WH40K: Tau hatred

[Mr. Oragahn]

I found solar flare related posts by me here (SFJN) and here (SBC) although I can't find the one with the calculation based on the duration of exposure, although it's obviously not hard to extrapolate!

EDIT: found the rest here and here (SBC).

Then, the basic logic of debunking the case of a starship surviving in a corona. It's incredible how several people over there, even among the most active and staunch defenders of 40K, couldn't understand the difference between a solar flare and merely sitting in a corona without any evidence of any solar flare happening.

Damn, the memories. Ironanvil1 trying to spin "virtually" into something other than "nearly", regarding the "solar flare" quote from BFG. That's how desperate they are. No surprise that this same mindset permeates through the pro-IoM/anti-Tau arguments.

[Lucky]

Has anyone thought that there is the off chance that the Tau hate comes from Star Trek VS Star Wars verses debates?

The Tau have all the advantages and disadvantages the UFP might have if the UFP faced the Empire, and less capable technology in many ways then the UFP.

The Imperium of Man has all the advantages and disadvantages of the Empire if it faced the UFP, and comparable technology. The Imperium also seems to follow the big and scary over effective design.

[Picard]

More like comparable mentality.

Those who like Empire, like it beacouse it is big, scary and ruthless. Same thing applies for Imperium. They hate UFP beacouse it is, clearly, better place to live, being technologically, culturally, and socially more advanced. Same thing applies to Tau... to an extent.

And yes, if someone likes Imperium as-it-is in 41st century, he'll likely like Galactic Empire. If someone likes Tau, he'll likely like UFP. And vice-versa.

[Mr. Oragahn]

There are many parallels to make, some more obvious or elegant than others. Trek doesn't have much of the typical ground warfare because it has really gone on its own road. So there aren't tanks and dropships, mostly due to the insane advantages of teleportation. This being a technology the IoM possesses, but not to the stability and level of mastery routinely displayed by the UFP. However, in essence, it could closer to the Tau's military doctrine as it's quite the epitome of mobile warfare.
The more obvious parallels being the overall sleeker designs, the size of the Tau realm against that of the IoM.
However, on the high end tech side, while the UFP clearly stands above the Empire of Star Wars, the Imperium of Warhammer 40000 does have the better toys, but since they're rare, revered and the whole empire cripple, the vision is skewed.
So I wouldn't say that an UFP fan would immediately go for the Tau. If anything, they'd probably find more to draw parallels with in the Eldar.
The appeal of the Tau is the ubiquity of high technology and more "real" looking tech, with armour plating that looks more like modern armour plating, gunships used as Apaches and main weapons firing slugs. Yet in several ways, the Tau share the clunkyness of the Old Republic forces, with their less ridiculous designs : no titans = no AT-ATs, starships which seem less built for the sake of being imposing, like the Executor-class and ever inflating SDs, and overall a seemingly higher efficiency from the clonetroopers compared to the stormtroopers. There's also the same feeling of the ubiquitous high level of technology spread to as many troops as possible (there's no such standard thing as expandable TIEs for clonetroopers, they rather fly a state of the art cousin of the X-wing), although clonetroopers are far less numerous than stormtroopers. However, the presence of Jedi (clerics) within the clone troopers' ranks makes them more similar to the overall mileage you get when Psykers and the Imperial Guard fight together (whenever that happens, probably rarely).

[sonofccn]

I don't see how that follows either. The Tau obviously have a superior industrial output per capita, since they can -- and do -- consistently outfit their troops with superior gear without (to my knowledge, at least) putting a greater strain on their economy than the Imperium. (If anything, living standards among the Tau would appear substantially higher than Imperium-average, arguing for lower military expenditure as part of GDP.) That they're smaller in absolute terms doesn't mean that should be easier for them on a per-unit basis. On the contrary, the Imperium should have massive economies-of-scale benefits working in their favor. So I'll just say he's buzzwording to defend his pet faction.

Then again, it's a little bit subtler than what I figured based on his earlier posting. I can certainly see uncritical fans falling for it without much reflection.

