# Fighting in the 41st Milleniun



## Supersonic Banana (Jul 23, 2010)

I've always wondered why when the imperium wants to destroy an enemy it deploys the 'angels of death' instead of just screaming:
"NUKE THE BASTARDS!"

Just a thought:victory:


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Because they're trying to retake a world not destroy it, if they wanted to destroy a planet the Imperium has got better weapons than nukes to do so.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

"Neutron bomb those bastards!" Would be more effective.


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## Davidicus 40k (Jun 4, 2010)

Oh, I thought this was going to be one of those "why don't Imperial troops just shoot everything with super techy guns? I mean, this IS 38,000 years in the future, why do they even have swords and stuff like from the Middle Ages LOL!?" questions.

Baron answered nicely. Nukes are lame in WAR40k, Krieg was engulfed in 500 years of atomic war and it survived (more or less). There are much shinier and more destructive weapons.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Just had a thought- when America decides it wants to destroy why don't they just nuke the buggers? If you can answer that you can probably answer why the Imperium doesn't.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Because the rest of you people would throw a shit fit if we glassed Iraq. Lol We don’t do what we do simply to kill, we do it because we are honestly trying to help people or defend ourselves. When we went into Iraq we wanted to take down a credible threat, or what we and most of the world thought was a credible threat, and help the people there by creating a stable government. But that’s a different story.


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## Loki1416 (Apr 20, 2010)

Me thinks this thread needs to get back on topic or we're going to have a debate on war/politics/what is right and wrong.
And to answer the original question, if they want to kill an entire planet they just declare "Exterminatus"(SP). It's a bomb that turns all matter into a gas, then they throw in some bombs that light the gas turning the whole planet into a HUGE firestorm. All it leaves is bare rock and ash, there's nothing left. It pretty much makes the entire planet useless. 
I'm sure that they could re-culture the planet eventually, make the plants grow again/bring some in, bring the people to live there, basically turn it into a living planet again. But it's deff not something that is going to happen over night after an attack like that. 
Now they DO use this attack, but it's not something that is thrown down lightly. I belive (and I may be wrong here) that only an Inquisitor can order the attack. But it has to be for something HUGE, like a hive fleet taking over a planet.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

An inquisitor, a high ranking imperial military commander, a chapter master(maybe), or a high lord.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Well, I'll not comment much on glassing Iraq. This is a gaming forum, a gaming subject, though you do make a valid point about us not glassing others. It's simple. Nukes remove viable habitable zones. The radiation in the immediate zone won't diminish to habitable ranges for 25-100 years post detonation, and the fallout can kill many unintended civilians. The Imperium values its property, and people are, by far, the most valuable commodity the Imperium has... as a whole, of course, individual humans are worth about $0.0005 Imperial Navy, for example, doesn't think Imperial Guardsmen are worth much even that much =P

Nuking means area denial, and usually infrastructure damage that makes hives worthless slag heaps. The Imperium doesn't do this frequently in part because it is more often than not fighting on its own worlds, fighting against raiders, pirates and enslavers who come not to exterminate the population, but to steal souls for Chaos, their Archon or to sabotage Imperial efforts...

Admittedly, the Imperium does quite often blast targets from orbit, but this is more often with orbital bombardments for precision targets, not utter annihilation. A lance strike might be directed at a wall, tank battallion or some other worthwhile expenditure of battery power, but to outright drop extermination on a large scale is a bit much.

On the subject of weapons of the Imperium, they do utilize thermonuclear technology to an extent, but not in the way we could today. Plasma guns fire what is more or less an airborne fusion plasma ball. Sort of a blast of sun. Meltaguns fire a microwave-powered beam of fusion energy capable of cutting through almost anything natural or manmade. Meltabombs once again use a blast of microwave energy to supercharge hydrogen, and force it to go into a fusion reaction, which causes a bright, dazzling light and can incinerate the insides of tanks in milliseconds (BRB says so). Melta torpedoes are oversized meltabombs, which may be fired from orbit, and in most situations qualify as "nuking the site from orbit"...

