# Marines Operating Unpowered Armour?



## Battman (Nov 2, 2012)

Bit of a weird little quandary here, was thinking along the lines of one of the questions i posed everyone a while back ( http://www.heresy-online.net/forums/showthread.php?t=181434 at this url if your interested to follow up on my train of thought) . In refards to power armour power sources and after watching this ( htgps://youtu.be/83FP3nRKECc )

It leads me to wonder if anyone can remember or has heard of *Marines operating power armour or even the tactical dreadnaught armour* without the assistance of the mechanical enhancements the armour assists the user with such as the muscle like linings of the suits. Has anyone heard of this or read of this at all?

This leads on to if unable to use the armour as per-nomal if the power sorce is damage in some fashion does the marine become entombed within his armour? Or can he manuver enough to remove it? Or is this the main reason marines have the ability to enter a hibernation like sleep so if theyget stuck and turtle someone can pick them up and give them a charge?

That is all.


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## R_Squared (Mar 24, 2013)

I think the weight is only one issue, although it would be a considerable one. Just as an example, I'm guessing here a little, but just one Pauldron could weigh about 30-40 kilos. As a rough conservative estimate the whole suit including the power pack, weapons, ammunition and ancillary equipment could weigh over 200 kilos, probably more.
Mobility beyond moving your arms would be virtually impossible even for someone with enhanced musculature like a SM. If you've ever been in a vehicle when the power assisted steering or brakes have failed, you'd have an idea of what it might be like.
Further the embedded systems that aid movement when it functions could either restrict movement, but most likely would impede it to sone degree.
They could probably manoeuvre enough to get it off, but they certainly wouldn't be fighting in it.


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

There's a few moments in the _Night Lords_ series, notably in _Void Stalker_ when one of the Night Lords' back generator gets shattered by a Thunder Hammer. His life signs cut off before even registering a flatline, so everyone assumes he's dead. Afterwards, it's revealed that he didn't die, just couldn't actually get up so he lay there and hoped the loyalist would think he was dead. I think one of the others gets their armour damaged in the same way, and it's described as suddenly being able to feel the immense weight of the ceramite plates. The comparison to power assisted steering is in my opinion quite accurate; imagine going from driving your car to having to Flintstone it with no power steering. You can still move it, but it doesn't exactly _function_. In the same series, a Terminator describes his suit as becoming slow and sluggish with all the damage it's sustaining as he wades into bolter fire; a similar depiction, in my opinion.


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## CaGeRit (Dec 5, 2015)

Can't recall any accounts, but I'm sure there's a spec list for the various marks of power armor somewhere out there. They should include weights.
Also as an add on thought I'm sure this is techno heresy in the 41st, but a tech priest should be able to remove servos, the backpack and other non-vital systems to lighten standard power armor to the point it could be worn by astartes as standard armor. Would be less taboo in 30k. Useful in prolonged conflicts with units cut off from supply chains.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Theres an instance in Legion of the Damned where one of the Excoriators power packs is damaged and is slowly shutting down so the armor was getting heavier as time passed. He ended up staying behind and dying as a result because he wouldn't have been able to keep up. I can't remember if he said whether or not he'd be able to move when the power pack completely shut off though. I can recall reading a few other instances like that, though I can't remember which books they were from. 

I think i've also read once or twice that a marine was still able to move around in their unpowered armor, but they were very much hindered by it as you might expect. I think, but I'm not entirely positive.


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## Battman (Nov 2, 2012)

R_Squared said:


> Mobility beyond moving your arms would be virtually impossible even for someone with enhanced musculature like a SM. If you've ever been in a vehicle when the power assisted steering or brakes have failed, you'd have an idea of what it might be like.


Certainly a very apt discription i believe, though different in the power steering to the mass of what is basically plate steel armor made from slabs of concrete, the mass alone is much of the problem. 

