The Galactic Empire vs the Imperium of Man

[Executor]

Possibly the two most overpowered sci-fi races ever. I'm surprised that no one has pitted them against each other yet. If the Imperium of Man, before the Horus Heresy, with the God-Emperor to lead them, were to make war against the Galactic Empire, at the height of their power, who would come out triumphant? Both have enormous, multi-kilometre ships, extremely high-powered weapons, vast numbers and powerful psionic/Force-adept leaders.

My bets are on the Imperium, but that's due to their immense badass factor. Who do you people think will win in this clash of titans? Both galaxy-spanning empires are throwing their full weight at each other, both devoting every possible resource to beating each other. Who will come out triumphant?

[LordVader]

The Empire has a massive speed advantage, but they're hamstringed by the fact that if they go toe-to-toe with any heavily defended worlds, which most are, they can't win.

Also, although their nuclear-yield turbolasers will wreak havoc on 40k ships, the Imperium uses massive cannon shells, which will not be deflected by ray shields and will have much the same effect as the asteroid wiping out the SD in Episode V. So space combat is even.

On ground, it's no contest. Space Marines and sheer numbers of Guardsmen rip stormtroopers to shreds. Titans annihilate any heavy vehicles.

And if the Imperium ships can get close enough to initiate boarding, it's all over for the Empire as well, they're simply not as adept at close-range combat.

And not before the Horus Heresy, but after. The Imperium didn't exist before the Horus Heresy, and all it had were Marines.

[Swordguy]

As much as I really, really hate supporting anything from GW, it'd certainly be the Imperium. The size factor, if nothing else, carries the day.

The Empire has what, a few fleets of 1000+ ships each? (Han: It'd take a starfleet with more firepower than I've ever...[to blow up Alderaan]")

For the Imperium, a thousand ships is a task force (source: BattleFleet Gothic rulebook). A fleet gets about 10-30 task forces large. There are several dozen fleets...

A legion of Palpatine's best troops is what? A few thousand on Endor? And he implies that a Legion is a big number (note that he emphasizes the word "entire").

For the Imperium to take back a single world, they've been known to use armies in the millions, plus hundreds of ships, plus hundreds of Space Marines (which, while a powergamer's wet dream, are seriously impressive fighting troops).

And the Empire has what? MAYBE a dozen Force-users that fight (and then only if you look at the fanboy-centric EU)? How many crazy-powerful psykers does the Imperium have? Enough to sacrifice thousands every day to feed the Emperor (source: Inquisitor rulebook).

How powerful is a turbolaser? Enough to blow up a snubfighter, not enough to blow up much more (mass-wise). How powerful are Imperial Naval Lances? Powerful enough to create a 3-mile-wide crater in what was previously a full-fledged mountain. (source: Faith and Fire [I think - it's the Sisters of Batle novel]).

The SOLE advantage I can think of for the GE is their communication and hyperdrive speeds. Unfortunately, we don't know how that interacts with the Warp, or what kind of performance the Imperium Ships would get if they didn't have to deal with the Warp at all...

The Imperium wipes the floor with the Galactic Empire, no question.

[Executor]

Fine then, the Imperium is after the Horus Heresy. The Emperor of Mankind is confined to his huge fancy life-support machine. How are you sure that Imperium guns hit with asteroid-level power? The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs is estimated to have the power of a couple million Hiroshima bombs. Can the shells of the Imperium do that kind of damage?

One thing i'd like to know is how Ceramite armour would stand up to blaster bolts.

Swordguy: According to the mega-nerds over at stardestroyer.net, the heavy cannons on an Acclamator (some form of troop transport/assault ship) hit with 200 gigatons of energy per shot. The power level of dedicated warships like Star Destroyers would presumably be much higher.

[Talkkno]

....and will have much the same effect as the asteroid wiping out the SD in Episode V. So space combat is even.



Err... particle shields?

[LordVader]

No, the asteroid that hit the bridge of the Star Destroyers was probably 5% the size of the Star Destroyer, which is how large 40k cannon shells are, and they're packed with explosives.:smallcool:

I estimate the statline and equipment of SW Imperial Stormtroopers to that of 40k Stormtroopers. Blasters=Hellguns, ST armor=Carapace Armor. Blasters'll just ricochet off of ceramite.

And I know they have particle shields, but they're low-power and weak, as evidenced by that asteroid hit.

[Talkkno]

The Empire has what, a few fleets of 1000+ ships each? (Han: It'd take a starfleet with more firepower than I've ever...[to blow up Alderaan]")
And ya, were talking about a smuggler that has acess to presumbly top secet milltary data. Also Han also did state that the Death Star was a moon when it wasn't...so we can't trust his words too much.
"Okay, if we take take the stated dimensions of a Venator class ISD and scale as is appropriate to get the Imperator Class it works itself out to be roughly 1600x771x100 (we disregard the bridge tower as the actual height of the ship, as its significantly taller than the rest of the ship). Multiply by the area necessary to get the three dimensional volume of such a shape (1/2BxHxH (or 800x771x100)) and you get 61,680,000 M^3 of space. Now then, the DS2 clocks in at a whopping 900 kilometers in diameter. To get its volume (assuming completion) we use R^3(4/3)xPI or 450000^3(4/3) X 3.14... equals out to roughly 3.817035074E17 M^3 of production area. Now, if we multiply that by 60%, the commonly accepted percentage of completion... 2.290221044E17. Now, divide that by the above mentioned 61,680,000... and we get 3,713,069,138 Imperator Class Star Destroyers.

Take that number and divide it by a six month time period (182.5 days) and it equals out to... 20,345,584.32 ISDs per day. Or, if we really want to get nitpicky, 847,732.68 ISDs an hour, 14,128.878 ISDs a minute, or a whopping 235.4813 ISDs per second.

Now, unless my memory has utterly failed me, a GCS is generally assumed to be 1/10th the volume of a ISD, which means that a private shipping company has the ability to crank out what amounts to nearly 2,400 GCS in a single second while using discrete shipments of raw materials."

[Talkkno]

No, the asteroid that hit the bridge of the Star Destroyers was probably 5% the size of the Star Destroyer, which is how large 40k cannon shells are, and they're packed with explosives.:smallcool:

I estimate the statline and equipment of SW Imperial Stormtroopers to that of 40k Stormtroopers. Blasters=Hellguns, ST armor=Carapace Armor. Blasters'll just ricochet off of ceramite.

And I know they have particle shields, but they're low-power and weak, as evidenced by that asteroid hit.
..the novel states shields were down so they could have a holo net conference...

[LordVader]

Except it's been stated the Fleet was 25,000 SDs plus the numerous support ships, most definitely in hundreds of thousands. So that doesn't work for some reason.:smalltongue:

And I remember reading in at least one place that while ray shields are strong and raised for combat, particle shields are weaker and intended to deflect mostly debris. So they'd hold up for a couple hits, but then collapse, and the same thing happens.

[Executor]

How do ray shields interact with physical objects anyways? I know that in Ep. III, General Grievous trapped Obiwan and Anakin in a ray shield barrier while they were on his ship, and they didn't seem prone to go anywhere. I think we can safely presume that the ray shields on a starship of Star Destroyer size would be much stronger than these personal containment shields. Perhaps the Star Destroyer that was wiped out by the asteroid in the movie didn't have ray shields raised as it was not a combat situation? Maybe raising the proper combat shields would've protected it more properly.

[Talkkno]

Except it's been stated the Fleet was 25,000 SDs plus the numerous support ships, most definitely in hundreds of thousands. So that doesn't work for some reason.:smalltongue:.

Perhaps, because they don't spend a large part of there budget on there military? I mean all they got to fight are a couple of insurgents...

[Swordguy]

And ya, were talking about a smuggler that has acess to presumbly top secet milltary data. Also Han also did state that the Death Star was a moon when it wasn't...so we can't trust his words too much.

*Smack!*

Han went to one of the Imperial Military Acadamies, remember? He's in a perfect position to know, or at least have bloody accurate guess.

Also, ship-size-wise: a Sword-class Frigate of the Imperium is about 12 kilometers long (source: Eisenhorn trilogy). A Lunar-class cruiser is about 20 times the size of a Sword (source: BFG rulebook).

As per gun power stats, cite from the Turbolaser Commentaries, not stardestroyer.net. It's a biased source. (Granted, not all that biased, and I fall on the SW side of the ST vs SW debate, but the author has severely overstated some stuff in the past). That aside, yes, the guns on Imperial ships are gargamungous. Lances really do do that. The crew of ONE LANCE TURRET is 3000 men (source: BFG rulebook). ONE LANCE is considered a city-killer. There's an image in the BFG rulebook of a missile being fitted in a tube: the missile is well over a hundred feet long.

Stuff in the Imperium is simply on a cyclopian scale, including the military and thier power scale.

[Talkkno]

Does the empire get any superweapons or lost techongly like Dark troopers?

[Swordguy]

Perhaps, because they don't spend a large part of there budget on there military? I mean all they got to fight are a couple of insurgents...

1 million or so clones was considered a huge force by SW standards. Really, in 40K, it takes million people to screw in a light bulb, to say nothing about taking a planet. (Of course, those million people promptly get killed by the Inquisition for having the knowledge of light-bulb-screwing-in, but that's another argument entirely).

The 3rd Battle of Armageddon (a planet) had over 300 million combatants between the Orks and Humans, and it only mildly taxed a few sectors of Imperium space for manpower (to be fair, it almost denuded the sector of space in which the planet lay, but still)...

[Executor]

Does the empire get any superweapons or lost techongly like Dark troopers?

I guess yes because superweapons were a big part of the overall Imperial scheme for controlling the galaxy. Though, when dealing with the Imperium, i'd say all those resources that into not one but TWO Deathstars would be better used pumping out them ISDs in order to at least swamp the Imperium with numbers.

[LordVader]

How do ray shields interact with physical objects anyways? I know that in Ep. III, General Grievous trapped Obiwan and Anakin in a ray shield barrier while they were on his ship, and they didn't seem prone to go anywhere. I think we can safely presume that the ray shields on a starship of Star Destroyer size would be much stronger than these personal containment shields. Perhaps the Star Destroyer that was wiped out by the asteroid in the movie didn't have ray shields raised as it was not a combat situation? Maybe raising the proper combat shields would've protected it more properly.

Starship ray shields are supposed to be energy-only.

And lances are absolutely massive as well.

[Talkkno]

1 million or so clones was considered a huge force by SW standards. Really, in 40K, it takes million people to screw in a light bulb, to say nothing about taking a planet. (Of course, those million people promptly get killed by the Inquisition for having the knowledge of light-bulb-screwing-in, but that's another argument entirely).

.

....It said "units" and how the hell are million of troopers going to take down quadtrillion of droids which is also canon?

[Executor]

1 million or so clones was considered a huge force by SW standards. Really, in 40K, it takes million people to screw in a light bulb, to say nothing about taking a planet. (Of course, those million people promptly get killed by the Inquisition for having the knowledge of light-bulb-screwing-in, but that's another argument entirely).


And that's another thing. If we discount the Rebellion, then the Galactic Empire seems to be much more internally stable than the Imperium. The Imperials(SW) have no Witchhunters or Inquisitors. They have no problems with Chaos Cults or similar forms of Corruption. They generally don't glass planets on the basis of sedition.

And nobody really knows what that Kaminoan meant when he said "1 million units" Is a unit a single soldier? A squad? A platoon? A company? A regiment? If he meant a million platoons, or regiments, then the numbers for the Clone Army could be up to 30,000,0000 troops. Of course, i've always held the opinion that the Clone Troopers were only the spearhead of the Republic Army, they had enormous reserves of regular soldiers to support them. Similar to the scalpel of the Space Marines and the sledgehammer of the Imperial Guard in the Imperium.

[Talkkno]

I guess yes because superweapons were a big part of the overall Imperial scheme for controlling the galaxy. Though, when dealing with the Imperium, i'd say all those resources that into not one but TWO Deathstars would be better used pumping out them ISDs in order to at least swamp the Imperium with numbers.

Well if the Empire does get superweapons, they can just stuff the galxey gun in highly defend location and let them come at down while there planets are getting blown to peices. And if worst comes to worst, there is always the Centerpoint Station..

[DraPrime]

My opinion? They blow each other up until there's barely anyone left standing.

[Swordguy]

Maybe I'm not making myself clear...

The Imperium is literally so vast as to be beyond human comprehension.

Entire planets, with billions of people on them, get lost because of rounding errors in tax returns.

Entire planets, hive worlds with a population in the hundreds of billions, have been wiped out on the suspicion of heresy, and nobody has noticed or cared. It's not even that they're acceptable losses. It's that a hundred billion people here or there a dozen or more times a year literally makes no difference.

It has been repeated stated that it is impossible for the human mind of even conceive of the numbers of people in the Imperium. It's BIG. It's bigger than anything Lucas or the talentless hacks who expanded the universe since then (Zahn, Salvadore, and Stackpole excepted) have ever conceived of. It's resources are, for all intents and purposes, limitless. The only reason that's there's even a contest between these is that GW has gone into detail about the way the 40K universe works and Lucasfilm has never touched on specific universe sizes in their documents, allowing people to project whatever they want onto the discussion.

[Talkkno]

Entire planets, with billions of people on them, get lost because of rounding errors in tax returns.


It has been repeated stated that it is impossible for the human mind of even conceive of the numbers of people in the Imperium. It's BIG. It's bigger than anything Lucas or the talentless hacks who expanded the universe since then (Zahn, Salvadore, and Stackpole excepted) have ever conceived of. It's resources are, for all intents and purposes, limitless. The only reason that's there's even a contest between these is that GW has gone into detail about the way the 40K universe works and Lucasfilm has never touched on specific universe sizes in their documents, allowing people to project whatever they want onto the discussion.
Well, we know there are 12 million inhabited systems, and presumbly billions of worlds with vauble reasources on them. I already pointed out imperial industrial capticity.

[Swordguy]

Well, we know there are 12 million inhabited systems, and presumbly billions of worlds with vauble reasources on them. I already pointed out imperial industrial capticity.

In the Galactic Empire?

Source?

[Talkkno]

In the Galactic Empire?

Source?

Dark Empire and the star wars saga edition core book.(Which the fluuf is canon.)