On a much larger scale, in Nightbringer, Uriel Ventris calls down an orbital bombardment from the Bombard cannons aboard the Ultramarines strike cruiser in orbit. These massive cannons lob what the author terms as "magma bombs" onto the planet's surface. Magma bombs do some serious hurt, glassing entire city blocks with each blast. I would guess they equate to 5-10KT blasts, but as they're strictly hydrogen fusion reactions, none of these weapons leave behind the telltale fallout and ground-zero radiation patterns.

But, to the point of it, real nukes (not microwave-triggered hydrogen bombs) are unrealistic, as their fuel might expire before they are needed, and in the 41st millenium, who knows, Uranium and Plutonium might not even be readily available.

Also, there's far more efficient uses of the Imperium's arsenal space. A single warhead can kill all life on a planet, and turn it into a potential fireball. Virus bombs carry an engineered virus (molecular sized robots, which act like a virus perhaps), called the flesh eater. It simply attacks biomass and turns it into a gasoline-like substance. It's a bit hard to mop up the mess, as the virus tends to eat through anything organic in origin (rubber seals, wood, ocean life), and sending a thunderhawk or drop pod into the pyrotechnic sewage once the virus dies off (it eats itself after a while) would be suicide, as the heat from a drop pod's re-entry would spark the fumes before the pod even landed.

Cyclonic warheads, Vortex missiles and Seismic weapons of various sorts have also been included in exterminations.

One last note on nukes. If you're dead set on a fluffy use of a nuke to destroy a site from orbit, Imperial Navy flagships sometimes carry what is called a Nova Cannon. It's big, roughly the length of the ship, runs along the undercarriage, and is effectively a 500MT nuke on a railgun. The ship powers massive magnetic rails and vacuums the air from the chamber for the shot. The nuke flies forward at near-light speed, and tends to scatter quite a bit, but if you shot the moon square on, it would turn to dust (the momentum of the bomb could bury it inside the moon, too, making the shot more effective) and if a Nova Cannon ever fired on Earth, we'd have a bigger chunk than Caliban, but that's about it.

EDIT: Virus bombs are one of the few ways the Inquisition can fight the Hive Fleets. Dropping one onto a world that's being consumed can actually infect the hive, if you're lucky, and the engineered virus will work its way up into the ships in orbit that are siphoning off from the planet before the virus is isolated/stopped (their immune system is highly adaptive, what the Imperium needs is HIV - Hive Immunodeficiency Virus - bombs). Virus bomb a world, and you can burn it before the tyranids can feed, which in turn, makes them hungrier as they lost biomass in the fight.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

For every world the Imperium fights for, a thousand are glassed from orbit. Welcome to the 41st millenia boys and girls, it's an ugly place.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> Well, I'll not comment much on glassing Iraq. This is a gaming forum, a gaming subject, though you do make a valid point about us not glassing others.


Hey, he asked. lol


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

gen.ahab said:


> Hey, he asked. lol


True.



Khargoth said:


> For every world the Imperium fights for, a thousand are glassed from orbit. Welcome to the 41st millenia boys and girls, it's an ugly place.


Welcome to Grimdark. Home of the Grimdark. Can I take your Exterminatus order?


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

Ok, planets don't get burned all that often. Lol they arn't totally retarded.


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## Giant Fossil Penguin (Apr 11, 2009)

I don't thinnk the Baron was trying to make any sort of political point. Rather, if I'm right, he's saying we should look at our own history where there has been a conflict between two forces and one has the ability to totally wipe the other out with, seemingly, not too much effort, but instead does it the hard way by sending in troops and hardware. If we can find reasons why this would be a better option for a present day armed force with a nuclear capability, then we probably find the reasons that the Imperium won't just nuke sites from orbit. Reaction of governments/populations of neighbouring planets might be a consideration- if, by nuking one world, you push 4-5 into rebellion, then it mightn't be a good idea, especially if it could be considered that the problem could have been fixed in a different, less terminal, way.
As for the Ground Zero of a nuclear explosion, I think it rather depends on a number of factors as to wether or not the area is rendered uninhabitable. Hiroshima and Nagasaki have both been rebuilt and people live right under where the air-burst happened; if it was a ground-burst, then I imagine there would be a period of time when it is too radioactive to be built on/lived in. Also, how many nukes are popped- more nukes (a full scale war) as opposed to only a few, scattered ones (a spasm war).

