WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

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Mr. Oragahn
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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Mar 11, 2012 4:50 pm

An example of... STEEL





Below, a case of steel used to rebuild a legendary power sword:
Crucible of War

This is an excerpt from CRUCIBLE OF WAR, a collection of Warhammer 40,000 short stories
edited by Marc Gascoigne & Christian Dunn, published by The Black Library in 2003.
LEVIATHAN
An Ultramarines story Graham McNeill

THE FORGE ECHOED to the sound of iron on steel. Sweltering heat rippled the air and Uriel sweated as he worked the narrow, flat-headed hammer along a length of orange-red metal, rounding off the edges to prevent them from folding when it came time to draw out the blade of his new sword.
He worked the hammer up and down the blade, keeping the temperature of the steel as constant as possible. Working it too hot could cause it to burn, resulting in impurities within the metal rising to the surface of the blade and making the weapon brittle. Conversely, working the metal too cold would 'work-harden' the steel, resulting in fine cracks that would greatly weaken the blade.
Satisfied the metal was ready for drawing, Uriel placed it at the correct angle on the anvil and began hammering one edge. He flattened and straightened the resulting twist in the metal, turning the blade over and repeating the process. His muscles ached from the long day and hot steam burned in his lungs with every breath. The stars glittered through the open roof and a warm breeze sighed in from across the mountains, carrying the scent of evergreen highland pines.
He had not slept in six days, his time on Macragge as full as he could ever remember it being. The majority of this time had been spent reorganizing the Fourth Company after the Pavonis expedition and inducting its newest members from the reserve companies, but he had made sure to set aside time for this work in the Artificers' forge chambers. Uriel had until morning to finish the blade. The Fourth Company had been called to action once more, this time in the far-away system of Tarsis Ultra, and he was determined to finish the weapon before departing.

...

With the Nightbringer's icon secured, Uriel had then taken the broken blade of Captain Idaeus's sword and placed it in the Chapter's most sacred reliquary. He thought back to his former captain and though he still mourned his friend and mentor's passing, he had now grown into his role as captain of the Fourth Company.

Shaking himself from such weighty thoughts, Uriel lifted the glowing blade, checking that the sword was the correct length and that it was accurately balanced. He nodded to himself and selected a smaller hammer from a table beanng all manner of tongs, fullers, punches, hammers files and grindstones. He began the relatively simple, but time-consuming, task of hammering the edges of the blade. Moisture dropped from his brow, hissing on the heated metal of the blade, and Uriel thought it appropriate that a measure of his own sweat be part of its forging. He worked the hammer backwards along the length of me blade, periodically turning the metal to keep it straight.
The Artificers had metriculators for measuring the exact line of a blade, but Uriel preferred the honest feel of a blade worked by hand and eye. Finally, he lifted the sword from the anvil and held it before him, checking for any bends or twists in the metal. Finding none, he turned to the roaring forge coals and thrust the blade deep within. Uriel left the sword to heat and wiped his brow, walking back to the entrance of the forge and lifting a day jug of mountain water from a battered workbench. He raised the jug to his lips and drank deeply. The water was a day old and had warmed in the forge's heat, but was gloriously refreshing nonetheless. Uriel drained the jug in one long draught and set it back on the workbench. He stared up into the star-filled sky, shutting out the ring of hammers and ritual chants of the Artificers in other parts of the forge.
Working in the forge, with the heat of toil burning in his muscles and the scent of the wilds of Macragge in his nostrils, he was as close to content as he had been following his confrontation with the Nightbringer.

He shivered and tried to push all memory of the ancient star-god from his mind as he returned to the forge coals and lifted the sword from the fires.
The blade glowed a fierce red-orange and Uriel knew it was ready. He plunged it into a trough of water and oil, steam hissing angrily from the cooling metal. He pulled the sword from the water and smiled as he turned his gaze to a velvet wrapped object on his workbench. As the sword blade cooled, he unwrapped the bundle, revealing the golden sword hilt that had once held the blade of Captain Idaeus's power sword. As he began the tempering process, he nodded to himself as he felt his former captain's silent approval. The hilt had remained in the Chapter's reliquary until Marneus Calgar, lord of the Ultramarines, had presented it to him as a mark of respect for his success on Pavonis. Uriel no longer needed the sword of his former captain to symbolize his authority over the Fourth Company, but Calgar had understood that Uriel well deserved to carry such a precious relic of the Ultramarines.
By morning he would have the weapon finished, its blade polished and sharp. Then he would take it to the chapel of the venerable Chaplain Cassius and have it anointed with clear water he had collected from the pool at the base of Hera's Falls, at the end of the Valley of Laponis. The Chaplain would sanctify the blade and entreat the spirits of war and battle to impart a measure of their wrath within the weapon. Uriel could feel the sword's weight in his hand and it felt good, it felt natural.
More selections referring to the power sword:
He gripped the hilt of his new power sword. The weapon was yet to be blooded and, despite his belief that the hulk they were to board was lifeless, he hoped that there might be enemies as yet undiscovered aboard that might satisfy his blade.

Uriel gripped the hilt of his power sword and offered a prayer to Roboute Guilliman that he would prove worthy of his Chapter. He had not failed in his duty before this and vowed that he would not do so now. For this present duty was entrusted to him by no less a person than the primarch himself. The defence of the Tarsis Ultra system was a sacred task to the Ultramarines, the result of an ancient oath sworn by Roboute Guilliman during the days of the Great Crusade. It had been a time of heroes, when the Emperor's own progeny, the primarchs, had stood shoulder to shoulder and carved His realm from the flesh of the galaxy, wresting His worlds back from the domination of vile aliens and heretics.

Tarsis III had been one such world, liberated from the lies of heretic secessionists by Roboute Guilliman at the head of the Ultramarines Legion. The battles fought to reclaim this world of the Emperor were the stuff of fireside legend on Macragge, taught at every one of the many training barracks throughout Ultramar, as was the courage and discipline shown by the inhabitants in rising to fight alongside the Ultramarines. It was said that a lowly trooper of Tarsis III had saved the life of Guilliman in the last battle and such was the primarch's gratitude that, at its end, he had dropped to one knee and sworn to a mighty oath of brotherhood with the soldier, declaring that should Tarsis III ever be threatened, the Ultramarines would return to fight by their side.
The victory was commemorated in a legendary work that adorned the walls of a giant room in the heart of the Imperial governor's palace. Named the Tarsis Fresco, it was said to be a gargantuan mosaic that covered the walls and ceiling of the palace's inner sanctum. Tales spoke of a work of unsurpassed majesty and Uriel greatly looked forward to seeing this spectacular mosaic.