[Executor]

I've always wondered just how big the Imperium is. It seems to be a signifigant player in the WH40k universe, you say it's larger than human comprehension. The Galactic Empire, as it's name may imply, rules some 90% of it's galaxy, small dissident factions aside. The Imperium, while vast, shares it's galaxy with Tau, Orks, Chaos, Eldar and Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Necrons, etc. I do, however, think that the Imperium has far greater population density. The Outer Rim of Star Wars is sparsely populated and amounts for a lot of the SW Galaxy.

Don't get me wrong, I to think that the Imperium with it's genetically-engineered super soldiers, rocket-propelled ammo and multi-kilometre warships kicks the Empire's ass up one side of the galaxy and down the other, i'm just playing Devil's Advocate.

[LordVader]

Don't forget the Blackstone Fortresses. 40k has its superweapons too.

And the Imperium can lose hundreds of worlds, and not even notice it. It is MASSIVE.

[Emperor Tippy]

I would say that the Imperium of Man wins, for reasons already stated in this thread.

[Swordguy]

I've always wondered just how big the Imperium is. It seems to be a signifigant player in the WH40k universe, you say it's larger than human comprehension. The Galactic Empire, as it's name may imply, rules some 90% of it's galaxy, small dissident factions aside. The Imperium, while vast, shares it's galaxy with Tau, Orks, Chaos, Eldar and Dark Eldar, Tyranids, Necrons, etc. I do, however, think that the Imperium has far greater population density. The Outer Rim of Star Wars is sparsely populated and amounts for a lot of the SW Galaxy.


Inquisitor Eisenhorn has mentioned "a billion Imperial worlds, and more, stood in danger...".

The trick is that 40K's universe is OUR galaxy. The SW "galaxy far, far away" seems to be much smaller than our own.

(I recall that Bob Brown did a page on it, figuring on the fact that some book mentioned a distance between 2 worlds as X number of Light-years, and giving a travel time between the two (Y days), and another book said that travel across the whole galaxy would take a set amount of time that was Z days with the same ship type. With that data, he plotted the size of the SW galaxy as roughly 1/8th the size of ours. Unfortunately, his pages went down in 2003, and I can't provide a link...)

Example of the above (NOT CANON - JUST AN EXAMPLE)
Earth is 10 LY from Alderaan
It takes 2 days to travel from Earth to Alderaan.
Therefore travel time is 5 LY/day.
If it takes 8 weeks to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other (56 days), the galaxy is roughly(56 days x 5 LY=280 LYs) across.

That's the type of math he used.

[Talkkno]

The trick is that 40K's universe is OUR galaxy. The SW "galaxy far, far away" seems to be much smaller than our own.

.

Only about 30k lightyears smaller, give or take a few hundred. According to wookiepedia it is about 120,000 lightyears across.

[Swordguy]

Only about 30k lightyears smaller, give or take a few hundred. According to wookiepedia it is about 120,000 lightyears across.

Figure that out for volume. Figure they're the same depth, and figure the respective volumes of the cylinders.

[Executor]

Perhaps we can just agree that both empires are fairly enormous in scope and get right down to the military factors that would decide this war.

So, Stormtroopers vs Imperial Guards, who wins?

[Talkkno]

Perhaps we can just agree that both empires are fairly enormous in scope and get right down to the military factors that would decide this war.

So, Stormtroopers vs Imperial Guards, who wins?

I'm going to have to say stormtroopers, the basic grunt of the Imperial Guard doesn't seem to wear much in armor and lacks NBC protection IRRC.

[Swordguy]

Perhaps we can just agree that both empires are fairly enormous in scope and get right down to the military factors that would decide this war.

So, Stormtroopers vs Imperial Guards, who wins?

IG can hit. Stormtroopers can't. Heck, IG stormtroopers out-stormtrooper the stormstroopers. :smallbiggrin:

IG armor stops 1/3rd of the shots that hit it (5+ save) as long as those shots aren't too massive. Since both sides have primarily lasguns, the shots are NOT in fact too massive. When was the last time we saw stormtrooper armor stop anything bigger than an ewok club?

AT-ST's and Leman Russes work out pretty evenly.

AT-AT's loose HARD to any given Titan.

Imperial Officers vs. Commissars? Please.

Dark Jedi? Sure, there's what? A hundred tops? There's hundreds of thousands of Space Marines, and plenty of them are psykers. Plus Inquisitors (whom I'm sure would LOVE to get their hands on a Jedi-type...).

[Talkkno]

IG can hit. Stormtroopers can't. Heck, IG stormtroopers out-stormtrooper the stormstroopers. :smallbiggrin:



Disregarding that...

Anyways, AT-AT's aren't supposed to the equivelent to tanks or some such, there are merely APCs.
I'm thinking Dark troopers are what you are thinking when it comes to Space Marines.
3 Dark troopers were able to take out a crew on a decent sized cap ship that is supposed to have a crew in the thousands.

[Executor]

Ah yes, and now we come to the much-lauded Stormtrooper Effect. If you remember the beginning of ANH, the Stormtroopers seemed to carve their way through the marines of the Tantive IV fairly quickly. I believe the explanation for the Stormtroopers awful hitting statistics against characters such as Luke or Han is one of two things.

A. Plot Armour
B. The STs were on orders to let the heroes go so as to work into the schemes of Vader or Palpatine or someone like that.

Take you pick. In any case, I think Stormtroopers are somewhat middle-range infantry by 40k standards. Better than Imperial Guard, not quite as good as Space Marines.

Also, in terms of equipment, Stormtrooper armour both disperses the energy of blaster bolts and offers full NBC protection. I don't know how the E-11 compares to lasguns, but in terms of armour the STs seem to have an advantage.

And yes, the meeting of an Inquisitor and a Jedi would be MOST interesting.

[Eita]

And not before the Horus Heresy, but after. The Imperium didn't exist before the Horus Heresy, and all it had were Marines.

Don't no if anyone bothered to fix this, but meh.

WRONG.

Well, partly wrong.

True, it wasn't called the Imperium yet. However, at the Emperor's beck and call were the forces of the Imperial Army. A combination of the Guard and Navy.

[Swordguy]

Ah yes, and now we come to the much-lauded Stormtrooper Effect. If you remember the beginning of ANH, the Stormtroopers seemed to carve their way through the marines of the Tantive IV fairly quickly. I believe the explanation for the Stormtroopers awful hitting statistics against characters such as Luke or Han is one of two things.

A. Plot Armour
B. The STs were on orders to let the heroes go so as to work into the schemes of Vader or Palpatine or someone like that.


Fair enough. I was kinda trying to make a joke, but hey. Disregarding the ST FX for the remainder of the discussion. *shrug*



Take you pick. In any case, I think Stormtroopers are somewhat middle-range infantry by 40k standards. Better than Imperial Guard, not quite as good as Space Marines.


Problem here is that IG varies a WHOLE BLOODY LOT in quality. There are millions of massively elite reigments (Mordians, Praetorians, Cadians, Tanith) and there are millions of gutter-scum given a uniform and a gun. It's tough to say, really. I'd give any of the Cadians (for example) even-odds at worst against stormtroopers in terms of training and combat effectiveness (assuming they aren't up against top-flight protagonists). Their whole planet is on a constant war footing, and everyone (as in 100% of the population) serves a minimum of 20 years after training (training starting at age 5, finishes at 17-ish) (source: Eisenhorn Trilogy)

Also, aren't there supposed to be regular Imperial Army troopers that suck whole lot more than STs? Shouldn't we be comparing the Imperial Army to the IG, and STs to Space Marines?

As for the armor, I know what it's supposed to do. ST armor, however, doesn't do that. Laser rounds go right through it. At BEST, I'd rate it even with the IG flak armor (which, again, has a 1/3 chance of stopping any given lasround).

I am assuming that E-11's and lasguns are about the same overall. They're both "laser rifles" and we don't have reliable hard data on either of them. It's a nice baseline for comparison.



And yes, the meeting of an Inquisitor and a Jedi would be MOST interesting.

Absolutely yes. In fact, I'd love to see that as a short film...

Anyway, I'll have to continue tomorrow while I'm supposed to be working. Night!

[Xefas]

I'd like to cast a vote for the Imperium of Man.

It'd be like a single Fighter trying to reduce the Earth to 0 HP with his Longsword. Eventually he'd die of old age, or the Earth will become slightly annoyed and hit him with a tsunami, accidentally annhilating him and whatever country he happens to be on at the time.

Such is fighting the Imperium.

[Eita]

AT-ST's and Leman Russes work out pretty evenly.

No. Just no. AT-ST's were taken out by logs. Leman Russes on the other hand, have shown far greater durability. A las-pistol could probably get through AT-ST armor.

[sikyon]

Star wars fluff "cannon" really has many levels. So what are we talking here?

See, in star wars the fluff in books constantly contradicts what's in movies (which override the books). Frankly, star wars has poor continuity.

On the ground star wars gets owned. There's a scene in episode 6 where a blaster boltgrazes leia's arm and it just gives her a flesh wound. http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWblaster.htmlLasguns will blow off limbs. Space marines... hoo boy. Better than anything the empire has to offer in terms of infantry. Getting close to jedi in reflexes, judging from the movies (though jedi power lies in foresight, not reflexes per se). Also, marines fight power weapon weilding opponents all the time, with higher strength and probably better weapon skill than jedi too. Titans are massive.

Also, I really don't buy into rediculously powerful turbolasers. http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvapetown.html
This is considering that the novellization of the movies are a higher cannon than extended universe novels (makes sense to me).

Speed in the empire isn't as fast as some would like to imagine, or the books would like to present, if you only work off the movies http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWhyperspeed.html

The Imperium of man is just too powerful, frankley. Thousands of worlds, ships, ect.

However, I do not buy the thousands upon thousands of ships figure for 40k. I would wager that this number includes very small transport classes. Why? In all major engaments that I have read about, I have never seen a thousand strong captial ship fleet emerge (talking emperor class here). Example: Damocles crusade had a few capital ships and a few cruisers, adding up to around a dozen if I remember correctly. Granted, it may have been a smaller force but you get the idea. But 40k capital ships own, hard. Also, ranges in star wars appear to actually be very small, small enough for boarding pods (auto win).

Also, emperor pre heresy is litterally god mode on.

[Talkkno]

Star wars fluff "cannon" really has many levels. So what are we talking here?

See, in star wars the fluff in books constantly contradicts what's in movies (which override the books). Frankly, star wars has poor continuity.

On the ground star wars gets owned. There's a scene in episode 6 where a blaster boltgrazes leia's arm and it just gives her a flesh wound. http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWblaster.htmlLasguns will blow off limbs. Space marines... hoo boy. Better than anything the empire has to offer in terms of infantry. Getting close to jedi in reflexes, judging from the movies (though jedi power lies in foresight, not reflexes per se). Also, marines fight power weapon weilding opponents all the time, with higher strength and probably better weapon skill than jedi too. Titans are massive.

Also, I really don't buy into rediculously powerful turbolasers. http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWvapetown.html
This is considering that the novellization of the movies are a higher cannon than extended universe novels (makes sense to me).







The Clone wars ICS states a mere transport ship's heavy guns sport 200 gigatons, while its point defense goes up about 6 megatons. Keep in mind these are written by a astrophysicist.

[Talkkno]

On the ground star wars gets owned. There's a scene in episode 6 where a blaster boltgrazes leia's arm and it just gives her a flesh wound. http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWblaster.htmlLasguns will blow off limbs. Space marines... hoo boy. Better than anything the empire has to offer in terms of infantry. Getting close to jedi in reflexes, judging from the movies (though jedi power lies in foresight, not reflexes per se). Also, marines fight power weapon weilding opponents all the time, with higher strength and probably better weapon skill than jedi too. Titans are massive.
AT-AT are APCs damit! Not tanks. What about Dark troopers?





Speed in the empire isn't as fast as some would like to imagine, or the books would like to present, if you only work off the movies http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWhyperspeed.html
There is something called colloquialism; considering in A new hope, the falcon made it a core world from the outer rim in a few hours, and the GFFA is 130k light years arcoss.

[Emperor Tippy]

Thousands of worlds? The Imperium of man numbers in the hundred of millions to billions of worlds category, if not more.

They have something like 300 billion Imperial Guards.

At a hundred million worlds and with 1 capital ship per 2 worlds we are talking 50,000 capital ships. The Imperium of Man Base Delta Zero's a dozen or so of its own worlds each year for heresy and it isn't even news worthy.

They loose worlds and billions of people because of rounding errors in the tax records.

The Imperium of Man is big, grain of sand compared to the Sahara desert big. With each grain of sand representing a world.

[Eita]

The Clone wars ICS states a mere transport ship's heavy guns sport 200 gigatons, while its point defense goes up about 6 megatons. Keep in mind these are written by a astrophysicist.

That's like a dentist saying you need to have your foot cut off.

[Eita]

They have something like 300 billion Imperial Guards.

Actually, more. "Through the strength of his inexhaustible armies." is in fact, not hyperbole. The Imperium has that many troops. Thousands if not millions are thrown away every day for one world among billions.

[Talkkno]

Does the Imperium have the ablity to build droids? I'm pretty the numbers advantedge in a ground battle would be negated by building tons of droids. The CIS had quadtrillions of droids..

[Eita]

They do, but they won't build them. The Imperium distrusts all 'smart' AI after the disastrous end of the Age of Iron. If this is before that however...

[Executor]

No, this is the Imperium as WH40k players have it. When the Emperor is contained to his Golden Throne life support.

And yes, the Empire could negate the Imperium's numeric advantage by building trillions of droids. If the CIS could do so, the Empire could do so as well, but retain it's Stormtrooper Corps as a sort of spearhead unit with droid backing.

Overall, I think the comparison between Imperium and Empire is something like
Stormtroopers - Imperial Guard
Dark Troopers - Space Marines
Emperor's Hands, Dark Jedi, Sith and all that jazz - Pyskers.

[Eita]

If they do build trillions of drones, the Imperium would just up the number of regiments required from each world. Oh, and the Imperial Guard Reserve Force on Ultramar would become active.

[Executor]

Yes, but usually it's quicker to build a droid, pre-programmed with all the neccesary military skills, than train a man to become a decent soldier that can work in a platoon of his fellows. And droids are far more expendable than good soldiers.

[Eita]

True, very true.