Well I don't believe you are supposed to think too hard on the subject. That way lies madness. Like the thought a black comedy driven force heavily modeled on equal mixes of pop culture and the World Wars is not the pinnacle of military prowess. :)

But as Mr. Oragahn mentioned, if you'll forgive me playing devil's advocate a moment longer, it is more than raw industry, through obviously there is that along the lines of the rugged T-34 can be built easier and faster than the "complex" Panther, but including the distance between worlds and the greater avenues of attack. Essentially they argue that such specialized troops couldn't be shipped from world to world in time and would be run ragged fighting off the collective threats to the realm, would suffer horrendous logistic issues thanks to the crawl of the warp and from that maintence issues as their "fragile" high tech "toys" broke. In contrast to the IOM who keep it simple, with frequent citing you can set a lasgun on fire to charge it and somewhere in the galaxy a Leman Russ was converted to run off of wood*.

Of course no one ever runs calculations on the numbers a IOM wide Tau Empire could field, or comments on all the wasted energy and resources "keeping it simple" costs the IOM throwing regiments at a problem until its solved. Resources which in turn could go into improving ones logistic train, defense systems of member worlds etc if they weren't tied up in Verdun rejects.

*This is regarded as some great proof of versatility and ability, to me I just think it puts the tank on par with trains from 19th century Earth.

Has anyone thought that there is the off chance that the Tau hate comes from Star Trek VS Star Wars verses debates?

The Tau have all the advantages and disadvantages the UFP might have if the UFP faced the Empire, and less capable technology in many ways then the UFP.

The Imperium of Man has all the advantages and disadvantages of the Empire if it faced the UFP, and comparable technology. The Imperium also seems to follow the big and scary over effective design.

There's this. :)

Short run: the Tau reveal the cracks and pressures in the IOM. That they couldn't on a moment's notice gather some great armada and invade a regional power like say the Federation. Which kinda cuts against the general bravado of how the butch militants would just steam roll over the the pajama wearing pansies of Trek.

[General Donner]

However, I never knew that he had tried to spin the gigawatt evidence in such a pathetically baffling way. When did that happen, exactly? I recall that at the same time I started looking at his silly numbers, he was at least moderately receding on his infantry weapon yields by a few notches. That should be like two years ago, more or less.

That one's from his 40K misc numbers and analysis thread from back in 2007. So it's quite old by now, and I wouldn't be surprised to see if he's backpedaled since. Still, I believe it's quite illustrative of his mindset, even if the backlash has forced him to become a little more moderate -- or at least, subtle -- as of late.

The specific quote:

The weapons carried by some ships are powerful enough to reduce whole cities to plains of radioactive glass. Ships are armored and shielded in order to resist their savage caress,, hulls are heavily reinforced so that they can survive the horrific pounding of gigawatts of energy.

We actually hear about ships destroying cities in various forms (vaporizing, melting, ,etc.) quite often. Battleships, cruisers (or rather specific weapons on crusiers) and even frigates have been mentioned as capable of destroying cities with their weapons.

Cities can be quite lage too. Either fortress cities (like we see in 13th Legion and Ghostmaker) to Hive Cities (which span many tens or hundreds of kilometers in diameter minimum, and extend many kilometers both above and even under the ground). Hell, some planets have continent sized buildings (like Terra, but also some Hive Cities and Forge worlds do ). Destroying cities of that scale requires immense firepower.

Calculating it can be hard, given the variables involved, though"reducing cities to glasS" implies melting. Assuming a 10 km diameter city, composed of iron, 90% empty and with an average building height of 300 meters (with a fairly crowded density), it would take at least 5 gigatons or so to melt. Something larger (say 50 km in diameter, or about hive city size) that extends up ~ 5 km in height, as a cone, composed of iron and 90% empty) would take around 738 gigatons to melt. THat doesn't include anythign below ground - assuming a 200 meter depth into the rock, 90% empty, would be several times greater) would add around another 40-80 gigatons depending on composiition.

The "gigawatts of energy" is almost certainly an error, since its a ridicuously low-end output for 40K ship weapons (given that Exteminatus even at its absolute lowest for cruisers is double/triple digit GT/sec and a man portable meltagun is gigawatt range.) and energy is not measured in "watts". I'd take this to mean that 40K ships are meant to withstand "gigatons" of energy, which would be more consistent. (especialyl given the nature for macro cannon shells and torpedoes to ignore shields and penetrate before detonating - they're definitely gigaton range.)