GFP


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)

I know what he was saying but I felt asthough I should get a quick talking point in there to defend my boys, nothing more. Lol excessive application of force would do unnecessary harm to the infrastructure which would undo all efforts made to take the location so it would be counter productive to the goals of the campaign. Something to that effect


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

That's more or less what the Inquisition worries about. They might occasionally exterminate worlds, but they also do everything in their power to bring in the SoB/GK/DW, and deal with the problem in a localized fashion. More often the Ordo Hereticus will launch a fullscale war with a rebellious world and burn half the population in pogroms than simply virus bomb it from space, because the half that's not dead will be faithful, if only out of fear (and surprise, and a fanatical devotion to the pope! NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!)

Quite often, populaces facing such shock and awe tactics (SoB marching through your city blaring their litanies while chasing heretics with flamers... there's something about that smell of napalm that moves the mood of a crowd) will turn on their heretic leaders, realizing the hurt they'll be in for if they don't, and the world will return to a faithful, tithing state, which is what the Inquisition _really_ cares about. So long as the Administratum gets its annual tithe of guardsmen, raw materials and priests, they don't worry too much about "loyal" worlds.

As to planets assaulted from without, like by orks, chaos or Eldar, these worlds often have valuable supplies or large populations (why else would they be attacked) so the Imperium is quick to preserve its property. In the case of Necrons, they usually do nuke the site from orbit, as a tomb world may span the entire planet, and there's nothing you can do about it, other than repeatedly hit the damn tombs with nukes until the necrons stop rematerializing, or until the world is pushed by the repeated blasts from orbit into the nearest star.


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## Supersonic Banana (Jul 23, 2010)

Why don't they do what chaos do with the doomsday devices: "let me sit in that throne or I press this button...":grin:


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

Baron Spikey said:


> Just had a thought- when America decides it wants to destroy why don't they just nuke the buggers? If you can answer that you can probably answer why the Imperium doesn't.


Because Russia.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Vaz said:


> Because Russia.


And you're on the same planet. Mutually Assured Destruction doesn't count for much when you're in orbit.

I know I'm probably invoking Godwin by mentioning this, but Nazi Germany. Thanks to a massive propaganda campaign, gestapo-enforced compliance and a totalitarian government, a lot of people where wholly complicit with the holocaust. It's nasty to say the Imperium isn't much different, but surrounding systems may not protest the virus-bombing of a world for fear of being branded as sympathisers to traitors.


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## Therizza (Jul 29, 2010)

The imperium won't "glass" a forge world because they can't build the damn forges again, right? As in they forgot and have lost the gift of reverse-engineering (because it's heretical and whatnot) 

Also, aren't Deathstrike Missiles nuclear? When I read "vortex-warhead" and "dark age o' technology", I take that to mean a nuclear devise that they have no idea how or why it works.

And do they have nerve-gas on the 41st millennium? I mean, that would be nasty for tyranids and orks, right?

I mean hell, the Adeptus Mechanicus are glorified housekeepers. All they do is dust off titans and keep the joints oiled right? Lol I'm kidding.


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## Tzeen Qhayshek (May 4, 2010)

It is 38,000 years in the future, but you must remember, that there was the Age of Strife, which essentially turned back the technology lock on the Human race.

And now they are afraid of technology because it what "it did."

So there are no super-techy weapons. Hell, they still drive treaded-tanks that are powered by fossil fuels (I think).