Instead of the wastelands many of his brother primarchs left in the wake of their victories, Guilliman left those who could help rebuild the world in the image of his home-world. The grateful populace eagerly took up the challenges laid before them by the primarch and renamed their world Tarsis Ultra, that they might always remember their liberators. Once more entrusted with the honour of the Chapter, Uriel knew that his victory on Pavonis had earned him this sacred duty and, though the oath sworn by the primarch was almost ten thousand years past, it was no less binding. He would see that the ancient debt was fulfilled. This he swore by the spirit of the weapon he now held.
I selected the sections only relevant to the sword and its (re)smithing.
This is a good description of the kind steel that's used. Make that conventional, or not. If not, then it has little reason to be inferior to conventional steel, whatever conventional means in 40K: Uriel would never allow crap metal be used for the sword of Idaeus. All the quotes prove the importance of the mission, of the legacy, of the symbolism of the sword itself to the eyes of Uriel and its role in the coming battle. Finally, add that to the prestige of the Ultramarines, and it becomes clear that the steel used there will be considered perfectly good for the task.
Uriel is of course not your baseline human, but there's plenty of information about the steel, the smithing of the sword and the effects of heat on Uriel's body, to get an idea of its properties.

Here's a summary of the working on the blade and the observed thermal effects:

- A mere iron tool is plain sufficient to smith the steel blade, meaning that the excess of heat from the luminous blade doesn't reach a point where the tools themselves suffer. This may sound absurd to point out, but you never know, considering the degree of insanity observed in Wankhammer fans (talking of the rabbid ones there).
- The steel blade is first described as glowing "orange-red".
- Uriel sweats. He's also close to the furnace.
- Hitting the blade up and down its length helps spreading the temperature. Another obvious point and nothing new for those who understand how smithing works, but then it puts a strong limit on the thermal properties of the metal.
- The working is quite intensive as Uriel breathes steam that is quite uncomfortable, burning his lungs (although it's not necessarily literal, it could just mean that it was simply too hot to be bearable while working on the blade).
- Uriel's muscles ache, and he's been up for six days.
- Sweat that drips on the glowing metal hisses, which puts a limit on the steel's temperature : too hot, the water droplets would literally blast into vapour.
- Coals are used to heat the blade. Pulling the blade out of the forge coals after having plunged it into them some undetermined time before, the steel then glows "a fierce red-orange".
- While glowing "a fierce red-orange", Uriel quenches the steel blade by putting it into a trough of water and oil, and "steam hisses angrily from the cooling metal." No boiling, no explosion of vapour.
- All the leveling and sharpening of the blade is done manually, by gauging straightness through Uriel's naked eye; which might be enhanced but the description seems to imply that Uriel preferred using his own sight rather than the Artificers' metriculators. That said, it's possible the Artificers have augmented sight.
- The power sword's advanced mechanism is located in the hilt, most obviously.

Forge coal (soft bituminous coal) has a heat content inferior to 35,380 kJ/kg, and as a whole, in terms of heating value, coal has an energy density of 24 MJ/kg. It has an average density of 1346 kg/m³ (Marks' Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers 11e).
Soft bituminous coal has a medium ignition temperature of between 750°F and 850ºF. Then, working steel should not require pushing steel temperature beyond 1600°F, tops.
The observed colours of the steel in question would suggest a temperature around 850°C to 875°C. Same here with a likely temp at 870°c. This source may allow for temperatures closer to 900°C or higher.

One can also take a look at chapter 4 of the following document.
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Jedi Master Spock » Sun Mar 18, 2012 9:27 pm

The description of the Marine at work is basically exactly the description that you'd use in describing a medieval blacksmith at work, and you're right to point out that this means that the characteristics of the steel used with respect to temperature are not much different from modern steel.

It's possible to hand forge titanium blades - titanium is a lot harder to work with than steel - but you'll note that the working temperature is higher. The blade is not red-orange at working temperature, it's yellow-white.

It still could be an alloy with a higher specific density and higher specific heat than normal steel; and it could be very good steel; but it shouldn't be all that exotic.

In the case of the power sword actually in use, it really should be the powerfield itself that allows the blade to slice through ceramite and adamantium armor. It's more important in underlining the idea that "steel," in Warhammer 40,000, doesn't refer to some strange exotic metal that happens to share a name with what we refer to as "steel."

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mith » Fri Mar 30, 2012 8:25 am

It should also be noted that our current smiting techniques now are actually inferior to some of the really high quality blades made back in medieval times. This is of course, due to the loss in techniques that were forgotten due to the lack of the profession, not technological failures of course. So the sword itself is probably pretty well made, all things considered. And given the ritualistic methods of most chapters and their cults, it does make sense that such an honored blade could ONLY be forged by hand. It's also worth noting that I believe ancient Asian blades could actually cut rock without deforming due to the special rock they happened upon that resembles nanotubes or something like that.

So that sword could be pretty damn well made.

Add that to the strength of the power part of the power sword and you could have a pretty damn sharp weapon that could probably cut through most mundane metals or rocks. Of course, your point was that it indeed was made of steel. And it does prove that the material is still usable in a military sense.

Not hard to understand of course, given how archaic Imperium technology is.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:50 pm

From the "Codex: Necrons", during the third edition era of Warhammer 40000 material.




Image

Necron trooper guns are rated in the megawatt range, but Imperium techs can't figure out how to handle such power, as they fail to develop a way to activate the weapon without destroying it while pressing the trigger, because of microscopic impurities in the material and other things. It's also said that high energy sources are dangerous and difficult to maintain. Necrons obviously don't have that problem and it's correct to literally strip a man off its mass as to literally dissociate the gear, flesh and bones to particles, megajoules of energy would be needed. Obviously, this baffles Imperium techs.
As for anti-armour weapons, they're equally flabbergasted at the fact that a heavy gun carried by a skimmer can relatively effortlessly fire through two layers of Land Raider armour without any single sign of deflection. They observe that the powerful energy source needed to do that could only be mounted on a titan or a starship.