Now, I can see why he would take issue with the gigawatts. (It is, after all, a measure of power, not energy.) The stretch is jumping from there to the gigatons. Wouldn't it be more natural to assume it meant gigajoules, if anything?

The rest of the thread is something of an ode to Connor's maximalism as well. It gets especially fun on page 6, where some poor plebe dares to dispute his cherry picking. While nowadays he tries a bit harder to be evilly affable and treats his figures like they're some kind of funny joke, I believe we have a more revealing portrait of his feelings here.

[General Donner]

Well I don't believe you are supposed to think too hard on the subject. That way lies madness. Like the thought a black comedy driven force heavily modeled on equal mixes of pop culture and the World Wars is not the pinnacle of military prowess. :)

That makes sense.

But as Mr. Oragahn mentioned, if you'll forgive me playing devil's advocate a moment longer, it is more than raw industry, through obviously there is that along the lines of the rugged T-34 can be built easier and faster than the "complex" Panther, but including the distance between worlds and the greater avenues of attack. Essentially they argue that such specialized troops couldn't be shipped from world to world in time and would be run ragged fighting off the collective threats to the realm, would suffer horrendous logistic issues thanks to the crawl of the warp and from that maintence issues as their "fragile" high tech "toys" broke. In contrast to the IOM who keep it simple, with frequent citing you can set a lasgun on fire to charge it and somewhere in the galaxy a Leman Russ was converted to run off of wood*.

I don't think we have anything to indicate that Tau gear is very maintenance-intensive from the fluff. IIRC there's a Tau splinter faction, called the "Farsight Enclave" or something like that, which has been basically cut off from the Tau mainland for some time, and yet they can supposedly keep fighting.

The Imperium is also happy to make rather less than optimum use of their space transport assets. (Seeing that they ship horse cavalry armed with lances across the stars, and other such examples.) I doubt the Tau have that problem.

[Mr. Oragahn]

However, I never knew that he had tried to spin the gigawatt evidence in such a pathetically baffling way. When did that happen, exactly? I recall that at the same time I started looking at his silly numbers, he was at least moderately receding on his infantry weapon yields by a few notches. That should be like two years ago, more or less.

That one's from his 40K misc numbers and analysis thread from back in 2007. So it's quite old by now, and I wouldn't be surprised to see if he's backpedaled since. Still, I believe it's quite illustrative of his mindset, even if the backlash has forced him to become a little more moderate -- or at least, subtle -- as of late.

The specific quote:

The weapons carried by some ships are powerful enough to reduce whole cities to plains of radioactive glass. Ships are armored and shielded in order to resist their savage caress,, hulls are heavily reinforced so that they can survive the horrific pounding of gigawatts of energy.

We actually hear about ships destroying cities in various forms (vaporizing, melting, ,etc.) quite often. Battleships, cruisers (or rather specific weapons on crusiers) and even frigates have been mentioned as capable of destroying cities with their weapons.

Cities can be quite lage too. Either fortress cities (like we see in 13th Legion and Ghostmaker) to Hive Cities (which span many tens or hundreds of kilometers in diameter minimum, and extend many kilometers both above and even under the ground). Hell, some planets have continent sized buildings (like Terra, but also some Hive Cities and Forge worlds do ). Destroying cities of that scale requires immense firepower.

Calculating it can be hard, given the variables involved, though"reducing cities to glasS" implies melting. Assuming a 10 km diameter city, composed of iron, 90% empty and with an average building height of 300 meters (with a fairly crowded density), it would take at least 5 gigatons or so to melt. Something larger (say 50 km in diameter, or about hive city size) that extends up ~ 5 km in height, as a cone, composed of iron and 90% empty) would take around 738 gigatons to melt. THat doesn't include anythign below ground - assuming a 200 meter depth into the rock, 90% empty, would be several times greater) would add around another 40-80 gigatons depending on composiition.

The "gigawatts of energy" is almost certainly an error, since its a ridicuously low-end output for 40K ship weapons (given that Exteminatus even at its absolute lowest for cruisers is double/triple digit GT/sec and a man portable meltagun is gigawatt range.) and energy is not measured in "watts". I'd take this to mean that 40K ships are meant to withstand "gigatons" of energy, which would be more consistent. (especialyl given the nature for macro cannon shells and torpedoes to ignore shields and penetrate before detonating - they're definitely gigaton range.)