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Therizza said:


> The imperium won't "glass" a forge world because they can't build the damn forges again, right? As in they forgot and have lost the gift of reverse-engineering (because it's heretical and whatnot)
> 
> Also, aren't Deathstrike Missiles nuclear? When I read "vortex-warhead" and "dark age o' technology", I take that to mean a nuclear devise that they have no idea how or why it works.
> 
> ...


Vortex technology isn't nuclear, it creates a rip between reality and the warp- akin to the eldar's wraith cannons. It's infinitely more powerful than a nuclear weapon. Yes nerve gas and other biological/chemical weapons probably exist but as there is a limited manner in which to incorporate this into the table top game we don't know much about them


Tzeen Qhayshek said:


> It is 38,000 years in the future, but you must remember, that there was the Age of Strife, which essentially turned back the technology lock on the Human race.
> 
> And now they are afraid of technology because it what "it did."
> 
> So there are no super-techy weapons. Hell, they still drive treaded-tanks that are powered by fossil fuels (I think).


I don't know like I said Vortex weaponry, whilst rare, is still produced and is extremely advanced.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Tzeen Qhayshek said:


> So there are no super-techy weapons. Hell, they still drive treaded-tanks that are powered by fossil fuels (I think).


Actually those tanks are far and away more advanced than anything we have now. You can render down plant matter into a thick tar, and a Rhino will still run on it. They also take highly potent crystallized fuel cells, and anything in between.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

I seem to recall that some power generators use nuclear fuel as well, from space marine back packs to warlord titans, various "reactors" are used to generate electricity that then is used for almost everything else.

Though, now we're getting away from blown glass planets and more into why a forgeworld is protected.

Let's not forget that many Imperial worlds are shrine worlds, or home to important families within the Imperial Navy or Navis Nobilite (the Navigators who make warp travel possible)... So, these worlds will never see Inquisition sanctioned exterminatus, simply because it is unthinkable to abandon shrine worlds, or anger the Navigators.

It's kinda like, in Dune, the world Arakkis (sp?) was so important that almost everyone spent resources to try and control it... because the spice from the planet's sands was what made their deep-space travel possible.

Let's also remember, we're talking about a game where it would be counter productive to "nuke the site from orbit". In various Black Library novels, they do utilize nukes or other space-bound high-powered life-ending devices. It happens quite a lot, so the original question of "why don't they do it?" can be answered with "They do."

But when talking about why it's not done every single time, or why it's not done in game, even in apocalypse scale battles, I think it boils down to the fact that, if every time the Imperium had to fight, it simply cut its losses with orbital nukes, there wouldn't be a battle to fight, wouldn't be a game to play, and the Imperium would be much more sporatic or small...

Though, I could easily write you a homebrew rule for apoc games.... "Nuclear assault", where you both field 5000 points each on a 10ftx5ft table, and each player launches a nuke at the other player's army.

Center of the ordnance blast would be 12" diameter hole inside a 5 foot diameter pieplate. Damage would be resolved at str10 ap1 reroll failed wounds twice inside the hole, reroll failed wounds once outside the hole, ignore cover inside the hole. 3d6 armor penetration and roll a vehicle damage die for every point above the vehicle's armor value to determine the damage inside the hole, 2d6 armor pen outside the hole, roll only once on the vehicle damage chart once penetration has been determined outside the hole. Scatter 5d6", with 2d6" scatter on a bullseye (using the little arrow in the bullseye symbol), and let's not forget the radiation fallout is a 4-foot pieplate that scatters 2d6" each turn, deals out a str4 ap1 (roll 2d6 for armor penetration) hit to every model caught under it, and any unit not killed in the blast suffers a -5 BS modifier, -5 Ld modifier, and -5I modifier, to signify they are blind from the dazzling blast, deaf from the concussive boom and disoriented.