Image

M40 Bolter rounds with their explosive (mass reactive) charges deactivated can still take down a Necron trooper. The psychically tainted Odysseus bullets help track a Necron trooper that was recently teleported off the battlefield, to the outskirts of the system where the Cadian troops were fighting against the Necrons.
The squad infiltrated the labyrinthine Necron tomb and found the tainted trooper. The soldiers woke up and soon attacked the Space Marines, who were diced and flayed effortlessly. Charges were successfully planted and the remaining marines were beamed out. So under such conditions, it is totally possible to beam out, and most likely beam in, and deposit charges. They were thermic in this case, but the limit is up to what one actually wishes to transport.




Image

Necron starships seem to drift at high speed to enter a system, which allows them to remain silent, but the moment they activate their systems, they do show up. They're not very maneuverable though, at least noticeably less than Eldars' ships, and they do decelerate in order to engage enemy ships (they don't blaze in at max speed and fire all they have, as they need to slow down). Their hulls are considerably tougher than those of Imperial warships, but not indestructible either, although damaged sections can be repaired within 8 minutes or so. They can be boarded, and the security forces inside the Necron ships, namely the Necron troopers, are slow to react, leaving the boarding teams to plant charges and buzz out of the ship.

EDIT: I dream of e-typos...
Last edited by Mr. Oragahn on Sat Jun 16, 2012 11:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mith » Sat Jun 16, 2012 4:26 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:From the "Codex: Necrons", during the third edition era of Warhammer 40000 material.




Image

Necron trooper guns are rated in the megawatt range, but Imperium techs can't figure out how to handle such power, as they fail to develop a way to activate the weapon without destroying it while pressing the trigger, because of microscopic impurities in the material and other things. It's also said that high energy sources are dangerous and difficult to maintain. Necrons obviously don't have that problem and it's correct to literally strip a man off its mass as to literally dissociate the gear, flesh and bones to particles, megajoules of energy would be needed. Obviously, this baffles Imperium techs.
As for anti-armour weapons, they're equally flabbergasted at the fact that a heavy gun carried by a skimmer can relatively effortlessly fire through two layers of Land Raider armour without any single sign of deflection. They observe that the powerful energy source needed to do that could only be mounted on a titan or a starship.




Image

M40 Bolter rounds with their explosive (mass reactive) charges deactivated can still take down a Necron trooper. The psychically tainted Odysseus bullets help track a Necron trooper that was recently teleported off the battlefield, to the outskirts of the system where the Cadian troops were fighting against the Necrons.
The squad infiltrated the labyrinthine Necron tomb and found the tainted trooper. The soldiers woke up and soon attacked the Space Marines, who were diced and flayed effortlessly. Charges were successfully planted and the remaining marines were beamed out. So under such conditions, it is totally possible to beam out, and most likely beam in, and deposit charges. They were thermic in this case, but the limit is up to what one actually wishes to transport.




Image

Necron starships seem to drift at high speed to enter a system, which allows them to remain silent, but the moment they activate their systems, they do show up. They're not every maneuverable though, at least noticeably less than Eldars' ships, and they do decelerate in order to engage enemy ships (they don't blaze in at max speed and fire all they have, as they need to slow down). Their hulls are considerably tougher than those of Imperial warhips, but not indestructible either, although damaged sections can be repaired within 8 minutes or so. They can be boarded, and the security forces inside the Necron ships, namely the Necron troopers, are slow to react, leaving the boarding teams to plant charges and buzz out of the ship.

Lol. They can't get a weapon capable of generating megawatts without it breaking? Typical. Meanwhile, Starfleet can do the same thing with a phaser smaller than their actual bolter rounds.

This has been rather enlightening. And in regards to the issue with Necron skimmer...that's pretty bad, but not altogether shocking.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mith » Sun Jun 17, 2012 7:05 am

From the old Big O vs 40k Titan thread:

A battle between titans in a Hive City:
Gorge Orwelt was a few cross streets' worth of
shanty dwellings clustered around three large, ex-
Mechanicus tithe houses, five-storey hulks that rose
up amid the tin-roof sprawl like monuments.
***
Golla blinked at her. She was too dazed to
respond. She barely recognized her good friend Cally.
All around them, the northern quarter of Gorge
Orewelt had been laid waste. Few buildings
remained upright, and none intact. There was so
much scattered, burning rubble and debris that it
was hard to discern the wall plan of levelled
dwelling or even the course of the cross-streets.

The thunder of engine gun had not abated.
Head down, tail up and swishing, the Warhound was
menacing the soaring Warlord. Barrages of lasbolts
flitted between them, and cannon fire streaked the
air like luminous rain. The void shields around the
engines blotched and rippled under the impacts.


Titanicus pgs 224-238
The first, heartbreaking feeds were comining in from
Argentum. In his residence at the summit of the
Main Hive, Governor Aleuton shook his head sadly as
he watched the track-feed images of firstorm and
Devastation that the imperial systems had inter-
cepted.
'Is that a victory, do you think?' he asked quietly.
Page 543 Book Titanicus
Entire hab blocks and sinks blazed, pushing rank black smoke into the sky. Richelon Dis-trict, a massive sub-spire buttressed out of from the northen waist of the hive, was so undermined by raging backdraft that it slid away like a launching ocean liner into the outer hive belt.
Virtually nothing in the old hive had survived intact. The engines of Tempestus and Invitca picked their way through acres of smouldering rubble, through the ruins of foundered spires, across seas of broken glass and screes of shattered stone, past burning sinks and flaming habs, and down demolished avenues that had, in acient times, been lined with jubilant and loyal masses. Argentum was dead. The massed engine assault had slain it. Inner squares and streets were littered with enemy dead, charred beyond recognition.
Page 555, Titanicus
Take this all into account; a battle between titans does not outright destroy large swaths of the Hive City, as an exchange between two shielded enemies tossing out kilotons or megatons of energy should cause. Instead, in the end, the two titans are picking their way through acres of smouldering rubble, foundered spires, seas of broken class, shattered stone, and so forth. If this were an exchange in the kiloton range, there wouldn't be a neighborhood left. It'd be akin to a flat, smoldering landscape.

From the Space Marine Game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWF2Pc7xY1o

Start at ~9:28 and you'll see the captain slipping in a chaos device. The device was something the Inquisition was working on to create a power source far greater than anything they'd ever had before. Watch as it supercharges the Volcano Cannon (mentioned at about ~7:20). Notice the massive explosive discharge from Titan Invictus. Afterwards, we're told that the entire Titan's systems have overloaded.

Notice the massive lack of kiloton or megaton weaponry. Hell, I wouldn't say that this was even high ton range. People have suggested to me before that the weapon wasn't supercharged, but rather that the chaos weapon was the only way to destroy the gate--except note that they aren't targeting the actual warp gate that was opened, but the Imperium built spire that the Space Marines had been duped into using to open the gate.

