier gear given the chance, but they're much more likely to not have the intel to know what to bring, or they might not have the required equipment.

They might be better off in some other ways, though. Marine tanks have modular weaponry much like some IG vehicles, but the marines can't always take advantage of that because the tank's machine spirit gets used to having a certain set of weapons and gets upset if you try and remove them. It's not a very good idea to upset anything that's packing a lascannon, for obvious reasons.

I have not heard the same of the guard vehicles, so they might actually be able to swap out weapons on their vehicles as needed, assuming they have the capability.
From reading the Cain novels, very rarely did they get anything diffrent
 

Emperor Tippy

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The entire IoM military apparatus is pretty stupidly constructed and organized in basically every facet. I mean the only thing it does well is split the space and ground forces.

Take Space Marines, it takes ten years for both progenoids to mature and both can be removed safely once fully mature. What this means is that no space marine should see a battlefield for the first ten years after implantation is completed; especially when the Primarchs aren't around.

For the Imperial Guard? About the only piece of kit that is actually decently conceived and designed is the LasRifle.

But then the entire Imperium doesn't actually make sense in terms of structure or governance. I mean the Emperor, in practice, was more a barbarian warlord than an actual Emperor; the Imperium not actually being structured to succeed.
 

LindyAF

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Heavy bolters are not SAW equivalents, they're HMG equivalents. They are not as mobile, require bracing in order to fire accurately, and service thier power both from greater fire rate and greater individual power per shot (Incidentally, WW2 German sqauds used a HMG and several rifleman in a ten mad sqaud). The SAW equivalent would IMO be the storm bolter, which GW is reluctant to give out too freely.

Stalker bolters are not DMRs either, they're sniper weapons. Every marine in the sqaud is accurate enough and sharp eyed enough to use his bolter like a DMR. Hell, if you've seen Astartes, then you should have seen them using pistols like DMRs.

I'd say heavy bolters are closer to general purpose machine guns rather than heavy machine guns. Heavy machine guns were originally characterized (WW1) by being fixed emplacement tripod-only water cooled guns (like the Maxim gun), and later by being anti-material machine guns (like the M2). It's like our M240, or M60, not like the M2 Browning. The german MG34 and MG42 were GPMGs as well, but WW2 squads were typically lighter on machine guns than modern squads in general, with many US squads having one automatic rifleman as well, armed with a BAR to act as a light machine gun.

SAWs are not exactly mobile either. They're often more than twice as heavy as the standard rifle, and intended to be fired from the bipod, is my understanding. I did think about the storm bolter, but as you mentioned, GW is hesitant about handing them out, and so I assume in-universe they're too rare to be reliably fielded, although I'd also consider the storm bolter closer to just being a better bolter rather than a SAW, as they don't have any tradeoff in mobility or ease of use.

On the stalker bolter, my assumption here is that the even with the increased capability of space marines, there's still going to be some who are better than others and a role for a gun that lets the . Although I imagine against enemies without leaders against which bolters are effective (for instance, Tyrannids), the stalker bolter gets left out in favor of another bolter.

Also, marines are supposed to insert with weapons tailored to the enemy, the idea of a generic take all comers loadout is an invention of the tabletop, not the setting. Lore space marines are a bunch of insufferable list tailoring HQ ganking WAACers, they'll drop in with exactly the weapons they need to tear the enemy apart.

Yes, space marines are supposed to insert with weapons tailored to the enemy. But I don't think having the one special weapon and one heavy weapon tailored does that job very well. Like, if a tactical squad is tailored for enemy armor, taking, say, a meltagun and a lascannon, it's seems to me like it's still in a fair bit of trouble if it runs into enemy armor (like, let's say three traitor guard leman russes). If it's optimized for enemy infantry taking let's say a heavy bolter and a flamer, then it'll destroy traitor guard squads, but it isn't annihilating traitor guard companies or whole swarms of tyrannids. The tactical squad as it exists in the tabletop game to me like something that can be tailored to any role, but is seldom going to excel. This makes sense in a tabletop game but doesn't make sense lorewise for space marines. I'm more thinking about "what would the tactical squad look like lorewise?" than I am saying "they got the tactical squad wrong, here's what it should look like."