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## joechip (Mar 4, 2010)

I don't understand why alot of people in this thread seem to think nuclear weapons automatically equals an exterminatus. Exterminatus means the obliteration of a world's entire population. You could drop a few nukes while still sparing most of the people. Hell, you could even leave the planets biosphere and infrastructure mostly intact if you dropped the bombs in the right places. As someone already pointed out Krieg survived allot more than a few bombs(more like hundreds) and their still a productive world supplying Guardsmen to the Imperium. When you've got a carpet of Tyranids or Orks that stretches from one side of the horizon to the other and as far back as the eye can see why not drop a nuke or two into their middle or rear ranks to thin them out? It wouldn't be impossible to keep your own forces and cities from being caught in the blast.

Belthazor, you said there are some Black Library novels where they do that? Do you mind giving some examples?


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Kreig is a deathworld shrouded in radioactive clouds. Granted, this is a result of hundreds of years of nuclear wars (deemed a heresy that cost them invasion by the Inquisition), but for the most part, joechip's right that nukes aren't equivalent to exterminatus (projections for a nuclear exchange between US and Russia suggest that humanity would survive, and after centuries rebuild).

First example that comes to mind for use of a tactical nuclear warhead is Storm of Iron. 

An Imperial Guardsman in direct communication with the defending forces accquires the means to reprogram one of the planet's defense torpedoes in order to become an ICBM. The AdMech walks him through the activation rites, the command inputs and rewiring required... when it comes down, the nuke craters one of the outer fortifications that had just fallen to Chaos, ending the day's battle with a second dawn, and devastating the warlord titan the Iron Warriors were using. Granted, this is a last ditch effort by the defenders to stop Chaos, but, it does show that their defensive torpedoes are nukes, which could mean other planets use them for defensive purposes too. It also shows that the use of them on ground forces is possible, although, not likely.


I would imagine that interstellar torpedoes are also nukes, as in BattleFleet Gothic, the torpedoes all seem to have the ability to rend through starships, if they don't get vapourized by defensive turrets. Seeing as the average cruiser is something the size of New York City, it's not unrealistic to expect that you'd need a 15-kiloton bomb to at least disable a ship, if not kill it.

Also, while they don't call it a nuke, in Nightbringer, the Ultramarines use something called a magma bomb. Given they like to rename things we know of, so it sounds archaic, and given how they describe the magma bombs, I'd imagine these to be some kind of 5kt hydrogen bomb (like melta tech). In Warriors of Ultramar, the Imperial Navy fires a nova cannon at the tyranid hive, and the only interpretation I got from the description of it (and from the BFG rulebook's description) is that it's a magnetic-rail gun that fires a Tzar Bomba sized nuke at near-light speed, with the seconds on the boomstick timer calibrated to the distance needed... I thought I'd already mentioned those two books earlier, but maybe I didn't give titles.

Oh well. Since the only one where they actually call it a nuke blast is in Storm of Iron, I can only say that one proves beyond doubt, because who knows? Maybe those magma bombs are just cannon shells the size of a city block, that heat up and bury whatever they hit on re-entry? I'm more inclined to believe they're thermonuclear grenades than to believe they're space-rock ordnance, though.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> In Warriors of Ultramar, the Imperial Navy fires a nova cannon at the tyranid hive, and the only interpretation I got from the description of it (and from the BFG rulebook's description) is that it's a magnetic-rail gun that fires a Tzar Bomba sized nuke at near-light speed, with the seconds on the boomstick timer calibrated to the distance needed... I thought I'd already mentioned those two books earlier, but maybe I didn't give titles.


In Hellforged, the Admech Nova Cannon is somewhat nastier. It uses two massive hemispheres of nuclear material, that are slammed together, and the resulting fission reaction is used to fire _another_ huge chunk of radioactive material as a projectile. A direct hit would compress the projectile enough that a runaway nuclear reaction would occur (a really good hit would result in an explosion) and even if it was a glancing hit, it would often tear through the target ship and contaminate numerous decks with massive levels of radiation.


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## joechip (Mar 4, 2010)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> Kreig is a deathworld shrouded in radioactive clouds. Granted, this is a result of hundreds of years of nuclear wars (deemed a heresy that cost them invasion by the Inquisition), but for the most part, joechip's right that nukes aren't equivalent to exterminatus (projections for a nuclear exchange between US and Russia suggest that humanity would survive, and after centuries rebuild).
> 
> First example that comes to mind for use of a tactical nuclear warhead is Storm of Iron.
> 
> ...