However, droids=techno-heresy, and we all know what that leads to. The Tech-Priests of Mars shall increase production on the Forge Worlds and lead various crusades in the name of the Omnishiah (SP). Either that or they'll worship the droids themselves and learn how to make more. But, I doubt that thanks to the whole Iron Men thing.

[Rogue 7]

...So if the droids were that good, how was the Republic's non-drone army (clones I know, but they took what, 10 years to build?) able to match them?

40K wins, through sheer numbers, but the one-to-one comparison isn't too bad. By that I mean one trooper vs. one trooper. Barring Space Marines, of course. Space Marines do bad things to anyone who see them.

[Eita]

And that's not even factoring in the Holy Emperor's Most Holy Inquisition. The Empire should pretty much forget about keeping their secret plans.

Inquisitor > Bothan spy

[Talkkno]

...So if the droids were that good, how was the Republic's non-drone army (clones I know, but they took what, 10 years to build?) able to match them?



Papa palytine delibary weakened the CIS chances from the start, prevetning them from making attacks that would have crippled the Republic.

[Talkkno]

And that's not even factoring in the Holy Emperor's Most Holy Inquisition. The Empire should pretty much forget about keeping their secret plans.

Inquisitor > Bothan spy

Oh its not like the Emperor didnt let them have the plans in the first place...

[Eita]

Oh its not like the Emperor didnt let them have the plans in the first place...

That's just stupid. Why would the Empire let the Rebellion (Jeez. Can't believe I made that error :smalleek: ) have the Death Star plans before they even knew of Luke Skywalker? (Who's existence, admittedly made Vader weaken his own forces.)

[Rogue 7]

Papa palytine delibary weakened the CIS chances from the start, prevetning them from making attacks that would have crippled the Republic.

heh heh...Go for Papa Palpatine! I love that skit- "What the Hell is an Aluminum Falcon?!"

My point is, that only works to a point- Did Sidious really have the level of control to tell the CIS to deliberately undermine their production? I'd hope that he wasn't that controlling- they would have suspected *something*.

[Wizzardman]

Yes, but usually it's quicker to build a droid, pre-programmed with all the neccesary military skills, than train a man to become a decent soldier that can work in a platoon of his fellows. And droids are far more expendable than good soldiers.

[adopts Russian accent]
Ha ha, ha ha, not in Imperium. In Imperium, good soldiers more expendable than lasguns they carry. In Imperium, bridges are built out of soldiers to save metal for making guns. In Imperium, all the soldiers needed have already been training for battle, and are already in transports, waiting to be poured down on enemies' head, while their sons and daughters train at home, waiting for the call to war. You want fight in the shade? The Imperium'll give plenty of dead soldiers to fight under.
[/Russian accent]

The Empire can build as many droids as its capable of producing. By the time those droids are built, Guardsmen will be falling like rain on half the Empire. Its not a question of build time. Its a question of "that many bloody troops."

Additionally, there are four problems with the CIS strategy. Number 1, the droids must not have been that effective, as even if they couldn't hit the right targets at the beginning of the war, they didn't exactly get much better as time went on, and were repeatedly beaten by the more limited numbers of clones.

Number 2, most of the droids are controlled from some central facility, which is a horribly inefficient strategy against the Imperium. Said areas get blasted from space, or Space Marine'd, or etc, and CIS effectiveness is suddenly dramatically reduced. While the Republic didn't have a lot of elite shock troops to toss around, destroying droid control centers in the middle of battle, the Imperium does.

Number 3, the CIS is mostly made up of nonhumans. For the Imperium, nonhumans=xenos scum, and therefore any CIS oriented planets enjoy a nice, pleasant Virus Bombing. This is less of a problem if the Empire uses the droids, but as Palpatine never decided to use those droids (even though the supply of clones were eventually cut off), there has to be a reason why the Empire wouldn't want to use them. Which brings me to number 4:

Number 4--Droids are dumb. Seriously dumb. Even if we ignore plot armor, individual battledroids had the computer intelligence normally reserved for toasters. They can't think of new tactics (thanks to the distant CPU controlling them all), they have trouble adapting to new strategies, and their main advantage is from zerg rush. Whereas the Imperial Guard make a lot of use of trench warfare (something we don't see at all in Star Wars), and are often led by elite soldiers and Commissars who whip their soldiers into a do-and-die fighting frenzy and are actually decent tacticians, and has a fairly nice numbers advantage of its own.

Unfortunately for the Imperium, however, the Empire can create new technologies and weapons of warfare, and actually deploys new weapons at relatively high speed, whereas the Imperium considers it heresy to build a better mousetrap. The Empire may have the advantage in this area.

[factotum]

Example of the above (NOT CANON - JUST AN EXAMPLE)
Earth is 10 LY from Alderaan
It takes 2 days to travel from Earth to Alderaan.
Therefore travel time is 5 LY/day.
If it takes 8 weeks to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other (56 days), the galaxy is roughly(56 days x 5 LY=280 LYs) across.

That's the type of math he used.

While I'm reasonably certain, from everything I've heard about WH40K, the Imperium wins, this line of reasoning just doesn't work. It's shown in numerous sources that the speed of hyperdrive in the Star Wars universe is heavily dependent on local conditions along the route, so you simply can't scale up a small hyperspace journey to a large one and expect to get the right results. If the short journey happens to be through an awkward area (the Kessel black hole region, for example) the ship's top speed would be considerably lower than during a transit through empty space.

[Logic]

I cannot precisely state why the Imperium wins due to it's advantages, but the Galactic Empire loses due to the following disadvantages:

1) Their FTL capability is limited to their own galaxy. Hyperdrive only works because their galaxy has been mapped and the nav-computers contain this information. Assuming both sides are in each others respective galaxies, the Imperium is unlikely to have such a faulty method of FTL travel that they cannot explore other galaxies. Star Wars is self contained by conception.

2) Very poor choices made by the highest ranking officials defeated the Empire pretty swiftly, on a Galactic scale. After the destruction of the 1st Death Star, they commisioned the building of a ship that nearly bankrupted their entire government, not to mention building a second Death Star. (Which, despite the canon value of it being 900 Kilometers in diameter, I doubt it. Every other piece of evidence prior to the setting of that value indicated it was only 50 kilometers bigger than the first.)

3) Stormtrooper accuracy is lower than subpar, it's abysmal. The reason may be clear when Luke said "I can't see a thing in this helmet." Palpatine claimed that "An entire legion of [his] best troops await them" and those very troops were defeated by teddy bears with rocks, sticks & logs.

So, my final verdict: Imperium wins.

[LordVader]

Oh its not like the Emperor didnt let them have the plans in the first place...

Yeah, and we all saw how well that turned out.:smallwink:

Nightmare just gets worse when the Officio Assassinorum shows up. Shapeshifting Calldiuses, Jedi-killing Culexes, sniping Vindicaires, and mass-slaughter Eversors.

[sikyon]

AT-AT are APCs damit! Not tanks. What about Dark troopers?

There is something called colloquialism; considering in A new hope, the falcon made it a core world from the outer rim in a few hours, and the GFFA is 130k light years arcoss.

Dark troopers... I doubt they are a match for marines.

I said if you only take the highest levels of cannon. No direct evidence for the size of that galaxy in the movies, and no direct evidence for the distance between a core and outer rim world.


The Clone wars ICS states a mere transport ship's heavy guns sport 200 gigatons, while its point defense goes up about 6 megatons. Keep in mind these are written by a astrophysicist.

Astrophysicists arn't equal to consistent writers. It's just a marketing ploy. Also, ICS is overriden by what is seen in the movies, regardless of how "cannon" it's called. Just because it's easy doesn't make it right.

[Swordguy]

Now that I'm safely back at work I can continue the discussion... :smallbiggrin:


No. Just no. AT-ST's were taken out by logs. Leman Russes on the other hand, have shown far greater durability. A las-pistol could probably get through AT-ST armor.

D'Oh! You're right. It should by AT-STs are equivalent to IG SENTINELS, not Leman Russes.

In any case, the following comparison should be what we're using (if someone wants to code this and make it pretty, feel free):
Imperium =IGE

Troopers =Imperial Army
??? =Stormtroopers
Space Marines=Dark Troopers
Battle Psykers =???
Inquisitors =Jedi
Sentinel Walker=AT-ST
Leman Russ=???
Basilisk SPA=???
Chimera=AT-AT (since the AT-AT is an APC after all...)
Warhound Titan=???
Imperator Titan=???
Sword-class Frigate=Nebulon-B Frigate
Lunar-class Cruiser=Imperial Star Destroyer (they fill similar roles)
Retribution or Emperor Battleship=Executor-class SSD
Blackstone Fortress=Death Star

[katarl]

The galactic empire would probably lose in a fight against the imperium. But then so would spiderman against superman. Any idiot can create something more powerful, hence dragonball z, but that isn't really the point.

Stormtroopers really can't hit anything, despite ben kenobis words in nh- "only imperial stormtroopers are so precise". Still, theres more than a million of them, although thats nothing compared to what, a thousand million imperial guard?

The technology of the galactic empire is far superior to the imperium, so i'd have to say they'd lose in a ship-to-ship fight, but not on the ground. The psychic powers also lose to the force, they blow themselves up!

The imperium wins through attrition.

[sikyon]

The technology of the galactic empire is far superior to the imperium, so i'd have to say they'd lose in a ship-to-ship fight, but not on the ground. The psychic powers also lose to the force, they blow themselves up!

The imperium wins through attrition.

That's not neccesarily true. Perception is that the imperium is technologically retarded. That's true, because the Imperium doesn't know how it's own tech works. However, they still have holdovers from old tech, which was incredibly advanced. Some imperial weapons are just amazingly powerful.

[Solo]

Why doesn't the Imperuim have good technological innovation again?

[Swordguy]

Why doesn't the Imperuim have good technological innovation again?

Because innovation (change) is an element of Chaos, which the Imperium is diametrically opposed to. Basically, a lot of tech above the level of an internal combustion engine in the Imperium is what we'd call "black box". It's made in automated factories, and people doen't understand why it works, just that it does. Without that knowledge, it's tough to improve on it, yes?

A note: some people do understand it. The knowledge isn't "lost" (well, sometimes it is, but not always), there's a group of people, the Tech-priests, who understand the tech (and worship it). However, the jealously guard the knowledge, because it secures their own power and prestige in the Imperium.

[sikyon]

Because innovation (change) is an element of Chaos, which the Imperium is diametrically opposed to.

A note: some people do understand it. The knowledge isn't "lost" (well, sometimes it is, but not always), there's a group of people, the Tech-priests, who understand the tech (and worship it). However, the jealously guard the knowledge, because it secures their own power and prestige in the Imperium.

That's... not true.

Change is not a manifestation of chaos, chaos draws from change. The Imperium is opposed to Chaos, but not to the underlying principles that power it (violence, pleasure, change, decay), because these principles stem from all sentient beings as a matter of course.

Tech-preists don't even understand what they are doing themselves. They just have complex rituals. Ie. press button 1, then press button 2, say a bunch of command words, dance a jig (not required, but part of the ritual), then press button 3 and Voila! Machine spirit is online! Everything is a black box, and you have to dance before you push a button. This rituatlization has compounded to massive extents, reinforced by the highly religious nature of post-heresy 40k.

Basically, there is technology/engineering, but there is no science (on a grand scale).

[LordVader]

Now that I'm safely back at work I can continue the discussion... :smallbiggrin:



D'Oh! You're right. It should by AT-STs are equivalent to IG SENTINELS, not Leman Russes.

In any case, the following comparison should be what we're using (if someone wants to code this and make it pretty, feel free):
Imperium =IGE

Troopers =Imperial Army
??? =Stormtroopers
Space Marines=Dark Troopers
Battle Psykers =???
Inquisitors =Jedi
Sentinel Walker=AT-ST
Leman Russ=???
Basilisk SPA=???
Chimera=AT-AT (since the AT-AT is an APC after all...)
Warhound Titan=???
Imperator Titan=???
Sword-class Frigate=Nebulon-B Frigate
Lunar-class Cruiser=Imperial Star Destroyer (they fill similar roles)
Retribution or Emperor Battleship=Executor-class SSD
Blackstone Fortress=Death Star



You see, all those ???'s are the reason the Imperium wins. They have no equivalent.

[Swordguy]

That's... not true.

Change is not a manifestation of chaos, chaos draws from change. The Imperium is opposed to Chaos, but not to the underlying principles that power it (violence, pleasure, change, decay), because these principles stem from all sentient beings as a matter of course.

Tech-preists don't even understand what they are doing themselves. They just have complex rituals. Ie. press button 1, then press button 2, say a bunch of command words, dance a jig (not required, but part of the ritual), then press button 3 and Voila! Machine spirit is online! Everything is a black box, and you have to dance before you push a button. This rituatlization has compounded to massive extents, reinforced by the highly religious nature of post-heresy 40k.

Basically, there is technology/engineering, but there is no science (on a grand scale).


Hey, I'm just saying what I've read in a) Inquisitor Rulebook (which has a lot of Adeptus Mechanicus detail), b) Eisenhorn Trilogy, c) Ravenor novels.

The bit about advancement=change=chaos comes straight from Inquisitor Eisenhorn when he's talking to a Tech-Priest. Some Tech-priests (high-ranking ones) do innovate, and to do so they have to understand how it works. The cloak the understanding in a trapping of religion, and it's debatable (mutually contradictory sources) whether the high-ranking TPs actually believe the religion is necessary or a convenient fiction. Certainly they're taught how stuff works as they rise in rank.

You are of course correct in that there are millions upon millions of people who use it as black box tech for every 1 person who understands why something works.

[Swordguy]

You see, all those ???'s are the reason the Imperium wins. They have no equivalent.

There's also the fact that those equivalencies are for roles, not for capabilities.

A Chimera and an AT-AT fill the same battlefield role: armored APC. The AT-AT fills it generally better than the Chimera, because it's so much harder to kill (though the Chimera is faster and lower-profile).

A Lunar Cruiser and an ISD fill the same role: common heavy fleet asset. The Lunar, however, is 100-ish kilometers long, with commesurately-sized weapons. Which means the ISD loses in a gun battle (to say nothing of weapon ranges...Lunar ships have a torpedo range of around an AU). The Lunar's point-defense guns have 10-meter long barrels for Ghu's sake! (source: Last Chancer's novel, vol 1) That's bigger than a turbolaser (not that barrel size means anything necessarily, but it illustrates the scale differential).

