Again, this one's been treated by Oragahn, but I'll be covering it in whole, anyway, for completeness' sake. My focus will be on small arms and ground combat, as this is what most of the novel concerns, but in it we also get excellent showings of and commentary on space-to-ground bombardments and some larger tactical/strategical matters. One paragraph on starship weapons that played a somewhat important role in the early 40k firepower inflationism at SDN is treated at some length.
All quotes are from the series omnibus, containing the whole trilogy and a couple of related short stories. Now, our first instalment:
Ichar IV had a population of 190 billion, according to Kage. The planet was noted as being a hive world, of the more populous kind. Many others have much smaller populations, though we know of several in this ballpark as well.p68 wrote:'It seems that defending Ichar IV was not necessarily the best plan in the world,' he says heavily, tugging the readout from my fingers and placing it in a vellum-covered envelope in the centre of his desk.
'Saving a hundred and ninety billion people was a bad plan, sir?' I ask, amazed at what the Colonel is implying.
Typhus Sector has a population on the order of ~500 billion. Later in the story, we learn that the sector contains about fifty planets, making the average population some ten billion. This number is probably far above the median, however, given the probable presence of hive worlds. Comparing with the above, Ichar IV alone hosts a population equal to 38 per cent of this whole sector. This suggests that hive worlds make up the vast majority of the Imperium in terms of population.p69 wrote:'So instead of losing a planet, we could lose the whole of Typhon sector?' I ask, finally catching on to what the Colonel is implying. 'That's where five hundred billion people might die?'
Kage's comments on the weaponry of a cruiser. I'll split my commentary on this one, addressing each factoid in turn.p133-4 wrote:Watching the cruiser forging her way towards the eldar, I feel a sense of security. Surely nothing could stand up to the attentions of that gigantic engine of destruction. The Navy may have some strange ideas about strategy and defence, but you have to hand it to them, they know a hell of a lot about firepower. Their anti-ordnance defence turrets have weapons larger than those carried on Titans, their barrels over ten metres long, dozens of the point-defences studding the hull of a ship the size of a cruiser. Their broadsides vary, sometimes they have huge plasma cannons capable of incinerating cities, other times it's mass drivers that can pound metal and rock into oblivion. Short-ranged missile batteries can obliterate a smaller foe in a matter of minutes, while high-energy lasers, which Jamieson tells me are called lances, can shear through three metres of the toughest armour with one devastating shot. Most cruisers carry huge torpedoes as well, loaded with multiple warheads charged with volatile plasma bombs, carrying the power to unleash the energy of a small star on the enemy. It makes my humble laspistol look like spit in an ocean. More like a hundred oceans, actually.
*Plasma cannons capable of incinerating cities -- This suggests the weapons can have incendiary effects sufficient to burn up significant parts of a city, at minimum. This can be accomplished quite adequately in real life by nuclear weapons in the tens to hundreds of kilotons range. (A weapon firing multiple volleys would of course require less firepower per shot.) The numbers go up, of course, if we opt for the most literal definition of ”incinerating cities” and interpret this as burning every single object within the city limits to ashes. I'd find such practice highly questionable, however.
*Lances can penetrate three meters of armor in one shot -- This would implicitly suggest that they can't chew their way through four meters that easily. Needless to say, unless the armor in question is Culture-grade wankium, this would seem to put a cap on their firepower. Using a material with the properties of iron to illustrate, even if we assume each lance outright vaporizes a 3x3x3 meters cube of armor -- which is obviously in itself quite absurd, given this description -- the lower-end energy this requires is about 1,700 gigajoules, or ~400 tons of TNT. We can increase this number literally by a thousand times to safely account for magically good armor without hitting the megatons range. And from evidence elsewhere (scroll down from here), IoM starship armor doesn't appear to have exceptionally good thermal properties in the first place.
*Torpedoes with the energy of a small star -- An old example of the kind of hyperbole that fanwankers of all franchises thrive on by taking it literally. Such an interpretation, however, is woefully inconsistent with both of the much more specific data listed above; it would mean torpedoes that are literally millions or billions of times more powerful than the rest of the starship's weapons, rendering these quite unnecessary. To be added to that are other known examples of star-like power quotes from 40k books that even more clearly aren't meant to be read in any literal sense. (Search for "sun" and "star-like power".)
Addendum: Some 40kers in the past have argued that the "cities" intended in the paragraph are probably continent-spanning hive cities, thence deriving giga- or teraton yields. Not only is this a gratuitous assumption, but it's also directly contradicted by the book itself, as the next quote shows.
Coritanorum is a hive city, and far from a continent-sized one; it's described in detail later in the story (below). We don't, however, need to know its exact composition and dimensions to realize that this quote militates against the kind of weapons yields that will destroy whole continents in a broadside.p147 wrote:'Admiral Becks, your plan is totally unacceptable,' the wizened warmaster said, smoothing the folds in his long black trench coat. 'It is impossible to reduce Coritanorum from orbit.'