Upon rereading this thread I noticed you did mention two of those books earlier, my bad. I'm still glad that I asked for examples though because you hadn't mentioned the improvised ICBM from Storm of Iron, which sounds completely awesome! I'm still pretty new to Black Library fiction so I'm always looking for examples from the fiction that might point me towards something I'll like.

By the way, I completely understand why there aren't rules for nuclear strikes in the tabletop, even Apocalypse games, but I was a little bit puzzled by them not showing up in Black Library works. Thanks to your examples I feel a little bit better.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Heh. I put the nuke rules earlier out of boredom. Back when I got involved with 40k (8 or 9 years ago), I got the idea to write tabletop nuke rule. The idea was, a space marine with a missile launcher would fire something akin to the pocket nukes from Starship Troopers. While a cool idea to me, it fell flat on its face, when I tried getting others to help me write the rules.

I don't think nukes are the badassery in 40k that they are in the terminator movies (John survives a nuke, in a helicopter, at the start of the movie in the latest one... Sum of All Fears Jack Ryan on replay?)

But, returning to the original post's question, again, the Imperium deploys its angels of death when it wants to teach the heretics a lesson with a more personalized form of death. Saying they should scream "NUKE THE BASTARDS!" sounds an aweful lot like you mean that any potential battlefield should be nuked. The problem is, what happens if the Holy Sepulcher of Our Martyred Lady Amelia on the shrine world Lost Hope V is overtaken by a heretic cult, after they manage to poison all the Adepta Sororitas garrisoning the monastery nearby? What happens when a renegade cult to the true Omnissiah, led by a mad Adept of the Mechanicum (or a necron worshipper), overtakes a manufactorum hive, garrissoning troops in both the manufactorum districts _and_ the hab blocks, taking vital technologies hostage, as well as holding various royal houses as potential servitors if the Imperium won't negotiate or outright leave?

What happens is, if they nuke the Sepulcher, the Imperium sacrifices a holy site worth ten ordinary hive worlds. If they nuke the Manufactorum hive, they lose a crucial piece of technology they will never regain, because it is heresy to reverse engineer from existing fabrication hives to rebuild a lost one, and the original designs and plans have been lost long since the days of the Great Crusade.

Now, when the Angels of Death descend on wings of fire, the very imagery invoked is terrifying. Even moreso, when the drop pods and thunderhawks actually make planetfall, the sight alone can terrify enemies into submission, where after a short trial, they will be executed quickly if they confess their sins, or if they declare righteousness, they will be purified for their heresy by blade, poison and finally fire. Using public spectacle to show an execution can also repress many thoughts for independence, or usurption.

But, I think I'll hang back and let someone else have the soap box for a while.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> What happens when a renegade cult to the true Omnissiah, led by a mad Adept of the Mechanicum (or a necron worshipper), overtakes a manufactorum hive, garrissoning troops in both the manufactorum districts _and_ the hab blocks, taking vital technologies hostage, as well as holding various royal houses as potential servitors if the Imperium won't negotiate or outright leave?
> 
> What happens is, if they nuke the Sepulcher, the Imperium sacrifices a holy site worth ten ordinary hive worlds. If they nuke the Manufactorum hive, they lose a crucial piece of technology they will never regain, because it is heresy to reverse engineer from existing fabrication hives to rebuild a lost one, and the original designs and plans have been lost long since the days of the Great Crusade.
> 
> Now, when the Angels of Death descend on wings of fire, the very imagery invoked is terrifying. Even moreso, when the drop pods and thunderhawks actually make planetfall, the sight alone can terrify enemies into submission, where after a short trial, they will be executed quickly if they confess their sins, or if they declare righteousness, they will be purified for their heresy by blade, poison and finally fire. Using public spectacle to show an execution can also repress many thoughts for independence, or usurption.