An Inquisitor and a Jedi fill the same role: special ops and secret police ("go back to your drinks...Jedi business"). Jedi operate alone or in pairs, have weapons that can cut through anything, and can perform various "impossible" tricks with the Force. Inquisitors operate alone (though with dozens of mundane support and combat staff), have weapons that can cut through anything (read: Force weapons), and can perform various "impossible" tricks with psionics or magic.

it's the capabilities that'll make or break the battle, not necessarily the number of roles filled.

[sikyon]

Hey, I'm just saying what I've read in a) Inquisitor Rulebook (which has a lot of Adeptus Mechanicus detail), b) Eisenhorn Trilogy, c) Ravenor novels.

The bit about advancement=change=chaos comes straight from Inquisitor Eisenhorn when he's talking to a Tech-Priest. Some Tech-priests (high-ranking ones) do innovate, and to do so they have to understand how it works. The cloak the understanding in a trapping of religion, and it's debatable (mutually contradictory sources) whether the high-ranking TPs actually believe the religion is necessary or a convenient fiction. Certainly they're taught how stuff works as they rise in rank.

You are of course correct in that there are millions upon millions of people who use it as black box tech for every 1 person who understands why something works.

Imperial Armor says that in order to create something new, say a new battleship class, people spend hundreds of years piecing together tech found in ancient archives to prove that it originated from an STC design and then get it OK'd from Mars.

Also, they don't understand how it works scientifically, but on a technological level they probably do.

Analogy: You are taught basic circuit design composing of batteries and resistors in high school. You might be taught more advanced circuit design in university, with things like current waveforms and inductors/capacitors. However, without taking a quantum mechanics course you'll never really understand the fundamentals behind the circuit. You can build bigger and bigger circuit boards, but to innovate some sort of new device like a quantum transistor would be an impossible task.

Also, I feel fairly confident that adeptus mechanicus don't know their religion is false. If they did, the Emperor of Mankind wouldn't have had to have been "an aspect of the machine god" to them in order to coorece them to join the imperium. Given that the Emperor of Mankind was heavily opposed to religion, and allowed the reilgion of the adeptus mechaniucs, he most likely believed them (and that's good enough for me).

[Swordguy]

Imperial Armor says that in order to create something new, say a new battleship class, people spend hundreds of years piecing together tech found in ancient archives to prove that it originated from an STC design and then get it OK'd from Mars.
<snip>


Fair enough. Mutually contradicting sources are nothing new. Heck, one could even say it's in the spirit of the Imperium.

And it's not like SW doesn't do the exact same thing.

[Runolfr]

Hmm... let's try answering this without reading everyone else's responses first.

Communications
The Empire has the holonet, which allows real-time communication over interstellar distances. This means they can mobilize resources from all over the galaxy in a very short time.

The Imperium has no real-time communication systems. Prior to the Horus Heresy, with the Emperor alive, their only means of interstellar communication is to send courier ships. This will slow down their mobilization tremendously.

Transportation
Closely related to communications for the Imperium (which doesn't have astro-telepaths in the specified timeframe), warpspace travel is hazardous and travel times from system-to-system vary from days to years, depending on the length of the journey and warpspace phenomena on the flight path. Prior to the Horus Heresy, warpstorms and other hazards are probably less common than in the 41st millenium, but they're still a factor.

The Empire's hyperdrives can complete long interstellar journeys in a matter of hours. This will give the Empire a far superior ability to bring its assets to bear and concentrate force.

Power Supplies
Both sides can generate huge amounts of power, but the Empire has one obnoxious example of power generation that puts the Imperium to shame: the Death Star. This one vessel generates more power than three million suns. It's truly obscene, and it's a testament to the superiority of the Empire's power generating capabilities. It's an extreme example, though, and it may not be possible to scale the mechanism down to the size of their Star Destroyers.

Fleet Assets
The Empire reportedly has thousands of Imperator-class Star Destroyers at its disposal, and it presumably still has many of the older Venator-class and Acclamator-class ships, as well. The most ever seen was at the Battle of Coruscant, where they sky was thick with capital ships. Nevertheless, we only saw a small part of that battle, and the actual scope of the Empire's fleets is difficult to ascertain, since we never saw much of it at once. A typical Star Destroyer is about 1.5 km in length, although larger vessels can be more than 17 km in length, and the afore-mentioned Death Star had a diameter of roughly 160 km.

The Imperium is known to have thousands of warships as well. The fleets small frigates and destroyers are typical 1-2 km in length, with cruisers coming in at around 4-6 km and battleships at 8-10 km.

Obviously both civilizations have the ability to construct massive warships in large numbers. Full fleet strength for each is more difficult to determine.

As noted earlier, however, the Empire will be able to make more effective use of its fleet assets due to its superior propulsion technology.

Surface Assets
The Empire relies primarily on armies of cloned Storm Troopers in combat armor. They appear to have performed extremely well in the Clone Wars. The armor doesn't hold up well to direct hits from blasters, but it appears to be quite effective against adverse environmental conditions and shrapnel from nearby explosions.

In addition to its Storm Trooper armies, the Empire has heavy all-terrain support vehicles and air support. Beyond that, they could potentially produce large quantities of combat droids in a short time if pressed.

The Empire reportedly has access to planetary shields, but their capabilities are largely unknown.

The Imperium has vast armies of the Imperial Guard, who appear to be comparable in effectiveness to Storm Troopers, if less thoroughly armored. The Guard also have heavily armed and armored support vehicles as well as air support.

The Imperium shines, however, in its Space Marines. Genetically engineered for superhuman physical attributes and equipped with the very best weaopns and armor that the Imperium can produce, an individual Space Marine is probably worth hundreds of Imperial Guardsmen. While few in number, Space Marines excel at surgical strikes against critical targets, leaving the Guard to mop up. Space Marines have their own independent fleet assets, armored vehicles, and air support.

Assessment
Speed kills, and the Empire has the best means to get its assets where it wants them, when it wants them, to achieve strategic objectives in a war. While the overall resources of the Imperium may be comparable or even superior, the Empire will be consistently able to outnumber them when and where it counts because of their superior communications and propulsion.

The Death Star is icing on the cake. The Empire can make an entire planet go away if it gives them too much trouble, and it can do so far more efficiently than the Imperium. The Imperium can perform Exterminatus if necessary, but it has to get appropriately equipped ships into low orbit over the target planet, an operation that can be thwarted by enemy fleets. There's very little that even a large fleet of warships could do to keep the Death Star from carrying out its mission, though.

I have to give this one to the Empire, although they would certainly know they'd been in a fight.

[Solo]

Because innovation (change) is an element of Chaos, which the Imperium is diametrically opposed to. Basically, a lot of tech above the level of an internal combustion engine in the Imperium is what we'd call "black box". It's made in automated factories, and people doen't understand why it works, just that it does. Without that knowledge, it's tough to improve on it, yes?

So.. is there any hope for the Imperium? Can things get better or is everyone going to be stuck worshiping Black Boxes?

[Runolfr]

So is there any hope for the Imperium?

If anything, it would be a massive offensive. Try to take out the Empire's government in one blow.

The objective is to achieve once what the Empire can achieve consistently, outnumber and overpower the enemy at a particular time and place. If the Imperium can determine where to find Palpatine at a time when their own forces can be in place, they can send every asset at their disposal in an effort to eliminate him.

This is the sort of mission at which Space Marines excel, but it would still be extremely risky.

[Swordguy]

So.. is there any hope for the Imperium? Can things get better or is everyone going to be stuck worshiping Black Boxes?

GW (Gav Thorpe and Jervis) has said that the universe on it's own would eventually recover and figure things out. However, they've also said that GW will not allow improvement to happen, because that's what keeps the game line going.

So yes, there would be hope, except for Games Workshop's marketing department.

[Swordguy]

If anything, it would be a massive offensive. Try to take out the Empire's government in one blow.

The objective is to achieve once what the Empire can achieve consistently, outnumber and overpower the enemy at a particular time and place. If the Imperium can determine where to find Palpatine at a time when their own forces can be in place, they can send every asset at their disposal in an effort to eliminate him.

This is the sort of mission at which Space Marines excel, but it would still be extremely risky.


Again, someone has vastly underestimated the size of the Imperium's fighting forces. (Though to be fair, you mentioned you hadn't read the thread). Go check out the force numbers we're talking about here. The Galactic Empire has 25,000 ships. A single Imperium Battlefleet has about that many. There are dozens of Battlefleets.

The problem with FTL travel for the Imperium is that the Warp messes everything up. Take away the Warp, and who knows what'll happen? Likewise, put the Empire INTO the Warp, and it'll be ugly.

[warty goblin]

Hmm... let's try answering this without reading everyone else's responses first.

Communications
The Empire has the holonet, which allows real-time communication over interstellar distances. This means they can mobilize resources from all over the galaxy in a very short time.

The Imperium has no real-time communication systems. Prior to the Horus Heresy, with the Emperor alive, their only means of interstellar communication is to send courier ships. This will slow down their mobilization tremendously.

Transportation
Closely related to communications for the Imperium (which doesn't have astro-telepaths in the specified timeframe), warpspace travel is hazardous and travel times from system-to-system vary from days to years, depending on the length of the journey and warpspace phenomena on the flight path. Prior to the Horus Heresy, warpstorms and other hazards are probably less common than in the 41st millenium, but they're still a factor.

The Empire's hyperdrives can complete long interstellar journeys in a matter of hours. This will give the Empire a far superior ability to bring its assets to bear and concentrate force.

Power Supplies
Both sides can generate huge amounts of power, but the Empire has one obnoxious example of power generation that puts the Imperium to shame: the Death Star. This one vessel generates more power than three million suns. It's truly obscene, and it's a testament to the superiority of the Empire's power generating capabilities. It's an extreme example, though, and it may not be possible to scale the mechanism down to the size of their Star Destroyers.

Fleet Assets
The Empire reportedly has thousands of Imperator-class Star Destroyers at its disposal, and it presumably still has many of the older Venator-class and Acclamator-class ships, as well. The most ever seen was at the Battle of Coruscant, where they sky was thick with capital ships. Nevertheless, we only saw a small part of that battle, and the actual scope of the Empire's fleets is difficult to ascertain, since we never saw much of it at once. A typical Star Destroyer is about 1.5 km in length, although larger vessels can be more than 17 km in length, and the afore-mentioned Death Star had a diameter of roughly 160 km.

The Imperium is known to have thousands of warships as well. The fleets small frigates and destroyers are typical 1-2 km in length, with cruisers coming in at around 4-6 km and battleships at 8-10 km.

Obviously both civilizations have the ability to construct massive warships in large numbers. Full fleet strength for each is more difficult to determine.

As noted earlier, however, the Empire will be able to make more effective use of its fleet assets due to its superior propulsion technology.

Surface Assets
The Empire relies primarily on armies of cloned Storm Troopers in combat armor. They appear to have performed extremely well in the Clone Wars. The armor doesn't hold up well to direct hits from blasters, but it appears to be quite effective against adverse environmental conditions and shrapnel from nearby explosions.

In addition to its Storm Trooper armies, the Empire has heavy all-terrain support vehicles and air support. Beyond that, they could potentially produce large quantities of combat droids in a short time if pressed.

The Empire reportedly has access to planetary shields, but their capabilities are largely unknown.

The Imperium has vast armies of the Imperial Guard, who appear to be comparable in effectiveness to Storm Troopers, if less thoroughly armored. The Guard also have heavily armed and armored support vehicles as well as air support.

The Imperium shines, however, in its Space Marines. Genetically engineered for superhuman physical attributes and equipped with the very best weaopns and armor that the Imperium can produce, an individual Space Marine is probably worth hundreds of Imperial Guardsmen. While few in number, Space Marines excel at surgical strikes against critical targets, leaving the Guard to mop up. Space Marines have their own independent fleet assets, armored vehicles, and air support.

Assessment
Speed kills, and the Empire has the best means to get its assets where it wants them, when it wants them, to achieve strategic objectives in a war. While the overall resources of the Imperium may be comparable or even superior, the Empire will be consistently able to outnumber them when and where it counts because of their superior communications and propulsion.

The Death Star is icing on the cake. The Empire can make an entire planet go away if it gives them too much trouble, and it can do so far more efficiently than the Imperium. The Imperium can perform Exterminatus if necessary, but it has to get appropriately equipped ships into low orbit over the target planet, an operation that can be thwarted by enemy fleets. There's very little that even a large fleet of warships could do to keep the Death Star from carrying out its mission, though.

I have to give this one to the Empire, although they would certainly know they'd been in a fight.

Speed and communication I agree with you on, but after that the Galactic Empire is Galactically screwed.

First off, the death star does not have the power output of three million suns- the movies put it at a reactor the power of one sun and the most I've ever seen estimated is five or maybe six. Those pesky million orders of magnitude matter here. Also, the death star is a lousy super weapon, since it's pretty slow, and not really that much more powerful than a fleet of ISDs. And a large fleet of Imperium warships could deal with the death star quite handily- most really powerful ships in WH40K aren't that much smaller (the death star's the size of a small moon right? I'd say a 12 kilometer long battleship also qualifies for "small moon status" although still probably smaller than the death star) and could probably disable the superlaser in a matter of seconds with sustained fire.

Battle droids are gonna be of limited use- they only are a threat with vast numerical superiority, which is hard to get over the Imperium. And a single squad of assault Space Marines is gonna chain-sword their way through battle droids like a chainsaw through styrofoam. Star Wars is short on things like artillery, which the Imperial Guard have pretty much perfected with the Basilisk, and can bombard a target from vast distances with a high degree of effectiveness.

No, this goes to the Imperium hands down. While the Empire might be able to choose its fights, its going win barely any of them, and the ones that they do are going to be at massive costs.

[Runolfr]

First off, the death star does not have the power output of three million suns- the movies put it at a reactor the power of one sun and the most I've ever seen estimated is five or maybe six. Those pesky million orders of magnitude matter here.

The three-million suns estimate comes from Dr. Curtis Saxton, who calculated the amount of energy it would take to scatter the mass of an Earth-like planet at the speed seen in Star Wars and then be ready to fire again within a day. He has a PhD in physics, and he's the author of one of the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections books (the one for Attack of the Clones, I think).