Now, I can see why he would take issue with the gigawatts. (It is, after all, a measure of power, not energy.) The stretch is jumping from there to the gigatons. Wouldn't it be more natural to assume it meant gigajoules, if anything?

The rest of the thread is something of an ode to Connor's maximalism as well. It gets especially fun on page 6, where some poor plebe dares to dispute his cherry picking. While nowadays he tries a bit harder to be evilly affable and treats his figures like they're some kind of funny joke, I believe we have a more revealing portrait of his feelings here.

You know what? I actually had completely forgotten it. Back when I started the misc thread (and my knowledge of 40K was very small back then), I had already noticed it, although didn't react much about this travesty.
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 227#p19227
I think I should reread the thread, to see if some of my ideas have changed by now.

Now, we could actually consider that their hulls are so good that gigawatts can't even being to dent the hulls: the alloys easily take care of the temperatures and in general, shields coming back online allow the hulls to cool down. However, when ships start exchanging terajoules, they do begin to hurt the armour plates. In such a context, petajoules would probably be virtually equivalent to instant damage over large areas of the ships. Some large cruisers possess from 3 up to 11 reactors, which allows for a modicum of redundancy. Plus being rather long, means that even kilotons of energy on heavily armoured sections won't suffice to take down the ship fast enough. And I'm not talking about the shields.

He may try to portray his figures as some kind of half-funny joke, but he certainly wasn't doing so when he was recently posting at SBC. His pals weren't either, and if he does try to do that now, it's because his figures are fundamentally retarded. That's why.

[General Donner]

You know what? I actually had completely forgotten it. Back when I started the misc thread (and my knowledge of 40K was very small back then), I had already noticed it, although didn't react much about this travesty.

I think I should reread the thread, to see if some of my ideas have changed by now.

I thought I'd seen a commentary on his BFG analysis somewhere around here.

Skimming through the first bits of your thread, that looks like quite nice work, as usual. (Though I'm sure you'll be able to improve on it some even so, knowing more of the universe in question.)

Now, we could actually consider that their hulls are so good that gigawatts can't even being to dent the hulls: the alloys easily take care of the temperatures and in general, shields coming back online allow the hulls to cool down. However, when ships start exchanging terajoules, they do begin to hurt the armour plates. In such a context, petajoules would probably be virtually equivalent to instant damage over large areas of the ships. Some large cruisers possess from 3 up to 11 reactors, which allows for a modicum of redundancy. Plus being rather long, means that even kilotons of energy on heavily armoured sections won't suffice to take down the ship fast enough. And I'm not talking about the shields.

I'm not sure the starship armor is necessarily all that thermally resistant, actually. Recalling the quote from Grey Hunter I posted in the Nova Cannon thread, we know it's thoroughly molten at "cherry red" temperatures. (The exact wording would be that it was reduced to "molten slag," which taken literally -- as 40kers will always do with that kind of thing, or at least whenever it can be used to argue for higher numbers -- implies full melting.) "Cherry red" temperature would be at least some hundreds of degrees centigrade lower than the melting point of iron, if we're to judge by blackbody radiation.

Complete minimal melting of a (metric) ton of iron at room temperature would be in the 900+ megajoules range, I believe, assuming I can still put the numbers together right like we did in physics class. (Ignoring complicating factors like local superheating, or that specific heat will generally rise with temperature.) Assuming a material with generally iron-like properties otherwise but a lower melting point -- say, at 1000 C or so, which should be more than enough to make it glow a nice cherry-red -- we can knock off two hundred megajoules or so from that figure. Gigawatt (in the plural) weapons could then potentially be melting multiple tons of armor per second of effective fire, though probably less than that in a less idealized scenario than this one.

Given the thickness of warship armor (I believe it'll generally be stated to be in the "meters" range), that won't be immediately crippling, but neither is it the kind of punishment a ship can take for sustained periods without suffering damage beyond armor ablation. How serious would vary, as they generally have a lot of volume and redundancy, as noted. And of course, shields will deflect most energy weapons fire beforehand, though they'll generally let through material projectiles like torpedoes.