Thing is, when there isn't a sepulcher or manufactorum complex being held hostage (and sometimes even then if it's a less vital one), they _do_ obliterate the site from orbit. Plus fission nukes are antiques, nothing says 'cleansing fire' like several tons of fusing hydrogen.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

You mean melta torpedoes?


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Belthazor Aurellius said:


> You mean melta torpedoes?


Not necessarily. Fusion bombs are the norm for orbital bombardment, from what I've read in various 40k novels. Melta weapons are a little more complicated, you'd use those if you wanted to boil an ocean or set fire to a massive area. A fusion weapon would just leave a massive crater.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Hmm. I could have sworn I'd read a Meltabomb entry describing it as a fusion-reaction. Must be the previous SM codex. Which I no longer have... Bugger.

EDIT: The primary difference between Atomic and Thermonuclear bombs is that Atomic bombs work something like a ball of plutonium being shot into a bigger ball of plutonium, while a Thermonuclear bomb works like a ball of Uranium wrapped in C4, set next to a core of plutonium wrapped in various layers of aluminum, polystyreine and lead, though not in that order. Don't ask why the foam, I just know it supposedly amplifies the reflection of energy back into the core... and then these two fission-type devices are lined up with a third chamber, containing compressed deuterium. The end result is that the orb of Uranium goes critical when the C4 blows, the cylinder of plutonium gets compressed in the direction of the heavy hydrogen, amplifying the nuclear energy buildup, and firing it into the hydrogen, which then eats itself up in a massive fusion blast. If the Imperium has mastered getting Hydrogen to do that last bit without the first bits (the plutonium and uranium), then I can see how you wouldn't call fusion bombs nukes, but otherwise, those are just nukes.


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Khargoth said:


> Plus fission nukes are antiques, nothing says 'cleansing fire' like several tons of fusing hydrogen.


When most people say 'nukes' they're referring to fission-type nuclear weapons.



Belthazor Aurellius said:


> If the Imperium has mastered getting Hydrogen to do that last bit without the first bits (the plutonium and uranium), then I can see how  you wouldn't call fusion bombs nukes, but otherwise, those are just nukes.


Considering they have weapons that fire nearly-fusing plasma, and fusion reactions are used as a power source, I'd say so.



Belthazor Aurellius said:


> Hmm. I could have sworn I'd read a Meltabomb entry describing it as a fusion-reaction. Must be the previous SM codex. Which I no longer have... Bugger.


Melta weapons are generally described as using a two-part chemical reaction that breaks down on the molecular level, producing tremendous amounts of heat. If anything they're an incredibly advanced flamethrower.


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## admiraldick (Sep 9, 2008)

i'm not sure there isn't much left unsaid in this thread. however, i would like to re-emphasize the fact that as participants in the 40k background, we gamers have a very narrow field of vision.

because we only concern ourselves with things that make for good games, there are many things that completely pass us by. things like the average day for a mundane citizen in the Imperium, where they are under no specific threat of violence, but have to do the shopping (can you name a super market in the 41st millennium? they must exist though). we never get to see the unimaginably vast distances between planets and sectors (campaigns make different planets seem a mere table away). and we never see the warfare that is quick and decisive, which would make for no fun to play out (which can lead us to believe that all war is carried out at the point of a sword, when a significant amount of it must be air raids and the like).

it also skews our vision in the opposite direction. after all, as the game takes place largely within Imperial battlefields, its unsurprising that the armies we see the most are Imperial. one could be forgiven for thinking that there are more Space Marines than non-Space Marines in the 40kiverse, but that is just an artifice of perception. they are simply the most common thing we run in to. Orks and regular Imperial citizens are still the most populous races in the galaxy, its just that watching them mill about their own lives aimlessly isn't any more entertaining than observing my own life.

think of it this way: the chances are, you don't know anyone in the CIA. which would (rightly) lead you to believe that members of the Agency are relatively rare. however, if you were to become a CIA agent, you would get to know quite a few of them. you would see them in the office, you would go on field work missions with them and you might even see some in the street whilst doing your weekly shop. that would be an enormous increase in the number of CIA agents that you know and see every day, but does it mean that the world is suddenly full of more agents and fewer civilians? or just that your daily experience means that you see 'uncommon' things more commonly than you would if you were not an agent?