You do have a point about this ending up heavy on heavy weapons, though. I'm still thinking that the tabletop squad seems bolter-heavy compared to lore or what would be practical, though. Like, if you had a five man fireteam in Deathwatch, I doubt you'd really want four guys with bolters and one guy with either a heavy weapon or a special weapon. So, what would you think about relegating the stalker bolter to a "special weapon," dropping one heavy bolter and one missile launcher, and relegating the remaining missile launcher to a "flex heavy weapon" position. Have a ten man squad - one veteran sergeant with bolter, one assistant squad leader (with bolter) one heavy bolter gunner and assistant with bolter, one missile launcher (or other heavy weapon) and assistant with bolter, two special weapon users, and two other boltermen?

The guard are the ones that try to fight everything with a general loadout. Access to more but they aren't Astartes and don't get the cream de la crop

This seems like a contradiction?
 
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Zachowon

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The entire IoM military apparatus is pretty stupidly constructed and organized in basically every facet. I mean the only thing it does well is split the space and ground forces.

Take Space Marines, it takes ten years for both progenoids to mature and both can be removed safely once fully mature. What this means is that no space marine should see a battlefield for the first ten years after implantation is completed; especially when the Primarchs aren't around.

For the Imperial Guard? About the only piece of kit that is actually decently conceived and designed is the LasRifle.

But then the entire Imperium doesn't actually make sense in terms of structure or governance. I mean the Emperor, in practice, was more a barbarian warlord than an actual Emperor; the Imperium not actually being structured to succeed.
Thier armor isn't that bad either the IG that is.
I'd say heavy bolters are closer to general purpose machine guns rather than heavy machine guns. Heavy machine guns were originally characterized (WW1) by being fixed emplacement tripod-only water cooled guns (like the Maxim gun), and later by being anti-material machine guns (like the M2). It's like our M240, or M60, not like the M2 Browning. The german MG34 and MG42 were GPMGs as well, but WW2 squads were typically lighter on machine guns than modern squads in general, with many US squads having one automatic rifleman as well, armed with a BAR to act as a light machine gun.

SAWs are not exactly mobile either. They're often more than twice as heavy as the standard rifle, and intended to be fired from the bipod, is my understanding. I did think about the storm bolter, but as you mentioned, GW is hesitant about handing them out, and so I assume in-universe they're too rare to be reliably fielded, although I'd also consider the storm bolter closer to just being a better bolter rather than a SAW, as they don't have any tradeoff in mobility or ease of use.

On the stalker bolter, my assumption here is that the even with the increased capability of space marines, there's still going to be some who are better than others and a role for a gun that lets the . Although I imagine against enemies without leaders against which bolters are effective (for instance, Tyrannids), the stalker bolter gets left out in favor of another bolter.



Yes, space marines are supposed to insert with weapons tailored to the enemy. But I don't think having the one special weapon and one heavy weapon tailored does that job very well. Like, if a tactical squad is tailored for enemy armor, taking, say, a meltagun and a lascannon, it's seems to me like it's still in a fair bit of trouble if it runs into enemy armor (like, let's say three traitor guard leman russes). If it's optimized for enemy infantry taking let's say a heavy bolter and a flamer, then it'll destroy traitor guard squads, but it isn't annihilating traitor guard companies or whole swarms of tyrannids. The tactical squad as it exists in the tabletop game to me like something that can be tailored to any role, but is seldom going to excel. This makes sense in a tabletop game but doesn't make sense lorewise for space marines. I'm more thinking about "what would the tactical squad look like lorewise?" than I am saying "they got the tactical squad wrong, here's what it should look like."

You do have a point about this ending up heavy on heavy weapons, though. I'm still thinking that the tabletop squad seems bolter-heavy compared to lore or what would be practical, though. Like, if you had a five man fireteam in Deathwatch, I doubt you'd really want four guys with bolters and one guy with either a heavy weapon or a special weapon. So, what would you think about relegating the stalker bolter to a "special weapon," dropping one heavy bolter and one missile launcher, and relegating the remaining missile launcher to a "flex heavy weapon" position. Have a ten man squad - one veteran sergeant with bolter, one assistant squad leader (with bolter) one heavy bolter gunner and assistant with bolter, one missile launcher (or other heavy weapon) and assistant with bolter, two special weapon users, and two riflemen?