(Hm; this is probably the first actual calculation and argument I've made on this board. Hope I didn't mess it up.;))

[Mr. Oragahn]

You know what? I actually had completely forgotten it. Back when I started the misc thread (and my knowledge of 40K was very small back then), I had already noticed it, although didn't react much about this travesty.

I think I should reread the thread, to see if some of my ideas have changed by now.

I thought I'd seen a commentary on his BFG analysis somewhere around here.

Skimming through the first bits of your thread, that looks like quite nice work, as usual. (Though I'm sure you'll be able to improve on it some even so, knowing more of the universe in question.)

There's indeed a certain margin of progression to acknowledge there. I made a few mistakes in the past, mostly when using descriptions from the lexicanum, like for the flash grenade, which I think I corrected later on.

Now, we could actually consider that their hulls are so good that gigawatts can't even being to dent the hulls: the alloys easily take care of the temperatures and in general, shields coming back online allow the hulls to cool down. However, when ships start exchanging terajoules, they do begin to hurt the armour plates. In such a context, petajoules would probably be virtually equivalent to instant damage over large areas of the ships. Some large cruisers possess from 3 up to 11 reactors, which allows for a modicum of redundancy. Plus being rather long, means that even kilotons of energy on heavily armoured sections won't suffice to take down the ship fast enough. And I'm not talking about the shields.

I'm not sure the starship armor is necessarily all that thermally resistant, actually. Recalling the quote from Grey Hunter I posted in the Nova Cannon thread, we know it's thoroughly molten at "cherry red" temperatures. (The exact wording would be that it was reduced to "molten slag," which taken literally -- as 40kers will always do with that kind of thing, or at least whenever it can be used to argue for higher numbers -- implies full melting.) "Cherry red" temperature would be at least some hundreds of degrees centigrade lower than the melting point of iron, if we're to judge by blackbody radiation.

Complete minimal melting of a (metric) ton of iron at room temperature would be in the 900+ megajoules range, I believe, assuming I can still put the numbers together right like we did in physics class. (Ignoring complicating factors like local superheating, or that specific heat will generally rise with temperature.) Assuming a material with generally iron-like properties otherwise but a lower melting point -- say, at 1000 C or so, which should be more than enough to make it glow a nice cherry-red -- we can knock off two hundred megajoules or so from that figure. Gigawatt (in the plural) weapons could then potentially be melting multiple tons of armor per second of effective fire, though probably less than that in a less idealized scenario than this one.

Given the thickness of warship armor (I believe it'll generally be stated to be in the "meters" range), that won't be immediately crippling, but neither is it the kind of punishment a ship can take for sustained periods without suffering damage beyond armor ablation. How serious would vary, as they generally have a lot of volume and redundancy, as noted. And of course, shields will deflect most energy weapons fire beforehand, though they'll generally let through material projectiles like torpedoes.

(Hm; this is probably the first actual calculation and argument I've made on this board. Hope I didn't mess it up.;))

:)
I suppose that small amount of the beam's energy would be wasted as the first bits of the beam begin to gouge the hull, generating a blast of some sort which will hinder the efficiency of the rest of the beam to come. Nothing to make a significant difference though, looking at modern plasma gouging : beams in 40K travel the ether very fast, and close to high fractions of c even for plasma ones. So that translates into a certain abrasive pressure against the hull, allowing the molten material to be removed very quickly. That said, hulls in their thicker areas could easily be over ten meters or tens of meters thick, based on some observations I and JMS made in the past. That's quite too much to go through for gigawatt weapons in one go, even if focused.
Plus adamantium plating is ought to be superior. And then there's the most likely reinforced and compartmentalized superstructure inside. I think there's a quote about an IoM warship having gotten a significant volume of its superstructure damaged and disabled still being combat capable.
Even low kiloton weapons wouldn't be enough to take down such large warships. A 1KT nuke would have something like a 50~60 meters wide fireball iirc, and that wouldn't really help much. The blast would be quite irrelevant against meters-thick reinforced mid-sections. Now, beams would be more focused, but I'm talking about a beam getting through the armoured hull and hitting the softer stuff behind, inside the ship: the blast won't even be as powerful as that of a nuke considering the vast difference of power, to the advantage of a nuke!
So gigawatts could get through a ship's hull after a pounding, and disable some outer sections, but I doubt it could cripple it in any reasonable amount of time.