Keep in mind, that this is supposed to be a power source. This was told to us early in the game.

In other words, even with a super powered energy source, something as large as a titan still can't generate that much energy and the effects of this device caused the system to shut down due to the immense power.

Keep in mind that the Invictus is clearly a Warlord Class Titan:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warlord ... 913chf2Yl9

As stated here, it's second only to the Imperator class titan. And it did it with the Volcano Cannon:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Volcano ... 913zxf2Yl8

Basically, one of, if not the most powerful weapon that a titan can wield. So powerful that lesser titans such as the Reaver and Warhound classes can't even fit it. Only units such as the Shadowsword tank, the Imperator, and the Warlord class titans can wield such powerful weapons.

In other words, even with a super duper power source powering it, with one of the most powerful heavy artillery pieces that you can get, and from the second largest and most powerful class of Imperial titan...the explosive force is clearly less than terajoules. We're at most, looking at a few dozen gigajoules.

But let's move on to some other things this game shows us. Mainly the Imperium's giant limp artillery cannon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDOiOWjb ... ure=relmfu

Go to 8:18.

Yes, that gun is as huge as it looks. No doubt you wonder what sort of puppy goes into an artillery piece that big, yes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlwfdmVn ... ure=relmfu

Go to 8:50.

There you can see the shell. Just by eyeballing it, the shell looks to be 8-10 meters in length.

They later destroy it with that charge:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&featu ... ygY7_h_Epg

Not exactly a tactical nuke.

Note that this was one of the planetary defense guns that the Orks had managed to take control of at the beginning of the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9asMbft0QU

Of course, a cannon this massive, you'd probably see a massive explosion after this puppy fires, right?

Noooope!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=8w ... feature=iv

0:26 and wait for the cannon in the background (the same one) to fire. Note to those wishing to keep their sanity; mute the volume. The guy doing the playthrough is a complete and utter dork.

Unfortunately, because he's also a jerkoff, he swings the camera around to make this next part difficult. You see, that gun hits something, you'll in fact see, it had hit a ship in orbit. It's at about 0:33, near that ruined building. That small burst of rubble may have even of been a shockwave of sorts, but it's hard to tell and it seems odd given the distance of the impact. Of course, it might also have been from when the gun fired.

I have by the way, confirmed the impact myself. I have the game (it's okay, 3 out 5 and A for effort--it does feel like you're playing someone in power armor...as opposed to say Master Chief) and it's in the first chapter, second level, just after the intro level. I just can't really get a pic of it as of yet.

Thoughts?

EDIT:

Noticed something else:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWIseoos ... ure=fvwrel

Again, for the love of God, mute it. Go to 6:25, where you'll see some smaller artillery pieces firing. As you can see...the effects are less than super. As a contrast to a power with megatons, Starfleet had nuclear mortar launchers that could be carried around by a single man. Or even look to Starship troopers, where a single rocket launcher falls short of just two kilotons.

In comparison to those large guns, those orks shouldn't be still alive.

In any case, it's worth noting that the shaking of the ground probably is the artillery cannon firing, which suggests a great deal of kickback for a gun that doesn't do very much. The thing is somewhat less impressive than the US's atomic cannon.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Aug 29, 2012 12:30 am

Mmm, considering the retcons applied to the Necrons since 5th ed., notably regarding the skimmers and the kind of damage they can deal now (much inferior), some sections of the fluff above showing the better side of the Necrons could nearly be completely ignored by now, or at best, for sake of inclusiveness, be treated as complete outliers and unique tech held by some very isolated bone-blokes.

The Necron unit shown in the drawing was a mere Destroyer, recognized because of the parallel tubes of its weapon. Much different than the mono-tube and much longer weapon from the Heavy Destroyer.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Sep 09, 2012 6:07 pm

Here's a new one dedicated to Macro Cannons.
I expected hammies to spin the kilo-tonne bit that way, but not in such a glaring way...
Excerpt wrote: Premise:

A kilo-ton is 1000 tons of mass, which translates into a million kilograms.

Since macrocannons are Direct fire weapons, they have to be at least as fast as the torpedoes, and in order for them to NOT be considered ordnance weapons and 'hit almost instantly', we can safely presume they are several orders of magnitudes faster than torpedoes, perhaps even a significant fraction of the Speed of light(!).

All that taken into account, let's assume the shells are 100 times faster than 40k torpedoes. A 40k torpedo goes 10 Void Units(One VU being around 10,000 kms) every strategic turn, and if you read the Starship section of the rulebook carefully you can see it is clearly stated a turn equals around 30 minutes IC.

A little bit of calc-ing your self and you will discover torpedoes travel 56km/s.

Calcs:

So, since a torpedo travels around 56km/s, our macro cannon shell will travel 5600km/s, or to be exact, 5,600,000m/s.

A million kilograms traveling at 5,600,000m/s , using the infamous ½mv^2, has around 1.568e+19 Joules of energy.

That, in the TNT equivalent scale, is 3.7 gigatons of energy, an averaged, slightly conservative figure.

So that's is a single macro cannon firing....
He treats the weapon as dealing most of its damage by impact, ergo a impactor, while it's actually a warhead.
More precisely, a kilo-tonne warhead.
He didn't even travel down the weigh-the-warhead route, like, you know, if it is so heavy, then it must carry a large mass of explosive material. Nope. He merely treated the shell as a plain dumb projectile, propelled by a mass driver.
Some kind of double fail.

Simply put, mere fission warheads reaching in the mid to high kiloton range would produce very heavy shells.
The thick casing would be an element adding a lot to the overall mass, but would also explain how such shells can withstand point defense barrages.
We could even argue that most of the weight wouldn't be taken by the reactants, but by the systems that allow projectiles to be thrown at speeds high enough to hit almost immediately (within a turn that's about 30 minutes long on the average) without being ripped apart.
You may call that mass lightening tech, you may hate that concept, but let's remember that the Rogue Trader books give the ships accelerations in the few gees, which should be an indication that technologies on the imperial side are kinda limited on several fronts.
More than anything else, engines alone couldn't cope with the recoil if the macro shells were fired forward. The engines would be completely useless with shells fired sideways and every volley being fired would violently throw the ships into insane rolls and drifts.
This does not happen.
Mind you, the same can be pointed out about nova cannons. According to the BFG guide, I believe the engines are said to be used to compensate for the massive recoil.
Well, with the accelerations given by Rogue Trader, this ain't happening unless the Nova shells are massively lightened, eventually far more than the ships themselves.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Lucky » Thu Sep 13, 2012 2:25 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote:Here's a new one dedicated to Macro Cannons.
I expected hammies to spin the kilo-tonne bit that way, but not in such a glaring way...
Excerpt wrote: Premise:

A kilo-ton is 1000 tons of mass, which translates into a million kilograms.