This seems like a contradiction?
The SAW can be fired standing, kneeling or prone. Kneeling or prone with bipod, hell even standing if the wall allows. It can be shoulder fired, nit accurate but it doesn't need to be.
 

Battlegrinder

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From reading the Cain novels, very rarely did they get anything diffrent

True, but Cain rarely fought on the front lines, which is where you'd see the most changes, he mostly fought in smaller, sqaud on squad engagements or even kill teams.
 

Zachowon

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True, but Cain rarely fought on the front lines, which is where you'd see the most changes, he mostly fought in smaller, sqaud on squad engagements or even kill teams.
He was on the front lines multiple times. Like when he was near them during the time he engaged in melee with a Khornate marine
 

LindyAF

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The SAW can be fired standing, kneeling or prone. Kneeling or prone with bipod, hell even standing if the wall allows. It can be shoulder fired, nit accurate but it doesn't need to be.

Right, that's why I said "intended" rather than "can only be." Although tbf you're going to be firing prone, braced, or kneeling with almost any weapon rather than offhand, is my understanding, if you can.

IMO there's no real good SAW equivalent to the bolter - another point of dissimilarity between the SAW and the heavy bolter is that the SAW uses the same cartridge that the standard rifles use, whereas the heavy bolter is in a heavier caliber (like the M240 is to the M4). The storm bolter doesn't really seem to fit the niche either... it's more of a better-than weapon for special forces, like terminators or custodes (maybe like the FN SCAR light was intended to be, or like the HK 416), although with a larger capability gap than exists between the M4 and what are typically essentially a military gucci AR. It's a gap in 40K weapons.
 
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Battlegrinder

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say heavy bolters are closer to general purpose machine guns rather than heavy machine guns. Heavy machine guns were originally characterized (WW1) by being fixed emplacement tripod-only water cooled guns (like the Maxim gun), and later by being anti-material machine guns (like the M2). It's like our M240, or M60, not like the M2 Browning. The german MG34 and MG42 were GPMGs as well, but WW2 squads were typically lighter on machine guns than modern squads in general, with many US squads having one automatic rifleman as well, armed with a BAR to act as a light machine gun.

The heavy bolter is usually a tripod mounted or vehicle mounted weapon, it's only man portable by marines and sisters because they have power armor, and even then it's extremely cumbersome compared to other weapons. It fits the role of a HMG far more than a SAW or other weapon.

SAWs are not exactly mobile either. They're often more than twice as heavy as the standard rifle, and intended to be fired from the bipod, is my understanding. I did think about the storm bolter, but as you mentioned, GW is hesitant about handing them out, and so I assume in-universe they're too rare to be reliably fielded, although I'd also consider the storm bolter closer to just being a better bolter rather than a SAW, as they don't have any tradeoff in mobility or ease of use.

SAWs are still just overgrown assault rifles/battle rifles and can be used as such. It's best to fire them from a bipod, but you can, and US infantry sqauds do, fire them as rifles. You cannot do that effectively with a heavy bolter, hence me ruling it out as being a correct fit.

Storm bolters are actually a bit harder to use then standard bolters. They're heavier, with more recoil, and are far more temperamental. That's why marines don't just let everyone have one (that, and the kind of firepower that such a sqaud can put out would be insanely OP).


The tactical squad as it exists in the tabletop game to me like something that can be tailored to any role, but is seldom going to excel. This makes sense in a tabletop game but doesn't make sense lorewise for space marines. I'm more thinking about "what would the tactical squad look like lorewise?" than I am saying "they got the tactical squad wrong, here's what it should look like."

A tactical squad is supposed be tailored to do well at anything but not excel. If you want peak performance within a given role you'll want another unit type.

For example, the marines are well aware of how capable the combination of heavy weapons, special weapons, and highly trained marksman that you've been suggesting can be. That's why they field units composed of just that, they're called sternguard veterans (or company vets if you play DA). They just can't field a lot of them.