Now, adamantium isn't particularly mind boggling either.
Quickly searching SFJN, I found that the continuous pounding of Tor Christo for 3 hours, found in Storm of Iron, by an Adeptus Mechanicus ship that surpasses in might and quality anything else found in the Imperium, would easily fit with high GW/low TW.
I also concluded that "no matter how you look at it, what remains is the fact that metres-thick reinforced adamantium hulls are pierced by kiloton level weaponry."
In fact, Imperial Armour puts adamantium as five times tougher than steel or something of that vein, iirc.
On the question of what conventional steel is supposed to be, details from the IA books really don't make it sound like it's leaps and bounds above modern steel.

[General Donner]

Even low kiloton weapons wouldn't be enough to take down such large warships. A 1KT nuke would have something like a 50~60 meters wide fireball iirc, and that wouldn't really help much.

From what little I know on the topic, fireball interactions would be vastly different in the vacuum of space than in an Earth-like atmosphere. Are you incorporating that in your estimates?

So gigawatts could get through a ship's hull after a pounding, and disable some outer sections, but I doubt it could cripple it in any reasonable amount of time.

That would seem to makes sense. That satisfies the BFG quote, as well as the other observations.

In fact, Imperial Armour puts adamantium as five times tougher than steel or something of that vein, iirc.

Where'd that be at? (Roughly speaking?) I have the first two IA books. So I can check, if you'd like.

On the question of what conventional steel is supposed to be, details from the IA books really don't make it sound like it's leaps and bounds above modern steel.

I'd agree with that. Although I also find it quite entertaining indeed that the very same people who happily derive petaton yields from "truly stellar levels of energy" and the like will kick and scream and dig their heels down deeper than the dwarves under Moria ever tunneled at the suggestion that "conventional steel" might actually mean some kind of conventional steel. (As opposed to magic-wank materials.)

[Mr. Oragahn]

Even low kiloton weapons wouldn't be enough to take down such large warships. A 1KT nuke would have something like a 50~60 meters wide fireball iirc, and that wouldn't really help much.

From what little I know on the topic, fireball interactions would be vastly different in the vacuum of space than in an Earth-like atmosphere. Are you incorporating that in your estimates?

I mean once the weapon reaches inside the ship, where there's atmosphere and plenty of stuff to blow up. The fireball diameter I cited is indeed in atmosphere, but that gives a rough idea of how far it can reach. The Hiroshima blast ravaged the weakest structures and had the rest burning, but the most solid parts didn't suffer too much. The pressure will go for the path of least resistance, and with space all around, the internal atmosphere of a leaking ship will be relevant, in terms of air blast, for a very small moment. It will also be largely channeled out like through air ducts. So once a section previously hit will have leaked its atmosphere, most of the damage will have to be provided by heat and either blast from the expanding vaporized material, or from the weapon itself, and with enough "concentration" so that there's still more damaging pressure than what can escape the ship to "diffuse" said pressure.

Where'd that be at? (Roughly speaking?) I have the first two IA books. So I can check, if you'd like.

In the IA about Imperium armour (tanks, basilisks, etc.) I suppose.

On the question of what conventional steel is supposed to be, details from the IA books really don't make it sound like it's leaps and bounds above modern steel.

I'd agree with that. Although I also find it quite entertaining indeed that the very same people who happily derive petaton yields from "truly stellar levels of energy" and the like will kick and scream and dig their heels down deeper than the dwarves under Moria ever tunneled at the suggestion that "conventional steel" might actually mean some kind of conventional steel. (As opposed to magic-wank materials.)

There's just that much toughness you can get from mixing well known elements into armour plates, unless they applied some technobabble reinforcing techniques - which we know do exist as I believe there was a city built around structures of toughened up ice - but I don't recall any mention of that in reference to the alloys used the most.

[Lucky]

There are many parallels to make, some more obvious or elegant than others.

The Tau's weaknesses in 40K as I understand them to be is: raw numbers, no faster then light communication system except sending ships to deliver messages, fewer resources to work with do to fewer planets, and slower faster then light drive then most factions. These are the same supposed weaknesses the UFP would have if it faced the Galactic Empire

Some people just can't stand the idea that bigger is not always better.