Since macrocannons are Direct fire weapons, they have to be at least as fast as the torpedoes, and in order for them to NOT be considered ordnance weapons and 'hit almost instantly', we can safely presume they are several orders of magnitudes faster than torpedoes, perhaps even a significant fraction of the Speed of light(!).

All that taken into account, let's assume the shells are 100 times faster than 40k torpedoes. A 40k torpedo goes 10 Void Units(One VU being around 10,000 kms) every strategic turn, and if you read the Starship section of the rulebook carefully you can see it is clearly stated a turn equals around 30 minutes IC.

A little bit of calc-ing your self and you will discover torpedoes travel 56km/s.

Calcs:

So, since a torpedo travels around 56km/s, our macro cannon shell will travel 5600km/s, or to be exact, 5,600,000m/s.

A million kilograms traveling at 5,600,000m/s , using the infamous ½mv^2, has around 1.568e+19 Joules of energy.

That, in the TNT equivalent scale, is 3.7 gigatons of energy, an averaged, slightly conservative figure.

So that's is a single macro cannon firing....
He treats the weapon as dealing most of its damage by impact, ergo a impactor, while it's actually a warhead.
More precisely, a kilo-tonne warhead.
He didn't even travel down the weigh-the-warhead route, like, you know, if it is so heavy, then it must carry a large mass of explosive material. Nope. He merely treated the shell as a plain dumb projectile, propelled by a mass driver.
Some kind of double fail.

Simply put, mere fission warheads reaching in the mid to high kiloton range would produce very heavy shells.
The thick casing would be an element adding a lot to the overall mass, but would also explain how such shells can withstand point defense barrages.
We could even argue that most of the weight wouldn't be taken by the reactants, but by the systems that allow projectiles to be thrown at speeds high enough to hit almost immediately (within a turn that's about 30 minutes long on the average) without being ripped apart.
You may call that mass lightening tech, you may hate that concept, but let's remember that the Rogue Trader books give the ships accelerations in the few gees, which should be an indication that technologies on the imperial side are kinda limited on several fronts.
More than anything else, engines alone couldn't cope with the recoil if the macro shells were fired forward. The engines would be completely useless with shells fired sideways and every volley being fired would violently throw the ships into insane rolls and drifts.
This does not happen.
Mind you, the same can be pointed out about nova cannons. According to the BFG guide, I believe the engines are said to be used to compensate for the massive recoil.
Well, with the accelerations given by Rogue Trader, this ain't happening unless the Nova shells are massively lightened, eventually far more than the ships themselves.
One has to wonder why there would be an explosive charge in the shells if the calculations are correct?

Have you ever thought of showing them why calculating explosive weapons as kinetic energy weapons is stupid by using the same method on the weapons of other setting? Some settings have faster then light missile weapons after all.^_^

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Fri Sep 14, 2012 4:14 pm

Lucky wrote:One has to wonder why there would be an explosive charge in the shells if the calculations are correct?
Some descriptions make the macro cannons to be weapons of barrage. So some pop in them would make sense. Also, a warhead might be used as a perforating mechanism, like some HEAT projectile.

The main offender really being that there's no evidence that the ship have any form of propulsion that would let them cope with the massive recoil produced by the firing of one single shell at a reasonable or high fraction of c.

The firing mechanism is similar to that a nova cannon. Yet, if you look at certain cases, you either find that some firing systems use mere grease to oil the components and allow some of them to slide on rails, which I think considering the recoil we're talking about, would be quite useless due to the stupidly huge friction that would happen.
In other cases, you have slaves who remain stuck inside the firing chamber while all hatches are closed. Needless to say that the moment you have several dozens kilos of bones, tissues and water launched at near c, you're taking the risk of having that increased mass actually be ripped apart, even if for the simple reason that they're not designed to withstand the massive acceleration. All these elements are of varying density as well and inertia will be manifesting differently. It goes without saying that there could be a risk wherein the elements of a human slave and his hides come to inter-collide and be thrown into different directions. A near c, the energy released by elements of that spray inside the chamber will be close to annihilation levels.
A mere kilo impacting any wall or piece of the firing system will be akin to a multi-megaton nuclear impact inside the weapon. Definitely not good.
A way to avoid such issues, and any issue related to particles or even a mere tool left in the chamber, is that all the mass inside is reduced to stupidly low levels.
Stuff expelled would recover its effective mass, while the projectile would have some kind of mass lightening "sustainer".
Another solution would require a cleaning phase, where a former force field would first clean the tube while not being powerful enough to move the shell. Unfortunately, a per Warriors of Ultramar, we know that wouldn't work well. The weapon is charged and only discharged once at full. We also know that they are magnetic fields, and that wouldn't necessarily work on every bit that could be stuck inside the chamber.
The final solution being that while the acceleration isn't powerful enough to cause damage inside the firing/release chamber, it would still be effective when applied to a projectile which contains the internal systems which allow its mass to be greatly lightened. It wouldn't solve all issues, but would cover a great number of points.

Now, back to macro cannons.

Macro cannons, aside from being smaller, still are mass drivers operating on similar principles, and still fire projectiles large enough to really produce heaps of non-friendly recoil and other hazards...

Hence the need for fancy tech.
That's the same problem for Halo. They had at some point projectiles launched a high fractions of c and yet which massed hundreds of tonnes. Yet UNSC ships were comparatively low tech. Their best infantry level weapon was some kind of heavy railgun of absolutely not impressive firepower.
The KE for the UNSC ships was somehow retconned I suppose (or not, perhaps they're still using the old Fall of Reach speed), but they still have that SMAC cannon with numbers that still make zero sense.