IMO there's no real good SAW equivalent to the bolter - another point of dissimilarity between the SAW and the heavy bolter is that the SAW uses the same cartridge that the standard rifles use, whereas the heavy bolter is in a heavier caliber (like the M240 is). It's a gap in 40K weapons.

The Storm bolter or auto bolt rifle would be SAW equivalents.

He was on the front lines multiple times. Like when he was near them during the time he engaged in melee with a Khornate marine

That was when a chaos raiding party hit the 597th's HQ, a rear echelon area. Not the front line.
 

Zachowon

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The heavy bolter is usually a tripod mounted or vehicle mounted weapon, it's only man portable by marines and sisters because they have power armor, and even then it's extremely cumbersome compared to other weapons. It fits the role of a HMG far more than a SAW or other weapon.



SAWs are still just overgrown assault rifles/battle rifles and can be used as such. It's best to fire them from a bipod, but you can, and US infantry sqauds do, fire them as rifles. You cannot do that effectively with a heavy bolter, hence me ruling it out as being a correct fit.

Storm bolters are actually a bit harder to use then standard bolters. They're heavier, with more recoil, and are far more temperamental. That's why marines don't just let everyone have one (that, and the kind of firepower that such a sqaud can put out would be insanely OP).




A tactical squad is supposed be tailored to do well at anything but not excel. If you want peak performance within a given role you'll want another unit type.

For example, the marines are well aware of how capable the combination of heavy weapons, special weapons, and highly trained marksman that you've been suggesting can be. That's why they field units composed of just that, they're called sternguard veterans (or company vets if you play DA). They just can't field a lot of them.



The Storm bolter or auto bolt rifle would be SAW equivalents.



That was when a chaos raiding party hit the 597th's HQ, a rear echelon area. Not the front line.
They had Armor and battle lines set qt the HQ.
But point.

Also, don't forget Orgyns carry them as well at times
 

Emperor Tippy

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Thier armor isn't that bad either the IG that is.

Their armor is pretty horrid actually. You need to remember that the IG is explicitly designed as a planetary expeditionary force. The local PDF is supposed to be the static garrison force, sufficient to handle the expected threat profile of a world. The IG is supposed to be the offensive and intervention force; deployed to take enemy held territory or defend territory under extreme threat.

What this means in practice is that the IG has to ship its armor between planets along with spare parts, ammo, fuel, and all of its other logistical needs. What that means is that IG armor should be designed to have the smallest logistics cost possible.

IG tanks should, given the IoM tech base, be all electric and using fusion for power. Use solar power to distill and then split water into hydrogen and oxygen, fuse the hydrogen for power, arm the standard tank with Las weapons and an EM rail gun. Take iron, either fusing up to it or extracted from the environment/sourced locally, shape it into rail gun rounds. Las weapons for anti-personnel work and for active defenses (shooting incoming rockets, mortars, and potentially even bolt rounds or lower flying aircraft out of the sky), the rail gun for heavier work. Ideally use a Las shot fired immediately before the rail gun to burn the atmosphere out of the way before the rail gun fires so that you can avoid air resistance. The sole logistics cost of such a tank becomes delivering the tank to the battlefield, everything else can easily be sourced locally and it is good enough for most IG needs.

IG artillery should be essentially the same, save using a more powerful railgun to deliver bigger and better shells. Anywhere with a breathable atmosphere should have all of the needed molecules in the air to turn into at least passable HE. Sure, you probably need an off world supply for more exotic ammunition but allowing organic local sourcing of your primary type of ammo is a huge reduction in logistical burden.

Then you have the fact that the first thing any IG force arriving at a planet should do is have the Naval vessels kick out an entire orbital surveillance, communications, and strike grid. Yeah, what can be economically deployed won't do squat against shields and peer competitors can probably down your satellites pretty easily but in both cases it requires them to have and use the needed resources and if they don't, you get full coverage and strike capability. Drop a few thousand bolt rounds, for example, onto the enemy artillery park timed for your advance. Or use an X-ray laser to do some precision assassination of anything tactically relevant. Yeah, you might not be able to strike down the Warboss with an orbital las strike but a Nob is a different story.