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

It's also a psychological phenomena nicknamed the 'Monkeysphere'. We only have the capacity to 'know' about 150 people, and who we know effects our own perceptions on the world.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Khargoth: Are you saying that melta weaponry is more akin to thermite?

Just to point out, it's not all on the molecular level according to C:SM, p98 Meltabomb entry: "Meltabombs are subatomic charge-powered demolitions munitions, capable of melting through even the most heavily armored targets. They are much bulkier than krak grenades, with a more sophisticated detonation mechanism."

Also, in the BRB, p63 Grenades entry: "Specialist tank hunting troops are frequently equipped with krak grenades (a special type of high-explosive grenade designed to stop vehicles in their tracks) or even melta bombs (fusion based charges that can reduce a battle tank to a burnt-out wreck in milliseconds)."

Since my point was that meltabombs were a sort of hand-held nuke, and you suggested otherwise, I'd like to ask what kind of chemical reaction could burn out a tank in milliseconds (Thermite takes perhaps four or five to fully disable a howitzer cannon). Also, assuming melta torpedoes are the same technology as meltabombs but on a much bigger scale, they might be smaller fusion bombs than the ones you're thinking would be used to crater a hive.

Seems we've gone off on a tangent of academia that is moving away from this thread's original purpose. Perhaps we should put up a new thread "Are meltabombs nukes?" =P

More seriously, yes, when people think of nukes, they think of fissionable material in a tactical nuclear warhead. However, as hydrogen bombs are about 25% fission and 975% fusion (yes, 1000% total), I figured we could include them in the discussion of nuking worlds, and that a hydrogen bomb that somehow was triggered by means other than fission (melta bombs must have some kind of microwave emitter that blasts the canister's interior until the deuterium goes boom, assuming it's a hydrogen fusion reaction)... would still qualify as a nuke.

PS: If you want to boil oceans, nukes are good for that too. Although it would take many many (many many many many ad nauseam) thermonuclear (hydrogen/fission-fusion) bombs to boil our whole water supply...


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## Khargoth (Aug 5, 2010)

Lexicanum states "Most melta weapons use highly pressurized pyrum-petrol gases with a two part injection system which forces the gases into a molecular state, which will vaporise just about anything. Unfortunately, due to the high power consumption and range dissipation, the weapon is only effective over very short distances, but anything caught in the blast is likely to be destroyed."
It cites one of the older rulebooks and Codex: Imperial Guard. As usual GW and their lack of unified fluff.

Thermite (whilst very powerful) is a step removed from the potential of melta weapons. The thermite reaction creates free iron, which absorbs a great deal of heat from the reaction. If such an energetic reaction could be created that imparts most of it's energy onto the target it would be tremendously powerful.


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## Belthazor Aurellius (Jan 16, 2009)

Lexicanum cites older fluff, which suggests that older fluff has gone to retcon hell. However, if they are citing the IG codex as well, it's possible that what's happening is that more than one device qualifies as meltabomb. The two-part injection system sounds a lot like an external injection into the air, where oxygen and this pyrum petrol (aerosol napalm?) are sprayed outward (possibly a liquid with similar properties to ammonium nitrate mixed with fuel oil), mixed, and detonated in a localized thermobaric blast. Non-nuclear, but damn effective at opening land raiders.

It also makes sense that meltabombs might vary from the IG to the Adeptus Astartes, as SM get all the nifty gear, and their weapons are a bit different (IG bolt weaponry uses smaller calibers than SM ones). So perhaps, the reason the SM codex infers a subatomic device is that their meltabombs are cooler than guardsmen, but that both have relatively the same effect on tanks.

Although, I'm more inclined to agree that GW simply can't get their story straight.


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