Most SBC/SDN Warsies, Haloties and Hammies seem to focus on big ass numbers like some offense/defense points on a pokemon monster card and call it a day.
Now there seems to be a couple new members at spacebattles who actually know their physics and may be able to share the light.
Have you ever thought of showing them why calculating explosive weapons as kinetic energy weapons is stupid by using the same method on the weapons of other setting? Some settings have faster then light missile weapons after all.^_^
Oh. Even if I wanted to, since those "them" are on a board I've been banned from precisely for pointing out the shortcomings of their (non)thinking, I don't think there's anything to be done. :|

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Lucky » Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:18 am

Lucky wrote:One has to wonder why there would be an explosive charge in the shells if the calculations are correct?
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Some descriptions make the macro cannons to be weapons of barrage. So some pop in them would make sense. Also, a warhead might be used as a perforating mechanism, like some HEAT projectile.

The main offender really being that there's no evidence that the ship have any form of propulsion that would let them cope with the massive recoil produced by the firing of one single shell at a reasonable or high fraction of c.

The firing mechanism is similar to that a nova cannon. Yet, if you look at certain cases, you either find that some firing systems use mere grease to oil the components and allow some of them to slide on rails, which I think considering the recoil we're talking about, would be quite useless due to the stupidly huge friction that would happen.
In other cases, you have slaves who remain stuck inside the firing chamber while all hatches are closed. Needless to say that the moment you have several dozens kilos of bones, tissues and water launched at near c, you're taking the risk of having that increased mass actually be ripped apart, even if for the simple reason that they're not designed to withstand the massive acceleration. All these elements are of varying density as well and inertia will be manifesting differently. It goes without saying that there could be a risk wherein the elements of a human slave and his hides come to inter-collide and be thrown into different directions. A near c, the energy released by elements of that spray inside the chamber will be close to annihilation levels.
A mere kilo impacting any wall or piece of the firing system will be akin to a multi-megaton nuclear impact inside the weapon. Definitely not good.
A way to avoid such issues, and any issue related to particles or even a mere tool left in the chamber, is that all the mass inside is reduced to stupidly low levels.
Stuff expelled would recover its effective mass, while the projectile would have some kind of mass lightening "sustainer".
Another solution would require a cleaning phase, where a former force field would first clean the tube while not being powerful enough to move the shell. Unfortunately, a per Warriors of Ultramar, we know that wouldn't work well. The weapon is charged and only discharged once at full. We also know that they are magnetic fields, and that wouldn't necessarily work on every bit that could be stuck inside the chamber.
The final solution being that while the acceleration isn't powerful enough to cause damage inside the firing/release chamber, it would still be effective when applied to a projectile which contains the internal systems which allow its mass to be greatly lightened. It wouldn't solve all issues, but would cover a great number of points.

Now, back to macro cannons.

Macro cannons, aside from being smaller, still are mass drivers operating on similar principles, and still fire projectiles large enough to really produce heaps of non-friendly recoil and other hazards...

Hence the need for fancy tech.
That's the same problem for Halo. They had at some point projectiles launched a high fractions of c and yet which massed hundreds of tonnes. Yet UNSC ships were comparatively low tech. Their best infantry level weapon was some kind of heavy railgun of absolutely not impressive firepower.
The KE for the UNSC ships was somehow retconned I suppose (or not, perhaps they're still using the old Fall of Reach speed), but they still have that SMAC cannon with numbers that still make zero sense.

Most SBC/SDN Warsies, Haloties and Hammies seem to focus on big ass numbers like some offense/defense points on a pokemon monster card and call it a day.
Now there seems to be a couple new members at spacebattles who actually know their physics and may be able to share the light.
I was simply asking if it was true that after a certain point the explosive would be pointless do to being such a small percentage of the total yield of the shell if it was traveling at near light speed?

Why would a mass lightened object necessarily regain its mass without a sustainer or the technology acting on it? The technology would basically be magic.

I know some settings have technology that has an absurdly low amount of recoil. I-beam and contra-gravity technologies from Rifts are two such technologies.
Have you ever thought of showing them why calculating explosive weapons as kinetic energy weapons is stupid by using the same method on the weapons of other setting? Some settings have faster then light missile weapons after all.^_^
Mr. Oragahn wrote:Oh. Even if I wanted to, since those "them" are on a board I've been banned from precisely for pointing out the shortcomings of their (non)thinking, I don't think there's anything to be done. :|
I'll have to think about doing that then. ^_^

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Sun Sep 16, 2012 7:08 pm

Lucky wrote:I was simply asking if it was true that after a certain point the explosive would be pointless do to being such a small percentage of the total yield of the shell if it was traveling at near light speed?
Indeed, at relativistic impacts, there's more kinetic energy liberated than anything you'd get from the reactants themselves. It only renders the projectile's warhead pointless and needlessly complicated. It will also be a very poor design as a weapon aiming to saturate an area against a swarm of small targets.
You can take a super CME as an example and see that despite the violence and power of the events, the protons will travel at a speed that is just not a match for c.
Now a massive macro cannon shell will see a lot of the warhead's energy go into the casing and thus produce a ton of superheated plasma.
A super heated ball of plasma which will have long "stretched" forth before it could even stretch sideways and cover a certain radius. Not to say anything about the fact that to counter balance that massive problem, the warheads would have to be detonated well in advance of the targets' position.
Which, just like for the nova cannon, just isn't the way the projectiles are described to behave.
Both types absolutely need a system which actually renders them efficient, useful and practical as an omnidirectional weapon. And this, despite the super speeds, can only be achieved if what enables the super speeds, the mass lightening tech (MLT), is deactivated and therefore all "normal" mass is recovered. Therefore the projectile literally slows down and the fireball can suddenly really do its job properly.
It wouldn't be surprising that the mere rupturing of the projectile would break the ML effect in some bizarre way.
Why would a mass lightened object necessarily regain its mass without a sustainer or the technology acting on it? The technology would basically be magic.
Because by default the mass lightening is not a natural property, it is a technological cheat. Based on the quote I found in Eye of Terror, it is clear that it has to be activated and maintained for the ships to benefit from it, and therefore get more punch out of the plasma they expel out of their engines (the fuel itself is obviously returned to its normal mass before any force can push the ship forth, otherwise there would be no gain).
I know some settings have technology that has an absurdly low amount of recoil. I-beam and contra-gravity technologies from Rifts are two such technologies.
I don't know anything about them, but no matter how the counter-recoil is managed, the forces are still there. Recoil-mitigating systems could only make the components of the cannon that go backwards do so at slower speeds, to keep things manageable instead of having the whole weapon system ripping itself apart, and eventually the vehicle or ship it's mounted on. But said craft still has to produce a counter thrust in a way or another, and even for something as a nova cannon, it is said that engines -thrust- are used to counter more or less the recoil.
Needless to say that there's no evidence that any form of brute-force counter-thrust system is used to cope with the recoil from the broadsides.
I'll have to think about doing that then. ^_^
If you think you can argue in favour of positions similar to mine, let me tell you that you're in for a rough ride. Needless to say, accusations leveled against you will easily trump any logic you may push forward.
Anytime someone tried to point out some problems due to recoil and suggested that MLT is used, it's been reduced to nothing more than feces throwing and calling the opposition any kind of form of sockpuppetry, generally resumed to "silly O",that Oragahn thing or even retarded Mith/Oragahn; because several months after my ban, Mith tried to argue that point again and got served with a wall of flame and then didn't insist more - which spared him from getting into trouble.
If you have an account at SBC, I thereby cannot guarantee that your not putting it at risk, unless the moderation has massively changed and some smarter minds are ready to take on the nonsensical claims made by some hammies like they dare to do against SW or Halo these days.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Lucky » Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:58 am