Also, the death star is a lousy super weapon, since it's pretty slow, and not really that much more powerful than a fleet of ISDs.

A fleet of ISDs simply couldn't do what the Death Star does. They could blast the surface into a barren waste, but they couldn't literally blow the planet apart.


And a large fleet of Imperium warships could deal with the death star quite handily- most really powerful ships in WH40K aren't that much smaller (the death star's the size of a small moon right? I'd say a 12 kilometer long battleship also qualifies for "small moon status" although still probably smaller than the death star) and could probably disable the superlaser in a matter of seconds with sustained fire.

The Death Star is well over 100 km in diameter, much larger than any Imperial warship (whether of the Empire or the Imperium). The fact that it can actually propel itself from system to system without ripping itself apart is a monumental engineering achievement.


Battle droids are gonna be of limited use- they only are a threat with vast numerical superiority, which is hard to get over the Imperium.

One TradeFed droid factory was churning out droids at roughly two per second in Attack of the Clones. Droids apparently don't perform as well as live soldiers, but they can be produced in obscene numbers if you've got the raw materials and the manufacturing facilities in place.


And a single squad of assault Space Marines is gonna chain-sword their way through battle droids like a chainsaw through styrofoam. Star Wars is short on things like artillery, which the Imperial Guard have pretty much perfected with the Basilisk, and can bombard a target from vast distances with a high degree of effectiveness.

In episodes I-III we saw a wide variety of support weapons deployed by the Republic and Separatists. There's clearly no shortage of support weapons technology in the Empire.

[Swordguy]

The Death Star well over 100 km in diameter, much larger than any Imperial warship (whether of the Empire or the Imperium). The fact that it can actually propel itself from system to system without ripping itself apart is a monumental engineering achievement.



Wrong. Blackstone Fortresses are a similar size, can do a planet-destroying supergun-thing, and there's six of them.

Look, don't get me wrong here. It's a nasty fight, and both sides are gonna KNOW they've been kissed. But the Imperium simply has more stuff that the Empire can't easily counter at it's disposal, in terms of numbers, ships, resources, psykers, blind unreasoning hatred of anybody that isn't them...

I have to call it about 65/35 in favor of the Imperium. But they're gonna be hurting at the end, unlike any hurting since the Horus Heresy.

[Runolfr]

Wrong. Blackstone Fortresses are a similar size, can do a planet-destroying supergun-thing, and there's six of them.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Blackstone Fortresses are not Imperial warships. They're alien technology that the Imperium never actually controlled, and their existence hadn't even been discovered in the time frame cited in the opening post.

And before it's brought up, the Planet-Killer -- while clearly more powerful than any warship of the Empire -- is also not applicable, because it 1) didn't exist at the time, and 2) never belonged to the Imperium and wasn't built with technology available to them.

[Swordguy]

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Blackstone Fortresses are not Imperial warships. They're alien technology that the Imperium never actually controlled, and their existence hadn't even been discovered in the time frame cited in the opening post.

And before it's brought up, the Planet-Killer -- while clearly more powerful than any warship of the Empire -- is also not applicable, because it 1) didn't exist at the time, and 2) never belonged to the Imperium and wasn't built with technology available to them.

Not talking about Abaddons planet-killer: it's quite clear that that's a Chaos-only ship. But the Imps DID control the BFs. As such, they get to use them.

And, that argument aside, the numbers don't lie. So the Death Star blows up a dozen worlds. So what? More worlds than that die every year anyway.

[Emperor Tippy]

We are all forgetting something.

Psykers

The power the top four grades represents is immense. A high Delta level can read the minds of a good sized town simultaneously, or crush a man to death against a wall in seconds. High grade psykers are extremely powerful, and not to be taken lightly.

An Alpha Plus, however, is a being of grotesque power. They are described in the 4th edition Rulebook as being able to "turn a man inside-out with a glance", "snap a Battle Titan in half with a flick of the wrist", and "a muttered syllable can turn an army upon itself in a frenzy of bloodlust". They are capable of destroying entire worlds - sometimes unintentionally.

The high level Psykers make a Jedi look like crap. And the Imperium sacrifices an incalculable number of them every day. Thousands are killed per month just to power the golden throne.

The Grey Knights are a chapter of space marines in which every member is a Pysker.

[Foeofthelance]

..the novel states shields were down so they could have a holo net conference...

That right there proves the Imperium would win, if the Empire has idiots like that running ships.

"Sir, we've entered the highly dangerous asteriod field to continue the search."

-"Alright, lower the shields then, I need to go make a phone call."

Boom.

Yeah...

[Runolfr]

Not talking about Abaddons planet-killer: it's quite clear that that's a Chaos-only ship. But the Imps DID control the BFs. As such, they get to use them.

And, that argument aside, the numbers don't lie. So the Death Star blows up a dozen worlds. So what? More worlds than that die every year anyway.

As I recall, the Imperium had one, dormant Blackstone Fortress that they used as a space station. Abbadon came along with the device that controlled them and promptly seized it.

The Imperium possessed a Blackstone Fortress, but they never actually controlled it (in the sense that they could use its alien weaponry).

As for the Death Star, strategic use of it could definitely affect the outcome of a war. The Imperium has many planets, but relatively few of them are capable of producing fleet assets. Suppose it swept through the Sol system and took out Earth and Mars; there go the major control centers for the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Death Star doesn't have to destroy a lot of planets if it destroys the right planets. Of course, determining which planets to attack is an entirely separate problem.

[sikyon]

Communications
The Empire has the holonet, which allows real-time communication over interstellar distances. This means they can mobilize resources from all over the galaxy in a very short time.

The Imperium has no real-time communication systems. Prior to the Horus Heresy, with the Emperor alive, their only means of interstellar communication is to send courier ships. This will slow down their mobilization tremendously.

Transportation
Closely related to communications for the Imperium (which doesn't have astro-telepaths in the specified timeframe), warpspace travel is hazardous and travel times from system-to-system vary from days to years, depending on the length of the journey and warpspace phenomena on the flight path. Prior to the Horus Heresy, warpstorms and other hazards are probably less common than in the 41st millenium, but they're still a factor.

The Empire's hyperdrives can complete long interstellar journeys in a matter of hours. This will give the Empire a far superior ability to bring its assets to bear and concentrate force.



Psykers can can ferry information, and I reject your premise on insterstellar travel in SW based on certain movie scences. (I also reject figures made up in books, as movie cannon overrides them). http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWhyperspeed.html

However, I will agree that the empire probably does have an edge in communications.

Also, the timeframe has been upgraded to post-heresy, current day. Also note, pre heresy the emperor of mankind is his own win condition.



Power Supplies
Both sides can generate huge amounts of power, but the Empire has one obnoxious example of power generation that puts the Imperium to shame: the Death Star. This one vessel generates more power than three million suns. It's truly obscene, and it's a testament to the superiority of the Empire's power generating capabilities. It's an extreme example, though, and it may not be possible to scale the mechanism down to the size of their Star Destroyers.

Yes, you are right that blowing apart a planet would need alot of power. However, the novelization of the movie states that the death star is powered by a small, artificial sun. Furthermore, the small artificial sun scaled to the death star reactor size produces... let's just say it's not alot of energy, comparativly (though still a massive amount).

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdeathstarreactor.html



Fleet Assets
The Empire reportedly has thousands of Imperator-class Star Destroyers at its disposal, and it presumably still has many of the older Venator-class and Acclamator-class ships, as well. The most ever seen was at the Battle of Coruscant, where they sky was thick with capital ships. Nevertheless, we only saw a small part of that battle, and the actual scope of the Empire's fleets is difficult to ascertain, since we never saw much of it at once. A typical Star Destroyer is about 1.5 km in length, although larger vessels can be more than 17 km in length, and the afore-mentioned Death Star had a diameter of roughly 160 km.


Ok... Still, the energy presented by standard turbolasers pale in comparison to that of captial ship broadside fire from the Imperium. (see previous posts)



Surface Assets
The Empire relies primarily on armies of cloned Storm Troopers in combat armor. They appear to have performed extremely well in the Clone Wars. The armor doesn't hold up well to direct hits from blasters, but it appears to be quite effective against adverse environmental conditions and shrapnel from nearby explosions.

In addition to its Storm Trooper armies, the Empire has heavy all-terrain support vehicles and air support. Beyond that, they could potentially produce large quantities of combat droids in a short time if pressed.

The Empire reportedly has access to planetary shields, but their capabilities are largely unknown.

The Imperium has vast armies of the Imperial Guard, who appear to be comparable in effectiveness to Storm Troopers, if less thoroughly armored. The Guard also have heavily armed and armored support vehicles as well as air support.

The Imperium shines, however, in its Space Marines. Genetically engineered for superhuman physical attributes and equipped with the very best weaopns and armor that the Imperium can produce, an individual Space Marine is probably worth hundreds of Imperial Guardsmen. While few in number, Space Marines excel at surgical strikes against critical targets, leaving the Guard to mop up. Space Marines have their own independent fleet assets, armored vehicles, and air support.



You're forgetting things like Titans. Which are absolutly massive things. The only thing that rivals them in power are captital ships.



Assessment
Speed kills, and the Empire has the best means to get its assets where it wants them, when it wants them, to achieve strategic objectives in a war. While the overall resources of the Imperium may be comparable or even superior, the Empire will be consistently able to outnumber them when and where it counts because of their superior communications and propulsion.


Communication and propulsion don't mean much when your enemy constantly outguns and outnumbers you, in all important worlds (most worlds are unimportant in the grand scheme of things to the imperium). Take the necrons fighting from 40k. Necrons have speeds far, far in advance of anything in the imperium, and their tech is blisteringly amazing. So they are blisteringly fast (only the eldar are faster, and the eldar are only faster when traveling away from the sun, and the eldar are not nearly as fast with FTL drives), reasonably agile (due to their speed, thus they can turn over longer distances quickly) and incredibly well armed, armoured and stealthed. In a sit down, shoot at each other battle, the Imperium's most powerful capital ship cannot take a Necron Tomb Ship 1v1. They still cannot fight running battles with the Imperial Navy, however, because the Imperial Navy is absolutly massive. Absofreakingloutly massive. The amount of firepower that they can put out can even cripple necron fleets if they charge blindly in.


As I recall, the Imperium had one, dormant Blackstone Fortress that they used as a space station. Abbadon came along with the device that controlled them and promptly seized it.

The Imperium possessed a Blackstone Fortress, but they never actually controlled it (in the sense that they could use its alien weaponry).


Correct, except they had 2 or 3. But they were all destroyed shortly after the gothic war.



As for the Death Star, strategic use of it could definitely affect the outcome of a war. The Imperium has many planets, but relatively few of them are capable of producing fleet assets. Suppose it swept through the Sol system and took out Earth and Mars; there go the major control centers for the Administratum and the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Death Star doesn't have to destroy a lot of planets if it destroys the right planets. Of course, determining which planets to attack is an entirely separate problem.

It would never be able to "sweep through" the sol system. The dark angels fleet, upon returning to their homeworld and finding it had turned, fought a massive battle, suffered huge looses, and literally cracked the planet into fragments through sheer ship based firepower. There's no way the death star stands up to that kind of firepower. It would never get through the mars defense nets, and luna is one of the largest shipyards, if not the largest of the imperium.

Also, you don't need low orbit to exterminus, it just helps prevent interception. It's avaiable generally to members of the inquisition.

The reason the imperium wins so much is because it goes on the offensive too. What if they attack the Star Wars galaxy?

As a final note, you've forgotten boarding parties in ship to ship engagements. Imperial Navy does it all the time. A perfered strategy against necron cruisers/capital ships is to get aboard, quickly plant charges and escape before retaliation. Stormtroopers get owned so hard it's not even funny. Also, storm trooper armor is weak as hell. It get's penetrated by arrows shot by ewoks, and the shoulder sections break when a trooper falls down a hill. Common, seriously people. It doesn't even offer full NBC, there are tons of incidences in the movies where troopers arn't sealed up.


As I said before, just because Incredible Cross Sections are easy, doesn't make them right.

[Elidyr]

The three-million suns estimate comes from Dr. Curtis Saxton, who calculated the amount of energy it would take to scatter the mass of an Earth-like planet at the speed seen in Star Wars and then be ready to fire again within a day. He has a PhD in physics, and he's the author of one of the Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections books (the one for Attack of the Clones, I think).



Hey, I have a degree in engineering, maybe I should find a sci fi universe and make up funny numbers, pack them in a book and people will belive it?

[sikyon]

Hey, I have a degree in engineering, maybe I should find a sci fi universe and make up funny numbers, pack them in a book and people will belive it?

The estimate of planet busting power is reasonably true, if you were to do it the old fashioned way. However, cannon statements contradict that estimate.

[Manticorkscrew]

Hey, I have a degree in engineering, maybe I should find a sci fi universe and make up funny numbers, pack them in a book and people will belive it?

I'm starting to think that's how the Warhammer 40K and Star Wars Universes were originally conceived.

You may be on to a winner, there.

[Swordguy]

I'm starting to think that's how the Warhammer 40K and Star Wars Universes were originally conceived.

You may be on to a winner, there.

That's how ALL sci-fi universes are conceived. The difference is in the consistency of those number, or lack thereof (see also: Star Trek).

[Manticorkscrew]

Ah, touché!

[Executor]

Stormtrooper accuracy is lower than subpar, it's abysmal. The reason may be clear when Luke said "I can't see a thing in this helmet." Palpatine claimed that "An entire legion of [his] best troops await them" and those very troops were defeated by teddy bears with rocks, sticks & logs.


I do not quite agree. It could be that the Stormtrooper helmets are individually calibrated for the eyes of the specific stormtrooper wearing the hlemet, so Luke's helmet wasn't calibrated properly for him. Supporting this is the fact that the eyes in the helmet aren't just simple eye lenses. I believe they are actually a complex hologram system which provides a feed of battlefield information, blocks out brights lights and such thing that could blind the trooper. It also provides targeting info and such.

In reference to the Ewok victory: Think about Vietnam. Like the US soldiers in Vietnam, the Stormtroopers were unfamiliar with the terrain, had unsuitable equipment for the enviromment, inexperienced dealing with that sort of foe, and were lured out into small groups to be destroyed in detail. Basically, the Ewoks are like Star Wars Vietcong.