Granted, you also have the idiocy that is IG organization and structure. Take a few world's in a subsector and turn them into IG training worlds. Anyone who wants to join the IG is shipped to one of said worlds where they are then organized into regiments and trained to the same standards, preferably with a rotating cadre of Space Marines overseeing the training conducted by veteran IG non-coms. Train the IG, at least on the sub-sector level, to the same (high) standards with the same equipment while speaking the same language and with officers trained to the same (consistent) doctrine and standards. Incidentally, this also breaks the potential for regimental loyalty to its planet before the Imperium. Logistically, it makes it far easier for forces to be consistently and timely deployed as needed.

Then you have the lack of armory/forge/logistics ships at scale. One of the most common vessels in the IoM should be basically a mini-forge designed to produce everything that an IG army needs using locally sourced materials. Basically, one of these in system should be able to keep an IG army of, say, ten million fully equipped to standard for say a century using nothing but locally sourced materials that it can gather itself (i.e. asteroid mining, for example). The Imperium has the tech, they even build ships able to do just that occasionally, they just don't bother to do it at any kind of scale.

And for planetary strike, take one of those armory ships, give it some rail guns, and have it mass produce proximity fuzed bolter rounds. Once an enemy battlefield or fortification is identified, just launch a few dozen million of those on a course calculated to deliver them to the needed grid square. Sure, it will do jack to shielded targets but most things aren't shielded and you can always just keep the iron rain crashing down around the shielded area for a few days/weeks/months/decades at a time. Counter battery fire on a void shield equipped vessel a few hundred thousand kilometers distant and constantly moving in random directions at variable accelerations is basically a pipe dream.

But then the IoM doesn't actually appear to have any dedicated planetary siege vessels. Its naval vessels are all primarily designed to engage one another in the void with any planetary strike missions either being very strategic (at a minimum removing an entire city) or requiring the vessel to be absurdly stupid (ah yes, we must bring the cruiser into atmosphere and park it in orbit over the battlefield for a full day before it can strike any of those puny ground-pounders with anything approaching precision). Take a cruiser sized hull and equip it to fire what are basically bolt rounds in the millions along with the needed computer support to handle relatively accurate targeting from trans-lunar orbit. Give it some kind of surveillance parasite craft that can be sent in ahead for mapping/targeting purposes, and then just unload on enemy grid squares. Drop a million bolter rounds into a square kilometer with them all fused appropriately and your problem is solved. Even a basic bolt round should be able to handle orbital re-entry, already has a rocket engine for terminal guidance, and can already be equipped with all of the needed fuses and payloads. Again, "That's a nice artillery park you got there, shame it just ceased to exist."
 

Zachowon

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Their armor is pretty horrid actually. You need to remember that the IG is explicitly designed as a planetary expeditionary force. The local PDF is supposed to be the static garrison force, sufficient to handle the expected threat profile of a world. The IG is supposed to be the offensive and intervention force; deployed to take enemy held territory or defend territory under extreme threat.

What this means in practice is that the IG has to ship its armor between planets along with spare parts, ammo, fuel, and all of its other logistical needs. What that means is that IG armor should be designed to have the smallest logistics cost possible.

IG tanks should, given the IoM tech base, be all electric and using fusion for power. Use solar power to distill and then split water into hydrogen and oxygen, fuse the hydrogen for power, arm the standard tank with Las weapons and an EM rail gun. Take iron, either fusing up to it or extracted from the environment/sourced locally, shape it into rail gun rounds. Las weapons for anti-personnel work and for active defenses (shooting incoming rockets, mortars, and potentially even bolt rounds or lower flying aircraft out of the sky), the rail gun for heavier work. Ideally use a Las shot fired immediately before the rail gun to burn the atmosphere out of the way before the rail gun fires so that you can avoid air resistance. The sole logistics cost of such a tank becomes delivering the tank to the battlefield, everything else can easily be sourced locally and it is good enough for most IG needs.