Mr. Oragahn wrote: Indeed, at relativistic impacts, there's more kinetic energy liberated than anything you'd get from the reactants themselves. It only renders the projectile's warhead pointless and needlessly complicated. It will also be a very poor design as a weapon aiming to saturate an area against a swarm of small targets.
You can take a super CME as an example and see that despite the violence and power of the events, the protons will travel at a speed that is just not a match for c.
Now a massive macro cannon shell will see a lot of the warhead's energy go into the casing and thus produce a ton of superheated plasma.
A super heated ball of plasma which will have long "stretched" forth before it could even stretch sideways and cover a certain radius. Not to say anything about the fact that to counter balance that massive problem, the warheads would have to be detonated well in advance of the targets' position.
Which, just like for the nova cannon, just isn't the way the projectiles are described to behave.
Both types absolutely need a system which actually renders them efficient, useful and practical as an omnidirectional weapon. And this, despite the super speeds, can only be achieved if what enables the super speeds, the mass lightening tech (MLT), is deactivated and therefore all "normal" mass is recovered. Therefore the projectile literally slows down and the fireball can suddenly really do its job properly.
It wouldn't be surprising that the mere rupturing of the projectile would break the ML effect in some bizarre way.
That is the point isn't it? If the explosive that is suppose to be the primary source of the damage is pointless and or it can't do the damage the way it is described to then the analysis must be flawed in some way. It is simple logic, but since when has logic gotten in the way of big numbers..
Mr. Oragahn wrote: Because by default the mass lightening is not a natural property, it is a technological cheat. Based on the quote I found in Eye of Terror, it is clear that it has to be activated and maintained for the ships to benefit from it, and therefore get more punch out of the plasma they expel out of their engines (the fuel itself is obviously returned to its normal mass before any force can push the ship forth, otherwise there would be no gain).
I don't have the 40K MLT fluff in front of me, so please bear with me.

1) What does being an artificial state have to do with needing to always be powered? Humans artificially create magnetic fields that are permanent until humans do something to undo it.

2) The cheaper the cheat the better the cheat is when it comes to MLT.

3) What if the reactant never gets its mass lowered?

Mr. Oragahn wrote: I don't know anything about them, but no matter how the counter-recoil is managed, the forces are still there. Recoil-mitigating systems could only make the components of the cannon that go backwards do so at slower speeds, to keep things manageable instead of having the whole weapon system ripping itself apart, and eventually the vehicle or ship it's mounted on. But said craft still has to produce a counter thrust in a way or another, and even for something as a nova cannon, it is said that engines -thrust- are used to counter more or less the recoil.
Needless to say that there's no evidence that any form of brute-force counter-thrust system is used to cope with the recoil from the broadsides.
I'll PM the fluff to you so it doesn't clutter this thread. It's over half a page worth in the books.

Simply put, when you deal with magic and/or technology that might as well be magic there might not be the recoil there should be from the slug throwers in the setting. They may have unseen and unstated ways of dealing with the recoil, and 40K is about as soft a Sci-Fi as there is.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: If you think you can argue in favour of positions similar to mine, let me tell you that you're in for a rough ride. Needless to say, accusations leveled against you will easily trump any logic you may push forward.
Anytime someone tried to point out some problems due to recoil and suggested that MLT is used, it's been reduced to nothing more than feces throwing and calling the opposition any kind of form of sockpuppetry, generally resumed to "silly O",that Oragahn thing or even retarded Mith/Oragahn; because several months after my ban, Mith tried to argue that point again and got served with a wall of flame and then didn't insist more - which spared him from getting into trouble.
The author of the article would be phrasing it improperly if anyone can take the example seriously without lying in an obvious manner. The purpose of the article would be to show why taking the written text too literally, or making certain assumptions is a bad thing.

Using a fictional setting might not be the best for this sort of thing. Perhaps realistic fiction or written accounts of real battles between ships would be a better choice because we know what the cannons can actually do?

Off the top of my head I can't think of any descriptions that would be useful for this idea however.

Mr. Oragahn wrote: If you have an account at SBC, I thereby cannot guarantee that your not putting it at risk, unless the moderation has massively changed and some smarter minds are ready to take on the nonsensical claims made by some hammies like they dare to do against SW or Halo these days.
I don't have an account at Space Battles.

Like the "Star Craft in game Calcs" did for Happy Pancake?
http://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/ ... lcs.36164/

H.P. did a good job of mocking the people who always want to take visuals over everything else even when it doesn't make sense to do so. I'd want to do something similar, but in a less comical way. The point is to illustrate a flaw in a method.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mr. Oragahn » Wed Oct 17, 2012 12:21 pm

A lil' bump to inform you that there's been a batch of quoteful threads at SBC:

Eldar Doctrine/Tech, 4 pages...

Imperial Guard Organizational and Doctrinal Analysis thread [40k], 17 pages...

40k Source and Feats Thread, 2 pages...

The Average 40K Space Marine, 1 page...

40k Primarch capabilities thread, 5 pages...

Make good use of it. As usual, never forget that some quotes may be interpreted in a radically different way if they're pulled out of context. We already have had many examples before, so any time some fancy claim is pushed forth, you may want to check the official source and verify the complete set of information for yourself.

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Re: WH40K - 40K misc numbers... (SDN)

Post by Mith » Wed Oct 17, 2012 11:31 pm

Let's get some stuff from the Rogue Trader Battlefleet Koronus in here, shall we?