[sikyon]

I do not quite agree. It could be that the Stormtrooper helmets are individually calibrated for the eyes of the specific stormtrooper wearing the hlemet, so Luke's helmet wasn't calibrated properly for him. Supporting this is the fact that the eyes in the helmet aren't just simple eye lenses. I believe they are actually a complex hologram system which provides a feed of battlefield information, blocks out brights lights and such thing that could blind the trooper. It also provides targeting info and such.

In reference to the Ewok victory: Think about Vietnam. Like the US soldiers in Vietnam, the Stormtroopers were unfamiliar with the terrain, had unsuitable equipment for the enviromment, inexperienced dealing with that sort of foe, and were lured out into small groups to be destroyed in detail. Basically, the Ewoks are like Star Wars Vietcong.

Rebuttle to stormtroope armor, specifically sensors:

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWtrooparmor.html

Part I, section B.

Ewoks:
The stormtrooper armor was penetrated by an arrow, and cracked when a trooper fell down a hill. Enough said, I think.

[Winterwind]

Ewoks:
The stormtrooper armor was penetrated by an arrow, and cracked when a trooper fell down a hill. Enough said, I think.It what?!

Okay, that's just sad.
Is that source canon?

[Executor]

Firstly, ST v SW.com is a very biased site. Much like stardestroyer.net. However Mr. Wong, the man who runs stardestroyer, is an experienced engineer, and the man behind ST v SW is, as far as I can tell, not. Overall, I trust Mr. Wong's math much more.

Besides, we know that Stormtrooper armour is intended to deflect energy and perhaps shraphnel. Not to stop kinetic stuff. Possibly the arrow hit the trooper in a spot previously weakened by other attacks, maybe it hit him in a gap between armour sections. Afterall, there is a Star Wars book in which a new stormtrooper has a javelin flung at him by a DROID with strength far superior to any Ewok, and the armour is barely knicked. Anyways, I still think ST armour is just fine. Maybe the colour choice is a little illogical, but still just fine.

[Eita]

Hmm... let's try answering this without reading everyone else's responses first.


Communications
The Empire has the holonet, which allows real-time communication over interstellar distances. This means they can mobilize resources from all over the galaxy in a very short time.

The Imperium has no real-time communication systems. Prior to the Horus Heresy, with the Emperor alive, their only means of interstellar communication is to send courier ships. This will slow down their mobilization tremendously.

I concede the Imperium's lack of real-time, however, they had astropaths before the Heresy. The reason Magnus the Red turned to Chaos was because he used his one eye to peer into the Warp, seeing Horus's heresy. He then sent a message with sorcerous powers to the Emperor. The Emperor was enraged at Magnus for using his powers instead of sending the message through astropaths. And I feel I have babbled enough, so I shall not finish that story.

Transportation
Closely related to communications for the Imperium (which doesn't have astro-telepaths in the specified timeframe), warpspace travel is hazardous and travel times from system-to-system vary from days to years, depending on the length of the journey and warpspace phenomena on the flight path. Prior to the Horus Heresy, warpstorms and other hazards are probably less common than in the 41st millenium, but they're still a factor.

The Empire's hyperdrives can complete long interstellar journeys in a matter of hours. This will give the Empire a far superior ability to bring its assets to bear and concentrate force.

Granted. However, they DID have astro-paths prior to the Horus Heresy, and, anyways, we're doing this in the forty-first millennia.

Power Supplies
Both sides can generate huge amounts of power, but the Empire has one obnoxious example of power generation that puts the Imperium to shame: the Death Star. This one vessel generates more power than three million suns. It's truly obscene, and it's a testament to the superiority of the Empire's power generating capabilities. It's an extreme example, though, and it may not be possible to scale the mechanism down to the size of their Star Destroyers.

Three million suns? Uh, no. One sun, two at max.

Fleet Assets
The Empire reportedly has thousands of Imperator-class Star Destroyers at its disposal, and it presumably still has many of the older Venator-class and Acclamator-class ships, as well. The most ever seen was at the Battle of Coruscant, where they sky was thick with capital ships. Nevertheless, we only saw a small part of that battle, and the actual scope of the Empire's fleets is difficult to ascertain, since we never saw much of it at once. A typical Star Destroyer is about 1.5 km in length, although larger vessels can be more than 17 km in length, and the afore-mentioned Death Star had a diameter of roughly 160 km.

The Imperium is known to have thousands of warships as well. The fleets small frigates and destroyers are typical 1-2 km in length, with cruisers coming in at around 4-6 km and battleships at 8-10 km.

Obviously both civilizations have the ability to construct massive warships in large numbers. Full fleet strength for each is more difficult to determine.

As noted earlier, however, the Empire will be able to make more effective use of its fleet assets due to its superior propulsion technology.

True. The Administarium would probably not even notice the first Imperial attacks. Then again, it's not like the Empire would do that much damage anyways.

Surface Assets
The Empire relies primarily on armies of cloned Storm Troopers in combat armor. They appear to have performed extremely well in the Clone Wars. The armor doesn't hold up well to direct hits from blasters, but it appears to be quite effective against adverse environmental conditions and shrapnel from nearby explosions.

In addition to its Storm Trooper armies, the Empire has heavy all-terrain support vehicles and air support. Beyond that, they could potentially produce large quantities of combat droids in a short time if pressed.

The Empire reportedly has access to planetary shields, but their capabilities are largely unknown.

The Imperium has vast armies of the Imperial Guard, who appear to be comparable in effectiveness to Storm Troopers, if less thoroughly armored. The Guard also have heavily armed and armored support vehicles as well as air support.

The Imperium shines, however, in its Space Marines. Genetically engineered for superhuman physical attributes and equipped with the very best weaopns and armor that the Imperium can produce, an individual Space Marine is probably worth hundreds of Imperial Guardsmen. While few in number, Space Marines excel at surgical strikes against critical targets, leaving the Guard to mop up. Space Marines have their own independent fleet assets, armored vehicles, and air support.

Titans. Walking battleships. 'Nuff said.

Assessment
Speed kills, and the Empire has the best means to get its assets where it wants them, when it wants them, to achieve strategic objectives in a war. While the overall resources of the Imperium may be comparable or even superior, the Empire will be consistently able to outnumber them when and where it counts because of their superior communications and propulsion.

WRONG. Do you know what keeps the Imperium together? The strength of the God-Emperor's innumerable armies. That is not hyperbole. It would take over an entire life-span to see how many armies are in Imperial employ.

The Death Star is icing on the cake. The Empire can make an entire planet go away if it gives them too much trouble, and it can do so far more efficiently than the Imperium. The Imperium can perform Exterminatus if necessary, but it has to get appropriately equipped ships into low orbit over the target planet, an operation that can be thwarted by enemy fleets. There's very little that even a large fleet of warships could do to keep the Death Star from carrying out its mission, though.

ALL Imperial ships worthy of battle are properly equipped for an Exterminatus. You only need one ship to kill a world. The Empire also only needs one ship, it's just insanely rare and specialized. Also, the Imperium does not need to get into low orbit. They could theoretically pull one off an AU away.

I have to give this one to the Empire, although they would certainly know they'd been in a fight.

Yeah. I didn't feel like responding to this the other way. I find mine to be simpler.

[ArlEammon]

The Imperium seems to possess psykers in great numbers with the power of Palpatine in his novelizations.

[Talkkno]

It what?!

Okay, that's just sad.
Is that source canon?

That cause it heat its sole weakspot in the rubby body glove, which provides NBC protecection.

[Talkkno]

Does anyone know how good space marines really are? I already stated 3 dark troopers took down a crew of cap ships that is supposed to the Rebel version of a ISD. Which has at least 3k+ people in it. And dark troopers are alot easir to make since they are droids. And that wasn't even a phase 3 dark trooper.

Does anyone know what the Imperium can do if the Centerpoint uses it fleet destroying ray of doom? :P

[Talkkno]

Yeah. I didn't feel like responding to this the other way. I find mine to be simpler.

You are taking that statement far too literally, you would be right it said "use nuclear fusion" or something along of those lines. But "like a sun" implies a simarlity, not sameness.

[Solo]

Space Marines are their own win button.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Marines_%28Warhammer_40%2C000%29)
Nuff said.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Does anyone know how good space marines really are? I already stated 3 dark troopers took down a crew of cap ships that is supposed to the Rebel version of a ISD. Which has at least 3k+ people in it. And dark troopers are alot easir to make since they are droids. And that wasn't even a phase 3 dark trooper.

Put it this way - to defend (arguably) the most important world in the Imperium (Cadia - you could probably survive the destruction of Terra, even, but if the Gate falls, it's Chaos time!), the Dark Angels, one of the most powerful of the Space Marine Legions, sent two companies. That's 200 people. They were considered enough of a contribution.

Even a basic space marine would stand an excellent chance against a Phase 3 Dark Trooper - they are faster, have zealotry flowing out of their ears, and probably are still more heavily armoured. That's to say nothing about the more experienced ones.

The place that the DTs beat the SMs on, however, is numbers. There are less than 1,000,000 SMs, and they replenish slowly - in other words, SMs only have the advantage at first before being overwhelmed.

[Eita]

Put it this way - to defend (arguably) the most important world in the Imperium (Cadia - you could probably survive the destruction of Terra, even, but if the Gate falls, it's Chaos time!), the Dark Angels, one of the most powerful of the Space Marine Legions, sent two companies. That's 200 people. They were considered enough of a contribution.

Even a basic space marine would stand an excellent chance against a Phase 3 Dark Trooper - they are faster, have zealotry flowing out of their ears, and probably are still more heavily armoured. That's to say nothing about the more experienced ones.

The place that the DTs beat the SMs on, however, is numbers. There are less than 1,000,000 SMs, and they replenish slowly - in other words, SMs only have the advantage at first before being overwhelmed.

There are more Space Marines then that. Yay non-Codex Chapters! IE: Black Templars and Space Wolves.

[Executor]

Overall, the Galactic Empire seems to have the potential for a heavy numeric advantage. By supplementing the Stormtroopers with battle droids (and i'm sure the Empire can build ones better than those crappy B1s we saw in the prequels), they could have trillions of soldiers. And while the Imperium's Space Marines are undoubtably superior to Dark Troopers, the Space Marines seem to replenish very slowly, while the Empire has the industrial capacity to pump out legions upon legions of Dark Troopers.

And if the Empire would devote it's huge industrial capacity to building more Star Destroyers and SSDs instead of not one but two Death Stars, they could have a numeric advantage in fairly short order.

[Emperor Tippy]

You don't get just how big the Imperium is, do you?

It could loose a billion people per second and it would still have population growth. Assuming that the Death Star can death star 1 planet per day it could go around blowing up planets every day for the next 10 years and the Imperium might notice.

A regular battle fleet numbers more capital ships than the entire empire has in all its fleets. And they have multiple fleets.

Entire worlds get lost because of the rounding error in the tax and census records.

The Empire could create a thousand droids per second and would still be vastly outnumbered by the Imperial Guard. We are talking billions of new soldiers becoming battle ready every day.

The empire sacrifices over a thousand Psykers per month just to power the Golden Throne. And the number of Psykers is growing.

You are also failing to get just how uber Space Marines are. A full Chapter, 1,000 Marines, is more than enough to take a whole enemy world. 200 is considered sufficient force to hold the most precious world in the Imperium from attack.

A dozen could take a Death Star without any problem.

And god help the empire if they are Psykers or have Psykers with them.

Oh yeah, and for people saying that death staring Terra or Mar's is a good idea. Try it. The God Emperor is still alive and can still act. If an Alpha level Psyker can destroy a battle titan with the flick oh a risk, what do you think the Emperor can do? Or the 10,000 Psykers who power the golden throne.

[Talkkno]

Oh yeah, and for people saying that death staring Terra or Mar's is a good idea. Try it. The God Emperor is still alive and can still act. If an Alpha level Psyker can destroy a battle titan with the flick oh a risk, what do you think the Emperor can do? Or the 10,000 Psykers who power the golden throne.

Tippy, take a deep breath, we are all friends here...
Anyways, I think that your overstaing the numuricail advantedge a bit too much this is just what the CIS was able to do with one just one factory on one planet.
"Let's consider the output of droid factories line the ones seen on Geonosis. Suppose that Nf = number of factory lines (equal to one conveyor belt in AOTC), Nl = number of labour droids able to build new factory lines, Ni = number of infantry droids, Tl = time taken for one factory line to build one labour droid, Ti = time taken for one factory line to build on infantry droid, Tf = time taken for a labour droid workforce to build one factory line, Wf = workforce of labour droids involved in the construction of each factory line. Suppose that each factory line devotes a fraction of its time (fi) to infantry production and the remainder (1-fi) to labour droid production. Then the construction rates of infantry, labour droids and factory lines are given by coupled first-order differential equations:

dNi / dt = (fi / Ti ) Nf ,
dNl / dt = [(1 − fi) / Tl] Nf ,
dNf / dt = Nl / (Tf Wf ) .

The solution of these coupled equations is exponential growth: the number of each population ( i, l, f ) doubles in some period. [This is a classic characteristic of "von Neumann machines."] The doubling time is ≈ 0.693 te, where we define te = the period during which the population increases by the factor e≈2.71828. It can be shown that

te = [ Tl Tf Wf / (1 − fi) ]½

We know that battle droids, droidekas etc are output at a pace of Ti = 1 second. The build-time of a labour droid should be on the same order of magnitude. But what is the workforce and build-time for a factory assembly line identical to the ones seen in AOTC? We need to choose values for Tf and Wf. Readers are challenged to pick realistic numbers and see what doubling time is implied. It is difficult to find plausible estimates to stretch the doubling time to longer than 20 days. For example the army's doubling time is 12 days if each conveyor belt takes ten thousand labourers 30 days to build, and if each assembly line then spends 99% of its time making battle droids instead of more labourers. If the Techno Union supervisors are intelligent, they would realise the wisdom of producing at least a modest fraction of labour droids. Then their infantry production would be limited only by access to raw materials and transport. Ordinarily, the Separatist army can double its size in very much less than a month, and possibly in as little as a day. "

[Winterwind]

This doesn't take into account that you can't infinitely increase the output of those factories and build more and more production lines, because sooner or later, your logistics will break down. You need to obtain the raw materials, you need to process them, you need to bring them to the worlds with the production lines. All the while you have to keep your ordinary economy alive, too - note that war material does not return into the economy, and thus leads to massive inflation (that was one major contribution to why the value of the Reichsmark in the Weimarer Republic dropped by a factor of a trillion in the 1920ies).
Therefore, you can't increase production indefinitely like that.