IG artillery should be essentially the same, save using a more powerful railgun to deliver bigger and better shells. Anywhere with a breathable atmosphere should have all of the needed molecules in the air to turn into at least passable HE. Sure, you probably need an off world supply for more exotic ammunition but allowing organic local sourcing of your primary type of ammo is a huge reduction in logistical burden.

Then you have the fact that the first thing any IG force arriving at a planet should do is have the Naval vessels kick out an entire orbital surveillance, communications, and strike grid. Yeah, what can be economically deployed won't do squat against shields and peer competitors can probably down your satellites pretty easily but in both cases it requires them to have and use the needed resources and if they don't, you get full coverage and strike capability. Drop a few thousand bolt rounds, for example, onto the enemy artillery park timed for your advance. Or use an X-ray laser to do some precision assassination of anything tactically relevant. Yeah, you might not be able to strike down the Warboss with an orbital las strike but a Nob is a different story.

Granted, you also have the idiocy that is IG organization and structure. Take a few world's in a subsector and turn them into IG training worlds. Anyone who wants to join the IG is shipped to one of said worlds where they are then organized into regiments and trained to the same standards, preferably with a rotating cadre of Space Marines overseeing the training conducted by veteran IG non-coms. Train the IG, at least on the sub-sector level, to the same (high) standards with the same equipment while speaking the same language and with officers trained to the same (consistent) doctrine and standards. Incidentally, this also breaks the potential for regimental loyalty to its planet before the Imperium. Logistically, it makes it far easier for forces to be consistently and timely deployed as needed.

Then you have the lack of armory/forge/logistics ships at scale. One of the most common vessels in the IoM should be basically a mini-forge designed to produce everything that an IG army needs using locally sourced materials. Basically, one of these in system should be able to keep an IG army of, say, ten million fully equipped to standard for say a century using nothing but locally sourced materials that it can gather itself (i.e. asteroid mining, for example). The Imperium has the tech, they even build ships able to do just that occasionally, they just don't bother to do it at any kind of scale.

And for planetary strike, take one of those armory ships, give it some rail guns, and have it mass produce proximity fuzed bolter rounds. Once an enemy battlefield or fortification is identified, just launch a few dozen million of those on a course calculated to deliver them to the needed grid square. Sure, it will do jack to shielded targets but most things aren't shielded and you can always just keep the iron rain crashing down around the shielded area for a few days/weeks/months/decades at a time. Counter battery fire on a void shield equipped vessel a few hundred thousand kilometers distant and constantly moving in random directions at variable accelerations is basically a pipe dream.

But then the IoM doesn't actually appear to have any dedicated planetary siege vessels. Its naval vessels are all primarily designed to engage one another in the void with any planetary strike missions either being very strategic (at a minimum removing an entire city) or requiring the vessel to be absurdly stupid (ah yes, we must bring the cruiser into atmosphere and park it in orbit over the battlefield for a full day before it can strike any of those puny ground-pounders with anything approaching precision). Take a cruiser sized hull and equip it to fire what are basically bolt rounds in the millions along with the needed computer support to handle relatively accurate targeting from trans-lunar orbit. Give it some kind of surveillance parasite craft that can be sent in ahead for mapping/targeting purposes, and then just unload on enemy grid squares. Drop a million bolter rounds into a square kilometer with them all fused appropriately and your problem is solved. Even a basic bolt round should be able to handle orbital re-entry, already has a rocket engine for terminal guidance, and can already be equipped with all of the needed fuses and payloads. Again, "That's a nice artillery park you got there, shame it just ceased to exist."
Think of it from an in universe stance instead of an OOU One.

I was also talking about thier personal armor
 

Battlegrinder

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given the IoM tech base

The IOM doesn't have a tech base, they have the scattered fragments of several tech bases and lack the ability and willingness to try and fill in the gaps to stitch those fragments back into a whole one. Railguns are, I would note, conspicuously not part of that base, nor is reactive armor or any other sort of active protection system.


Granted, you also have the idiocy that is IG organization and structure. Take a few world's in a subsector and turn them into IG training worlds.

The imperium avoid centralized institutions and the like for a reason. It only takes one chaos cult taking root on these training worlds and then boom, there goes the subsector, have fun trying take it back.