Page 20
Avenger-class Grand cruiser
Dimensions: 7.5 km long, 1.8 km abeam at fins approx.
Mass: 40 megatonnes approx.
Crew: 141,000 crew, approx.
Accel: 2.2 gravities max sustainable acceleration.
In many ways the archetypal grand cruiser,
the Avenger class is a massively potent and brutally simple ship that mounts colossal close-ranged
macrobatteries in broadsides that run for kilometres along its
flanks. While regarded as unusually reliable and faithful for
grand cruisers, the Avengers are now amongst the rarest of
their class.
The Avenger dates from an earlier period of fleet tactics, when,
squadrons of grand cruisers were employed as “line-breakers.”
Traditionally, they were thrown into the midst of massive fleet
engagements, soaking up enemy fire while racing into the
middle of enemy formations, then crushing their opponents
at short range with tetrajoules of energy from their oversized
broadsides
. These unforgiving tactics have taken their toll upon
the few surviving Avengers, and they all bear the scars of grim,
forgotten battles fought when the Imperium was young.
Speed: 5 Manoeuvrability: +5
Detection: +10 Hull Integrity: 90
Armour: 21 Turret Rating: 3
Space: 90 SP: 70
Weapon Capacity: Port 3, Starboard 3
Grand Cruiser: This ship can use “cruiser only” Components
That clearly looks to be a spelling error, as I can't find anything that matches, "tetrajoules" and it's rather easy to hit the "t" since it's right next to the "r". That said, terajoules of energy is used to describe the firepower of an Avenger Class Grand Cruiser, which is considered the archtype.

Well, at least I thought it was a spelling error:

Page 31
“Look at her, son. Isn’t she a beauty? Over two hundred Vulcan
mega-bolter defence turrets, fifteen tetrajoule Sunsear las-broadsides,
prow plating ten metres thick
, the finest auspex masts in the
battlefleet… And the lines on her! Fluted prow, elegant statuary…
those xenos scum won’t know what hit them!”

– Bosun Phineas Jhule tempts fate at the embarkation of the
Fire of Heaven
According to the quote, the fifteen Sunsear las-broadsides are a "tetrajoule". I'm guessing whoever wrote this doesn't know how to spell "terajoule". In any case, we do have more recognizable words:

Page 48:
Engine Decks

The engine decks are the pulsing heart of a ship. They are vast,
cathedral-like spaces dominated by thundering plasma reactors
and armoured conduits coursing countless gigawatts of power
out to the ship.
A capital ship might have as many as a dozen
reactor chambers linked together to supply its titanic power
requirements. A smaller vessel likely has just one squeezed into
an armoured transept. The engine decks are always a hive of
activity with enginseers and tech-savants of all kinds swinging
censers, intoning rites and triple checking each other while
innumerable Servitors tend the reactors night and day under
the watchful gaze of the Red Priests of Mars.

Although technically part of the engine rooms and
commonly positioned close to them, the shield generatoria
deserve special mention. These thick-ribbed chambers house
endless ranks of thrumming generators that project the major
void shields and the masses of minor shielding needed to
enable hull integrity. Re-routing power through the generatoria
in battle is a vital function of damage control parties.

Diving headlong into a coruscating inferno of unleashed
energies to shut down an overloaded generator is a job
for brave men and few make it back alive. Volunteers are
plentiful, however, because without them the ship suffers far
more hull breaches and air losses. Air loss condemns crews to
a slow, poisonous death until such time as the inevitable laws
of supply and demand are equalised by enough fatalities.

The appointed Tech-Priest Majoris (also known as Enginseer
Prime) on the ship is extremely loath to let anyone not fully
inducted into the Cult Mechanicus onto the engine decks under
any circumstances. Even a fellow tech-priest of high standing
may be politely but firmly denied entry on occasion.
On the other hand, particularly recalcitrant shipmen,
mutineers and stowaways may be sent to the Mechanicus, often
never to be seen again. The tech-priests work constantly to
maintain the number of servitors in the engine decks despite
attrition from accidents, so “converts” are always welcome.
The engines of a ship, especially a very old one, can become a
shrine to the Adeptus Mechanicus devotees that tend them. Such
cloistered communities can grow insular over the centuries and
are often given to numerous proscriptions peculiar to their ship. In
truth, seeing a previously unknown core configuration or ignition
system in action for the first time can be a profound and even
revelatory experience for a tech-priest or wandering mech-wright.
Gigawatts of energy.

Also, this interesting tidbit:
Planetary Bombardment (medium)
By turning their massive lances and batteries of macrocannons on
a planet and unleashing a storm of deadly ordnance, a ship can
perform a Planetary Bombardment. Unspeakably devastating,
a planetary bombardment from a single ship can lay waste to
armies and cities
, while a concentrated bombardment from a
battle group can turn an entire continent to ash
. Thus, calling
in a planetary bombardment should be left up to the Explorers.
First off, note that the word "medium" at the top does not refer to the level of the bombardment, it's game mechanics related. Has absolutely nothing to do with fluff. What the fluff does say reinforces the above. With terajoule level firepower, a single warcruiser could easily waste any ground based army or city it chooses. And of course, a concentrated bombardment from an entire battle group can basically ruin a continent.

In other words, we're talking about low-scale nuclear weapons.

This is also an interesting tid-bit right here:
Darkstar Fighter (kaelor-origin)
The Darkstar is a sleek vehicle with the distinctive blade-like wings and divided arrowhead-shaped nose common to Eldar
attack craft. An extremely fast fighter, it’s also extremely manoeuvrable. A sophisticated system of inertia dampeners allows turns
of nearly 180 degrees, as the crews of many an enemy attack craft have discovered moments before their destruction. They also
use a crystal-powered generator that allows for farther-ranging missions than the fighter craft used by the Imperium. Darkstar
fighters rely on a less powerful holofield to protect it against incoming fire, rather than thick armour.

Type: Spacecraft
Tactical Speed: 30 m / 24 AUs
Cruising Speed: 2,750 kph/ 12 VUs per Strategic Turn in Space

Manoeuvrability: +15
Structural Integrity: 25
Size: Enormous
Armour: Front 34, Side 34, Rear 26
Carrying Capacity: None
Crew: Eldar pilot and systems operator.
And we all know that Eldar are supposed to use very, very fast attack craft, right? Well, it's cruising speed is only 2,759 kph. That's roughly 2.2x the speed of sound. And indeed, only one other attack craft reaches that same velocity and it's a Chaos one.

I can't really imagine that these ships are fighting at massive, stellar ranges when their attack craft would take over an hour to pass by three kilometers. Of course, this might be an outlier.

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