Another idea that i had for the inquiry was that when unpowered does the armor loose more functionality than just power assisted movement such as allowing air to be past through the filters or do the mechanical peices of the armor themselves hind movement?


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## Nordicus (May 3, 2013)

In "Siege of Castellax" there is a Iron Warrior who is captured by the Orks, where they strip his armor and holds him captive. He escapes and gets his armor back, but it is completly torn apart by the orks, so none of the machinery actually works.

He does make it back, but it is described as cumbersome and unresponsive. It does give him the required protection though, and he certainly is able to use it. He can run from orks, and aim to a certain degree - So i think it more like the old plate mail in medieval time, where you sacrifice movability for protection, when it is not powered up.


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## Tawa (Jan 10, 2010)

Nordicus said:


> In "Siege of Castellax" there is a Iron Warrior who is captured by the Orks, where they strip his armor and holds him captive.


AHA!!! That's the fecker!

I knew I'd read that somewhere and it's been baking my bloody noodle!


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

6 days doesn't count as a necro does it 

In _know no fear_ didn't Meros (the apothecary) run around the star ship with weights 'simulating the weight' of unpowered power armour when he was recovering from his wound? When he ran into the remembrancer for reference
That would imply that they can move around in unpowered armour, and perhaps it was even a part of how a marine trained fitness- implying it was a difficulty at least
Also in _flesh of cretacia_ didn't all the sprockets pop out of Amit's power fist, yet he still managed to biff another astartes a proper one?


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

kiro the avenger! said:


> 6 days doesn't count as a necro does it
> 
> In _know no fear_ didn't Meros (the apothecary) run around the star ship with weights 'simulating the weight' of unpowered power armour when he was recovering from his wound? When he ran into the remembrancer for reference
> That would imply that they can move around in unpowered armour, and perhaps it was even a part of how a marine trained fitness- implying it was a difficulty at least
> Also in _flesh of cretacia_ didn't all the sprockets pop out of Amit's power fist, yet he still managed to biff another astartes a proper one?


Meros would be from Fear to Tread, not Know no Fear


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## kiro the avenger! (Nov 8, 2010)

Of course my bad 
The names are just too similar 


- Kiro


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Also consider the earlier marks of armor. Mark I, thunder armor was just a powered torso and arms. The greaves were powerless.


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## godking (Oct 13, 2013)

A marine without power armour is dead in the water against a competent foe.

In the new novel Pharos Nightlords use weapons specifically designed to deactivate power armour.


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

godking said:


> A marine without power armour is dead in the water against a competent foe.


Not really, even without the armour they are still modified transhumans that can think and react faster, are tougher and stronger, and have additional organs and redundancies to keep going on. Power armour enhances a vast majority of what already make them superior weapons, it doesn't define them wholesale.

Would an unarmoured marine be able to tank bolt rounds? No he would not, but a marine in power armour wouldn't try to do that either.


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## Euphrati (May 24, 2009)

The Night Lord in question in _Void Stalker_ is named Mercutian. He is hit directly in his powerpack by a thunderhammer (causing it to explode and sending him to the decking for a time), but is able to stand and move after the fact with the note-

'... Without power, his armour was almost useless, adding nothing to his strength or reflexes. The joints didn't whirr, and the backpack didn't hum.' 
(I'd give a page number but apparently my ebook copy is disinclined to provide me with one at this time).

It is also pointed out shortly after the above quote that Mercutian also is no longer tied to any vox and/or squad uplinks so he removes his helm to communicate with his brothers as the slowly make their way through their ship, indicating that he is able to move in armour that is totally devoid of power as well as heavily damaged.

Movement in damaged/deactivated standard power armour is possible though not the most elegant of things, however, I recall reading at some point that it is all but impossible to move in unpowered terminator armour due to the sheer weight and size of the plating. Note that when I say 'all but impossible' that does not mean that you won't find some mention of a champion astartes being able to force his terminator armour to move through sheer stubborn strength and willpower.


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