[Talkkno]

This doesn't take into account that you can't infinitely increase the output of those factories and build more and more production lines, because sooner or later, your logistics will break down. You need to obtain the raw materials, you need to process them, you need to bring them to the worlds with the production lines. All the while you have to keep your ordinary economy alive, too - note that war material does not return into the economy, and thus leads to massive inflation (that was one major contribution to why the value of the Reichsmark in the Weimarer Republic dropped by a factor of a trillion in the 1920ies).
Therefore, you can't increase production indefinitely like that.

Good point; however I'm pretty sure that is a absolute tons of battle droids. As the the Empire is relatively under militarized. And the World devastator skips a bunch of the steps you just mentioned.

[Winterwind]

Good point; however I'm pretty sure that is a absolute tons of battle droids. As the the Empire is relatively under militarized. And the World devastator skips a bunch of the steps you just mentioned.That's true, probably - the Empire could probably increase their numbers significantly before their economy would even begin to feel it.
The only problem is, would they be able to do so sufficiently, considering they are up against an Imperium with an even much larger number of worlds?

(Note, I do not play WH40k, and I do not consider myself an expert in things Star Wars, so I am trying to be neutral here - just throwing in my thoughts on all of this)

[Talkkno]

The only problem is, would they be able to do so sufficiently, considering they are up against an Imperium with an even much larger number of worlds?



You see, well I don't play 40k either, and wiki isn't the most reliable source but they cite the source for this....but wiki is stating the Imperium only has about 1 million systems.

[Eita]

You see, well I don't play 40k either, and wiki isn't the most reliable source but they cite the source for this....but wiki is stating the Imperium only has about 1 million systems.

The Imperium controls most of the Milky Way. Only the Damocles Gulf, the Halo Stars, and the Eye of Terror can be considered outside of their sway. The Eldar (including Dark and Exodites) are scattered so much that they are a non-factor. The Orks are the same. The Necrons live on dead worlds that don't count anyways. The Tyranids are extra-galactic. The Tau have the Gulf and Chaos has the Eye.

Pretty much everything else is under Imperial control.

[Talkkno]

The Imperium controls most of the Milky Way. Only the Damocles Gulf, the Halo Stars, and the Eye of Terror can be considered outside of their sway. The Eldar (including Dark and Exodites) are scattered so much that they are a non-factor. The Orks are the same. The Necrons live on dead worlds that don't count anyways. The Tyranids are extra-galactic. The Tau have the Gulf and Chaos has the Eye.

Pretty much everything else is under Imperial control.

IF the Orks are so scattered, why do they outnumber the Imperium's forces?(So i heard)

[Eita]

IF the Orks are so scattered, why do they outnumber the Imperium's forces?(So i heard)

Since when did location have ANY BEARING WHATSOEVER on numbers?

[factotum]

(Which, despite the canon value of it being 900 Kilometers in diameter, I doubt it. Every other piece of evidence prior to the setting of that value indicated it was only 50 kilometers bigger than the first.)


You mean, every other piece of evidence apart from the actual movies? Compare the size of the second Death Star with Endor in ROTJ, then consider that Endor is habitable and therefore has to be a minimum size according to our understanding of how habitable worlds form. If the second Death Star is only 160km in diameter, as quoted in various secondary source material, then the moon is only around 1900km in diameter...and there is no way a moon that small could have a breathable atmosphere and gravity around Earth normal, both of which Endor has.



Pretty much everything else is under Imperial control.

OK. How many of those systems the Imperium controls actually contain habitable worlds? Could easily be as low as a million, because nobody really knows how many habitable worlds a galaxy contains. Also, the Galactic Empire also controls pretty much all of THEIR galaxy, and since it's larger than the Milky Way (130k light-years in diameter as opposed to 100k), they perforce control more systems than the Imperium does.

Now, as I said earlier, I still think the Imperium wins this matchup, so I have no axe to grind here...just couldn't let those two comments pass unchallenged.

[sikyon]

You mean, every other piece of evidence apart from the actual movies? Compare the size of the second Death Star with Endor in ROTJ, then consider that Endor is habitable and therefore has to be a minimum size according to our understanding of how habitable worlds form. If the second Death Star is only 160km in diameter, as quoted in various secondary source material, then the moon is only around 1900km in diameter...and there is no way a moon that small could have a breathable atmosphere and gravity around Earth normal, both of which Endor has.


Only the direct on shot shows such scaling, directly after hyperspace exit (distortion prehaps?). All horizon shots, however, speak differently of the size comparison of the death star and endor.

http://www.st-v-sw.net/STSWdeathstarsizes-2.html#Endor


Firstly, ST v SW.com is a very biased site. Much like stardestroyer.net. However Mr. Wong, the man who runs stardestroyer, is an experienced engineer, and the man behind ST v SW is, as far as I can tell, not. Overall, I trust Mr. Wong's math much more.


You trust his math?!?! Go look at it. If you have a challenge, then challenge the math, principles or assumptions. If you have a clever rebuttal for a section, then please share. http://www.st-v-sw.net/BB/BBindex.html This link is an index, infact, of debates between the two sites. Please feel free to browse. And while I personally havn't seen too much stardestroyer data, I can buy the explination for the discrepancies from STvSW, which is that stardestroyer does not have onscreen cannon override EU material.



Besides, we know that Stormtrooper armour is intended to deflect energy and perhaps shraphnel. Not to stop kinetic stuff. Possibly the arrow hit the trooper in a spot previously weakened by other attacks, maybe it hit him in a gap between armour sections. Afterall, there is a Star Wars book in which a new stormtrooper has a javelin flung at him by a DROID with strength far superior to any Ewok, and the armour is barely knicked. Anyways, I still think ST armour is just fine. Maybe the colour choice is a little illogical, but still just fine.

Star Wars movie > Star Wars book. If the movie shows that the little arrow periced him, then the book is just wrong. But you know what? Maybe it did hit the bodysuit, maybe the backpack wasn't real armor, maybe it was just a scout trooper.

But a stormtrooper cracked his armor rolling down a hill. Rolling. Down. A. Hill. Seeing as how they don't stop blaster bolts very well, and they crack when you fall down...


There are more Space Marines then that. Yay non-Codex Chapters! IE: Black Templars and Space Wolves.

And many chapters are below strength. Infact, I'd wager there are more chapters that are below strength than above 1000 marine, because newer chapters tend to be watched very carefully by the inquisition (and thus following the codex astrates). Only the most powerful of chapters can reject the codex. Space marine chapters are regularly depleted through fighting as well, and it takes alot of time to get them up to full strength. A new chapter requires a fair number of generations to create, growing/harvesting zygotes.

I'd like to see a reference as to how long it takes to make dark troopers. Also, dark trooper armor would have to be a rediculously massive upgrade from regular trooper armor to be even close to effective. A blaster bolt grazing Leia's unarmored arm in RotJ burned her abit. The same shot from a lasgun would have blown her arm off. Seeing as how blasters cut through stormtrooper armor like butter....

[Talkkno]

Star Wars movie > Star Wars book. If the movie shows that the little arrow periced him, then the book is just wrong. But you know what? Maybe it did hit the bodysuit, maybe the backpack wasn't real armor, maybe it was just a scout trooper.

Look at the details of Stormtrooper armor next time, it cleary shows he got hit and the neck, and there was one comic where a stormtrooper talks about how ewoks fiqured out the weakness in there armor.







I'd like to see a reference as to how long it takes to make dark troopers. Also, dark trooper armor would have to be a rediculously massive upgrade from regular trooper armor to be even close to effective. A blaster bolt grazing Leia's unarmored arm in RotJ burned her abit. The same shot from a lasgun would have blown her arm off. Seeing as how blasters cut through stormtrooper armor like butter....
Uh...Those were blaster caribines, did you see the AOTC? Where a heavy blaster rifle blew threw a destroyer droid into bits with sheilds?

[sikyon]

Look at the details of Stormtrooper armor next time, it cleary shows he got hit and the neck, and there was one comic where a stormtrooper talks about how ewoks fiqured out the weakness in there armor.


Fine, ignore the arrow, whatever. He still broke his armor rolling down a hill.



Uh...Those were blaster caribines, did you see the AOTC? Where a heavy blaster rifle blew threw a destroyer droid into bits with sheilds?

And yet those caribines still cut through stormtrooper armor like butter...

[Talkkno]

And yet those caribines still cut through stormtrooper armor like butter...

I would like you to show me a scource where the said a stormtrooper "Died" there is good possibility the trooper inside the armor surivded and could later be healed up to fighting trim. As Star Wars:Legacy comics show, such a thing.
Besides, scout troopers are known to have weaker armor then stormtroopers.

[sikyon]

I would like you to show me a scource where the said a stormtrooper "Died" there is good possibility the trooper inside the armor surivded and could later be healed up to fighting trim. As Star Wars:Legacy comics show, such a thing.
Besides, scout troopers are known to have weaker armor then stormtroopers.

Probably they can be healed with bacta tanks. Most bullet wounds to the abdomen won't kill you outright either. But if it puts you out of combat, it's about as good as killing you.

Actually, military tactics embrace the idea of highly wounding but non lethal damage on enemy soilders. This usually takes them out of the engagement (if your squad dies, or is forced to fall back they can't take casualties, at which point you become a POW or are executed/left to die on your own). After the combat, if the attacker retreats or the defender evacuates the wounded, then they have to use up extra resources to keep them alive and heal them over a long period of time. This usually needs to happen near the battlefront, and resources are very limited there. A dead man requires less resources than a living, but wounded and combat useless man, at least in the short term.

[Lord of the Helms]

Since when did location have ANY BEARING WHATSOEVER on numbers?

Well, seeing how as far as I remember it was stated that Orks outnumber all humans in the Galaxy, and they'd have to live somewhere, there would have to be a fair few worlds in Orkish rather than Imperial hands, wouldn't there? :smallconfused:

[LordVader]

Y'see, Orks don't really worry about room capacity. Fire safety doesn't really concern them.:smallwink:

I could easily see trillions of Orks being on one planet. Also, it's important to note that while the Imperium can presumably knock out the Holonet with relative ease, it's going to be virtually impossible for the Empire to take out all of the astropaths. So the Imperium will retain its FTL comms, while the Empire will not. That's a major advantage right there.


Also, @ Runolfr- The Imperium didn't exist before the HH. This is post-HH, and they have astropaths.

[warty goblin]

I would like you to show me a scource where the said a stormtrooper "Died" there is good possibility the trooper inside the armor surivded and could later be healed up to fighting trim. As Star Wars:Legacy comics show, such a thing.
Besides, scout troopers are known to have weaker armor then stormtroopers.

Even if an arrow lacks the penetrative power to kill a stormtrooper, the fact that it even pierces the armor means that stormtrooper armor will be worth exactly nothing against bolters or lasguns. Don't even think about chainswords and power weapons.

[Logic]

But a stormtrooper cracked his armor rolling down a hill. Rolling. Down. A. Hill. Seeing as how they don't stop blaster bolts very well, and they crack when you fall down...Modern ballistic armor is surprisingly fragile. The same can be done to a kevlar vest.

I would assume that if you replaced the blasters and greanades with modern weapons, then Imperial Stormtroopers would be a fair fight against the modern military.

[BRC]

I would put guardsmen over stormtroopers, Albiet only slightly, Since guardsmen use more combined arms (grenade launchers, plasma guns, flamethrowers ect mixed in with the standard lasguns), have more variety in terms of regiments(Provided they match regiment to situation) I think that if the GE had defended Endor with catchans, the ewoks would have been toast.
Also, The IG troops make a better use of vehicles, and artillery. In addition, IG troops are more motivated, that is, if the commisar is around.

[LordVader]

Training-and-stat wise, I'd put an Imperial Stormtrooper at the equivalent of a 40k stormtrooper.

[Talkkno]

I would put guardsmen over stormtroopers, Albiet only slightly, Since guardsmen use more combined arms (grenade launchers, plasma guns, flamethrowers ect mixed in with the standard lasguns), have more variety in terms of regiments(Provided they match regiment to situation) I think that if the GE had defended Endor with catchans, the ewoks would have been toast.
Also, The IG troops make a better use of vehicles, and artillery. In addition, IG troops are more motivated, that is, if the commisar is around.

One thing, gaurdsmen dont have NBC protection. Besides, there has been no repsentive of a Imperial ground assult, so you can't just say the stormies dont have combined arms tactics. They could only use AT-ATs on hoth because sheilds block repurlifts.

[sikyon]

Modern ballistic armor is surprisingly fragile. The same can be done to a kevlar vest.

I would assume that if you replaced the blasters and greanades with modern weapons, then Imperial Stormtroopers would be a fair fight against the modern military.

My point is that it doesn't protect against kinetic impacts, and it doesn't protect against blasters, which seem weaker than lasguns. What DOES it protect against?!?!


One thing, gaurdsmen dont have NBC protection. Besides, there has been no repsentive of a Imperial ground assult, so you can't just say the stormies dont have combined arms tactics. They could only use AT-ATs on hoth because sheilds block repurlifts.

There's a fair number of instances where stomtrooper armor doesn't seem to offer full protection from exposed skin to helments that slip off.

Anyhow, I still think ground combat is moot because of titan deployment, which is common in largescale invasion/defense.

[Solo]

My point is that it doesn't protect against kinetic impacts, and it doesn't protect against blasters, which seem weaker than lasguns. What DOES it protect against?!?!

Mosquitoes

[Moff Chumley]

Thrawn

Realistically (yes, I know we are talking about Star Wars), the Imperium of Man is a) bigger b) more powerful (psychers, titans) c) much more established. However, the Empire has three things to it's advantage: the Superweapons, the Droids, and Thrawn. Just sayin'.