Trek doesn't have much of the typical ground warfare because it has really gone on its own road. So there aren't tanks and dropships, mostly due to the insane advantages of teleportation.

I seem to recall Cardassians and Klingons using ACP, IFV, or tanks off screen.

Standard Federation shuttles are already nigh immune to Star Trek small arms, and have resectable firepower. The UFP had unseen troop transports in DS9, and there is the unseen Hopper that could carry up to 70 people.

This being a technology the IoM possesses, but not to the stability and level of mastery routinely displayed by the UFP. However, in essence, it could closer to the Tau's military doctrine as it's quite the epitome of mobile warfare.

Almost everything the UFP fields can easily fly at near the speed of light if not faster.

In truth a tank in Star Trek will likely be a heavily armored and armed shuttles like Federation fighters, and that is what the Tau do as well.

So I wouldn't say that an UFP fan would immediately go for the Tau. If anything, they'd probably find more to draw parallels with in the Eldar.

The Tau are multiple races trying to fight for the greater good, are constantly trying to improve their technology, and would rather be diplomatic. That sounds like the 40K version of the UFP to me.

The Eldar strike me more as a Romulan analog. Powerful, prideful, constantly playing mind games, but now in a state of decline. They will work with other when it suits them, but otherwise want to be left alone.

The Imperium of Man strikes me more as a Cardassian Union or Galactic Empire analog. Rules through fear, can barely hold it's self together, ect.

The appeal of the Tau is the ubiquity of high technology and more "real" looking tech, with armour plating that looks more like modern armour plating, gunships used as Apaches and main weapons firing slugs. Yet in several ways, the Tau share the clunkyness of the Old Republic forces, with their less ridiculous designs : no titans = no AT-ATs, starships which seem less built for the sake of being imposing, like the Executor-class and ever inflating SDs, and overall a seemingly higher efficiency from the clonetroopers compared to the stormtroopers. There's also the same feeling of the ubiquitous high level of technology spread to as many troops as possible (there's no such standard thing as expandable TIEs for clonetroopers, they rather fly a state of the art cousin of the X-wing), although clonetroopers are far less numerous than stormtroopers. However, the presence of Jedi (clerics) within the clone troopers' ranks makes them more similar to the overall mileage you get when Psykers and the Imperial Guard fight together (whenever that happens, probably rarely).

Again I'm seeing the Imperium of Man. It went from the Republic to the Empire. The weapon and vehicle designs even seem to change in a similar fashion I think.
_____
There is also Fire Warrior that shows that the Tau being weaker and such is just game mechanics. One Fire Warrior should be able to nearly take a planet single handedly.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warhamm ... 1H6zRwxGjo

[Mr. Oragahn]

Again I'm seeing the Imperium of Man. It went from the Republic to the Empire. The weapon and vehicle designs even seem to change in a similar fashion I think.

I believe it's not as one sided as you make it be, but we don't have to agree.

There is also Fire Warrior that shows that the Tau being weaker and such is just game mechanics. One Fire Warrior should be able to nearly take a planet single handedly.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warhamm ... 1H6zRwxGjo

If in the game you can take on a whole planet, well, fine. In "real", that wouldn't happen. :)

[Lucky]

I believe it's not as one sided as you make it be, but we don't have to agree.

I seem to recall seeing miniatures for older ships in 40K that have more practical designs then the "modern" Imperium of Man. It seemed like style became more important then substance after a certain point like it did when the Republic became the Empire in Star Wars.

If in the game you can take on a whole planet, well, fine. In "real", that wouldn't happen. :)

That is clearly nothing more the Imperial propaganda. The truth about how powerful the Tau are would destroy them.^_^

The Game "Fire Warrior" could be said to be Halo done in 40K. A lone rookie fire warrior first fights the Imperial guard, then space marines, next Word Bearers, and then finally defeats the daemon Tarkh'ax. Even the versions that say that Shas'la T'au Kais didn't do it alone, still say he only had the backup of Captain Ardias and a Crisis suit team.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Tarkh'ax#.T1VgahwxGjo
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/La'Kais#.T1VeVhwxGjo