Then you have the lack of armory/forge/logistics ships at scale. One of the most common vessels in the IoM should be basically a mini-forge designed to produce everything that an IG army needs using locally sourced materials.

And you'll convince the mechanicius to build and crew these ships and put them at the IOM's disposal.....how? Because the mechanicius has its own priorities and goals, and making life easier for the imperium is not one of them. They have thier own armies and fleets that need those resources, why they instead spend them on the guard?

And for planetary strike, take one of those armory ships, give it some rail guns, and have it mass produce proximity fuzed bolter rounds.
Even a basic bolt round should be able to handle orbital re-entry,

Why should bolt rounds be expected to withstand reentry? They're thinking walled metal projectiles packed with fuel and explosives, hardly features I'd associate with high resistance to extreme heat.

Also, what's the advantage to spamming millions and millions of bolt rounds at the battlefield vs just using the IOMs normal bombardment munitions?

But then the IoM doesn't actually appear to have any dedicated planetary siege vessels.

They're called Battle Barges.
 

LindyAF

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The heavy bolter is usually a tripod mounted or vehicle mounted weapon, it's only man portable by marines and sisters because they have power armor, and even then it's extremely cumbersome compared to other weapons. It fits the role of a HMG far more than a SAW or other weapon.

GPMGs are typically capable of tripod or vehicle mounting. The original idea was to combine the WW1 heavy machine gun (rifle caliber, water cooled, tripod mounted, extremely cumbersome to move) the WW1 medium machine gun (), and the WW1 light machine gun ().

Obviously, in a modern military, the heavy bolter would be treated as a heavy machine gun (or autocannon, it's 25mm). In an IG context, I'd agree its a HMG. In a Space Marine force though, it's typically used and treated as a GPMG. That it can be carried by a single marine basically disqualifies it from being a HMG. In the context of Space Marine forces, what IRL is the heavy bolter used more like - the M240, or the M2 Browning? Unless your answer is the M2, then it's not a heavy machine gun.

SAWs are still just overgrown assault rifles/battle rifles and can be used as such. It's best to fire them from a bipod, but you can, and US infantry sqauds do, fire them as rifles. You cannot do that effectively with a heavy bolter, hence me ruling it out as being a correct fit.

I think you're overestimating how important shouldering is here. At least my understanding is that in a military context you don't want to be firing any rifle offhand if you can help it. If you can take a prone, kneeling, or braced firing position even with the M4, you're going to be doing that anyway, so you're not getting much out of shouldering. The more significant differences would be the lack of ammo compatability and the presumably increased comparative weight in a "just carrying the thing from place to place" context.

@Zachowon, what's your take on this part of the discussion?

The Storm bolter or auto bolt rifle would be SAW equivalents.

Special Forces don't use SAWs as standard issue rifles. That's how the storm bolter is primarily used - standard issue to terminators and custodes. Auto bolt rifles are a good example of a SAW in 40k, but are a primaris weapon.

For example, the marines are well aware of how capable the combination of heavy weapons, special weapons, and highly trained marksman that you've been suggesting can be. That's why they field units composed of just that, they're called sternguard veterans (or company vets if you play DA). They just can't field a lot of them.

See, my thing here is that what's needed is just the extra heavy and special weapons, which they can for the most part get pretty easily. There's no additional training necessary, since tactical marines have already been scouts (and thus have time on stalker boltguns) and devastators and probably have decades of experience by this point. So they would field the extra weapons, since it's at most a couple hundred thousand extra thrones to expand the capabilities of a squad that is already worth probably well in excess of a million thrones per marine.

Missile launchers and heavy bolters aren't particularly rare or valuable weapons, at least, not much more so than Astartes bolters already are. The bigger sticking point might be the special weapons. Flamers are cheap (quite possibly cheaper than bolters), so it'd make sense for any tactical squad that wants them to requisition them. Stalker boltguns aren't going to be much harder to make or more expensive than regular bolters. Plasma and melta guns might be more difficult for marines to get their hands on, though, which is why I stipulated "subject to what is available to them," originally.
 

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