'Nothing is impossible to destroy, Warmaster Menitus,' the fleet admiral replied with a smug grin creasing the leathery skin of his hawk-like face. 'It may take a decade of bombardment, but we can annihilate that rebellious fortress and everyone in it.'
Fairly self-explanatory. Though we should note that this appears to be contradicted by several other sources (e.g., Fifteen Hours, Imperial Glory) that suggest rather longer service periods.p179 wrote:It's kind of a tradition that an Imperial Guard regiment serves for a maximum of ten years at which point it can retire, maybe returning home or going off to join the Explorator fleets and help claim a new world for the Emperor. A lot of them won't spend half that time fighting.
Ground tactics, again self-explanatory. The context is civil war on the planet in question, IoM forces fighting each other. We are looking at quite immobile forces, if the front has moved so little in years and elaborate trench systems are considered effective. Despite this, we are told of casualties exceeding a million, so clearly there are ongoing offensive actions; it's not a phony war.p180 wrote:I realise that perhaps Typhos Prime isn't so nice after all. The roadster dropped us off about sixteen kilometres from the front line, or where they think the front line is, leaving us to foot it the rest of the way. The war's dragged on for a couple of years now, ever since a first abortive assault against the rebel fortress failed, and both sides have drawn up trenchlines a few kilometres from Coritanorum's walls and have since tried to shell each other into submission.
Kage on the Mordians, one of the more famous IG nationalities. (Listed as archetypical in numerous editions of the IG Codex books.) We note that while their discipline is excellent, their training could be improved in certain regards.p181 wrote:'Incoming!' shrieks Linskrug and a second later my ears pick up what the baron's sharp ears heard a moment earlier - the whine of an aircraft's engines in a screaming dive. We scatter, hurling ourselves into water-filled craters and behind rocks, peering up into the clouds for a sign of our attacker. I look astonished as the Mordians continue their formed march and then I realise that they won't break formation until one of their officers tells them to.
The weapon the aircraft uses is multiple autocannons. As with many other things in 40k, the definition for these is pretty dodgy, ranging from .30 cal machine guns and up to tank-grade cannons in various books. The effects of these particular ones are described below.p181 wrote:I see a swathe of them knocked to the ground and an instant later the chatter of heavy guns can be heard. Glancing up I see the rebel stratocraft sweeping low, four flashing bursts along its wings showing where light autocannons are spitting out a hail of death. The Mordians march relentlessly on and the aircraft wings over and banks round for another pass. Once more the guns chatter and two dozen or more Mordians, all the men in two ranks of troopers, are torn apart by the fusillade.
This appears more consistent with a light machine gun than a cannon of any kind.p182 wrote:It's then that I see Franx, half buried in slick mud at the rim of the crater he was sheltering in. He hangs loosely over the edge of the shell hole, one arm outstretched. I can see three holes in his chest where the bullets from the aircraft hit him, and a dribble of blood from his mouth shows that they punctured his already overworked lungs. I pause for a moment, shocked that Franx is actually dead.
And similarly here, but even more so, as Kage didn't immediately realize the man had been hit by multiple shots, but had to turn him around to check. We are, in other words, looking at autocannons in the lighter end of the spectrum.p182 wrote:At first I can't tell where Kyle's been hit and I roll him over, finding four holes through the back of his flak jacket, right at the base of his spine.
Refering, again, to Mordian Guardsmen. We have other examples of teen-aged troopers in, for example, Storm of Iron. This probably indicates that the Imperial Guard is severely pressed for manpower, since otherwise we would expect older men than these boys in frontline formations like this one. (Going momentarily outside the metaverse, such would be consistent with the heavy fluff emphasis on perpetual war and vast economic and human sacrifice.)p188 wrote:These soldiers are young. I mean really young; some of them look about sixteen years old, the oldest must be twenty at the most. A bunch of wet-backs, freshly drafted in to fight.
Orbital bombardment against Coritanorum. As these range from air to surface bursts and Kage can quite safely observe the spectacle from a frontline trench (which, we'll recall, are situated "a few kilometres" from the walls of the city), we can rule out any firepower in excess of lower-range double-digit kilotons out of hand. We should not, however, rule out the possibility of variable yields for the torpedoes; they aren't stated to be firing at full power, after all.p194 wrote:'Bombardment, air attack - next comes the orbital barrage,' I tell them. I've seen it half a dozen times, standard Imperial battle dogma. 'Those damned rebels are in for some hot stuff tonight!'
Just as I finish speaking, the clouds are brilliantly lit up in one area and a moment later an immense ball of energy flashes towards Coritanorum. The fusion torpedo smashes into the citadel's armoured walls, smearing along the scarred and pockmarked metal like fiery oil. Several more salvoes rain down through the storm, some shells kicking up huge plumes of steam as they bury themselves in the mud before detonating, others causing rivulets of molten metal to pour down Coritanorum's walls like lava flows.
The description doesn't appear precise enough to fix yields any further, though we may also note that the "fusion" torpedo doesn't appear to behave as we would expect a real-life thermonuclear warhead to do, raising questions about its mechanism.
More to follow in a couple of days ...