[Logic]

My point is that it doesn't protect against kinetic impacts, and it doesn't protect against blasters, which seem weaker than lasguns. What DOES it protect against?!?!My best guess is that it is a full body flak vest. If this theory is correct, the armor will allow a person inside of it to survive a grenade detonation of a modern yield at a medium range, with the trooper being no worse for wear.

It may also protect against kinetic firearms, though this theory is probably shot to hell since Ewoks fired arrows from flimsy bows at them, and accomplished something.

[Illiterate Scribe]

Thrawn

Realistically (yes, I know we are talking about Star Wars), the Imperium of Man is a) bigger b) more powerful (psychers, titans) c) much more established. However, the Empire has three things to it's advantage: the Superweapons, the Droids, and Thrawn. Just sayin'.

You do get, on a fairly regular basis, those uber-generals of the Imperium. Macharius, Ursakar Creed, and so on.

The issue is that the Imperium doesn't rely on having good tactics, or technology. It works because, memetically, it's an incredibly strong and propagative cult - people are very dedicated to it, and can do incredible things to propagate it (it must be, compared to the lure of Chaos. Remember also that Sisters of Battle, who are specifically selected to be non-psykers, can warp reality (Acts of Faith) purely through their belief in the rightness of their cause). The Empire has an initial superiority, due to superior technological innovation (we've seen repeatedly that they actually have advancing technology, as opposed to the Imperium's stagnation) and droid-building capacity, but ultimately their morale is weaker. How do the Sith rulers justify themselves?

'Uh ... we're evil and fairly powerful ... uh ...'


Another issue to consider - comparative strengths of the Force and the Warp.

Yeah.

[WNxHasoroth]

Ok. We've mentioned Imperial Guard and Navy assets here, I'd like to go into thoughts about 1) Space Marines, 2) Psykers, 3) The Warp.

1)

Space Marines, are males inducted at the age before puberty (roughly 8-12). All chapters practice barbaric initiation rites before letting in members to even be considered as aspirants. Some of said rites include 1) Gladiatorial combat against monsters and 2) Mass Slaughter (as evidenced by Master Chaplain Astador in the Ultramarines novels who took a hundred skulls as a youth before being considered worthy).

The most violent of the violent are picked before they go into rigorous psycho and hypno-therapy to weed out those with mental instabilities.

Then, armed with Bolt Guns (16 sickle clipped guns, which fire depleted uranium rounds [have you seen what an Abrams tank does when it fires its main gun? Imagine that on rapid fire and in the hands of a thousand men]) and full body armor, they are employed as scouts.

They aren't even full warriors yet and they possess firepower equivalent to modern day tanks.

Upon ascension to full Space Marine status they have 1) ossified bones (density and toughness equivalent to titanium), 2) two hearts, 3) acidic spit, 4) ability to require no sleep (they rest one half of their brains at a time and real sleep only makes four hours of their day when their training)

So as a full Battle Brother, they fire four round bursts of mass reactive depleted uranium, have a muscular mass which makes modern weight builders look like children, bones harder than most metals, and a relentless devotion to the Emperor, the Primarch, the Chapter, and the Imperium.

This isn't even taking into account what Power Armor (and Terminator Armor) does.

Power Armor has been demonstrated in the Ultramarines book, as taking a lasgun bolt and only looking mildly heated. Its bulk makes each Marine a one ton killing machine.

And as for Terminators, theres a story about a Space Wolf Wolf Guard in Terminator armor being stepped on by a Titan and surviving. The equivalent in the Star Wars universe would be an AT-AT stepping on a Stormtrooper, except the Wolf Guard survives with only slight bleeding while the Stormtrooper has to be scraped off.

2)

Psykers, are given in rough ratios, one in a thousand. In an Imperium of roughly one trillion people, thats a billion psykers. The average Sanctioned Psyker in an Imperial Guard force is quite capable of Emperor Palpatines pyrotechnics, along with so much more.

Alpha level psykers are, as quoted before me, incredibly powerful, and yet, thousands of them are sacrificed each day just to keep the Emperor going. The Emperor pre-heresy, was capable of wielding planet wounding powers (if the story about his battle with Horus is taken with a little salt).

As sexy as Jedi are, with the force and light sabers, the Imperium counters with Psykers and power weapons (Eisenhorn's power sword is described as having a blade of coherent light remember?).

And if that wasn't enough, we could send Culexus Assassins against the Jedi. Imperium Wins.

3)

The Warp is a maelstrom of energy, malevolent to all life. Assuming that if one Empire assaulted the other that they'd have to abide by their FTL rules, the Imperium wins by such a wide margin it isn't funny.

The GE attacks the Milky Way Galaxy. They have to deal with the Warp. They do not have Gellar Fields. Labyrinthine and baroque Imperial Ships are overwhelmed in seconds by warp entities, and they are fully aware of the dangers they face. An unprepared and unshielded Star Wars ship wouldn't even last a millisecond.

In a vice versa scenario, the Imperium doesn't have to worry about Chaos energies wrecking their ships and won't have to devote energy towards maintaining their Gellar Fields while in Warp Space but can put all that energy towards more conventional defenses such as weapons and void shields. FTL travel in Star Wars space would be a dream for the Imperium.

In short, Imperium Wins by sheer age alone. The strongest psykers in the SW universe are the equivalent of the weakest to most mediocre psykers in the Imperium. And there are literally tons of psykers in the 40k universe.

Space Marines are...the rumor of the presence of a squad of Space Marines is sufficient to cause a brigade of well armed and trained Imperial Guardsmen to retreat.

Do five Dark Troopers cause five thousand soldiers to run away in abject fear? No.

Imperium Wins.

[LordVader]

Thrawn

Realistically (yes, I know we are talking about Star Wars), the Imperium of Man is a) bigger b) more powerful (psychers, titans) c) much more established. However, the Empire has three things to it's advantage: the Superweapons, the Droids, and Thrawn. Just sayin'.

1. Exterminatus. Easily the equivalent of a superweapon, except any ship the Imperium has can do it.

2. Titans and Superheavy Tanks. Bye-bye droids.

3. Lord Solar Macharius, Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, Ursakar Creed, Commissar Yarrick, Colonel Schaeffer. The Imperium has far more super-uber generals then the Empire.

[Illiterate Scribe]

1)Space Marines,<snip>


Space Marines are a fairly strong win-button, but they do have one weakness. They fight using atrociously bad tactics - 'No Retreat, No Surrender!' and all that - a cunning general could exploit that. The Salamanders are, as far as I am aware, the only pragmatic legion out there. Still, the Sith aren't exactly masters of innovative tactics.

2)Psykers
My personal opinion is that you underestimate the number of psykers - it's been mentioned several times (such as in the =][= source book) that humans are evolving into an entirely psychic race - see my above post with regard to Acts of Faith.

Also, it would be a Bad Idea (TM) to use Alpha-level psykers in the battlefield. They're protected by Pariahs and null-collars on the Black Ships for a reason - unprotected, their minds are practically a massive sign saying 'HAI DEAMON PRINCZ IM A JOOSY TARGET'. Some nasty hosts would start appearing.

3)The Warp

The problem here is the traditional one - Chaos. The Chaos powers would probably seize upon the opportunity of attacking simultaneously with the GE - catch'em while they're weak, and all that - and then backstab the GE once the Imperium is defeated.

[LordVader]

But we're not factoring Chaos into this, this is pure Imperium vs Empire. They're just "not there".:smalltongue:

Also, Alpha-levels are capable of protecting their minds from daemons, as evidenced by the two in Sabbat Martyr, and, no doubt, numerous other books.

[Illiterate Scribe]

But we're not factoring Chaos into this, this is pure Imperium vs Empire. They're just "not there".:smalltongue:

If they're not there, then the setting is a bit internally inconsistent (no Astronomican because of there's no Emperor-presence in the Warp :smalleek: )


Also, Alpha-levels are capable of protecting their minds from daemons, as evidenced by the two in Sabbat Martyr, and, no doubt, numerous other books.

They are powerful, and good at protecting themselves, but it takes just one slip to pretty much wipe out a planet.

[WNxHasoroth]

The over-the-top lads, no mercy, frothing mad bulldog charge tactics can be associated with the Black Templars and the Blood Angels Death Company but for shame! Even a cursory reading of any of the Space Marine books or snippets show that they are far from being a blunt hammer like the Imperial Guard but a highly developed tactical force, quite capable of sophisticated stratagems and most definitely not a "Enemy! KILL!" force.

Try the Ultramarine Novels, or the Dark Angel novels, or the Horus Heresy books.

As for underestimating the number of psykers I'm working with the rough 1 in a 1000 figure.

Lastly, the Chaos Gods could screw with the Imperium and then the GE but 1) it means that the GE will be screwed over anyways and 2) we're not taking into account the malevolent forces of Chaos here :P

[Rogue 7]

Space Marines are a fairly strong win-button, but they do have one weakness. They fight using atrociously bad tactics - 'No Retreat, No Surrender!' and all that - a cunning general could exploit that. The Salamanders are, as far as I am aware, the only pragmatic legion out there. Still, the Sith aren't exactly masters of innovative tactics.


The Space Marines are so rarely in a No Retreat, No Surrender situation it's not even funny. They're that good. They strike where they know they'll win. Simple as that. In the rare instances where they're in a no surrender situation, it's rarely more than 50 marines, and the resources needed to rescue them (Let's say 2 Thunderhawks) are simply more valuable, especially seeing as those 50 marines should take down at least 10 or more times their number in grunts.

[A Rainy Knight]

I would give the Imperium of Man the win, but there is one weakness that they have that could be potentially exploited, and that is their poor ability to advance technology. The Imperium has mixed technology and religion to the extent where it would be near-impossible for them to make any innovative new inventions. Other than that, the Imperium pretty much has the upper hand.

[Moff Chumley]

1. Exterminatus. Easily the equivalent of a superweapon, except any ship the Imperium has can do it.

2. Titans and Superheavy Tanks. Bye-bye droids.

3. Lord Solar Macharius, Colonel-Commissar Gaunt, Ursakar Creed, Commissar Yarrick, Colonel Schaeffer. The Imperium has far more super-uber generals then the Empire.

1) Centerpoint Station can concievably smash any planet that pisses off it's crew into the nearst star. 40k is broken in a vast, extreme way, but they do not have the power of centerpoint station. Or the Galaxy Gun. That's also kinda (note, I say kinda) hard to beat.

2. Look, I'm not going to argue with you here, but mathematically, the Empire has the abbility to construct a stagaringly massive collection of droids.

3. Thrawn is not an uber-general. He is Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Horus, and Ender roled into one. Other than that, la-la-la-la-la, I'm not listening... :smalltongue:

However, it would be interesting to see what would happen if Thrawn would occupy the 40k universe... He'd prolly be most at home with the Tau. The empire would have him killed the second the lay eyes on him.

[Mr._Blinky]

The Clone wars ICS states a mere transport ship's heavy guns sport 200 gigatons, while its point defense goes up about 6 megatons. Keep in mind these are written by a astrophysicist.

Yeah, and as I've stated many times before, an astrophysicist. Astrophysics is specifically the study of the behavior of celestial bodies, such as planets and stars. And while one does need to know general physics to be an astrophysicist, it does not automatically make one an expert on futuristic DEWs. If it were a nuclear physicist, I'd take him a little more seriously, since calculating that kind of thing can often be part of their jobs, but as is it's not his branch of the science. Besides, I've read those pages and I fail to be impressed by many of his arguments.

Also, just watching anything from the movies or games clearly demonstrates that SW weapons are nowhere near as powerful as they're reported to be. Firstly, a 200 gigaton weapon is insane, and would be able to take out a huge continent in only a few shots. Planetary shields are no excuse, because we see unshielded objects taking considerable punishment before being destroyed. And durrasteel is no excuse either, because we clearly see durrasteel melting in the lava in Episode III. Face it, the guns aren't actually that powerful.

The IoM's guns, on the other hand, do exactly what they're supposed to. Their physics are a bit screwy as well, but at least they try to keep their's somewhat close to accurate yields. SW doesn't even try.

[LordVader]

You can make as many Battle Droids as you want, and those Titans will just keep on steppin' on them. Droids have no chance against superheavy vehicles.

Also, 40k can match the power of CS or the Galaxy Gun. *points at C'tan*

And I firmly believe the Imperium could find at least one general as brilliant as Thrawn.

[Solo]

3. Thrawn is not an uber-general. He is Alexander the Great, Napoleon, Horus, and Ender roled into one. Other than that, la-la-la-la-la, I'm not listening... :smalltongue:

Two out of those four died ignobly, and one of partying too hard.

Care to try again? :p


Oh, and by the way....

Heretic! Your misplaced faith in foreign factions will be your downfall! Only in the Imperium of Man lies there salvation! Repent your deviant ways and atone for your sins before the God-Emperor, lest ye face his terrible judgement in this life or the next!


Praise the Emperor!

[SurlySeraph]

@^: And Thrawn's an alien, isn't he? Imperium troops tend to be very... motivated... when they're killing xenos.

[heretic]

If the Empire could fall to a handful of rebels, the Imperium of Man would smoosh them.

[Talkkno]

Also, just watching anything from the movies or games clearly demonstrates that SW weapons are nowhere near as powerful as they're reported to be. Firstly, a 200 gigaton weapon is insane, and would be able to take out a huge continent in only a few shots. Planetary shields are no excuse, because we see unshielded objects taking considerable punishment before being destroyed. And durrasteel is no excuse either, because we clearly see durrasteel melting in the lava in Episode III. Face it, the guns aren't actually that powerful.


Hmm....Perhaps those are powered down shots?

ROTJ novelization p.141

"We've added power to the forward shield, Admiral."
This looks in a range of a gigaton level explosion.
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/c/c1/BaseDeltaZero.jpg

"Good. Double power on the main battery, and-"

[LordVader]

The Officio Assassinorum alone could probably do a number on the Empire, sowing chaos for the main attack. Taking out factories, shipyards, key personnel, etc.

[Talkkno]

If the Empire could fall to a handful of rebels, the Imperium of Man would smoosh them.

False, the Empire copplased because the Emperor never set up a proper line of sucession, thus a line of Imperial warlords took there place among the squabble, untill the time of Thrawn and the Reborn Emperor. Even when the Rebels took the core worlds, they were still outmanned 10 to 1 according the Rebellion era sourcebook.

[Talkkno]

The Officio Assassinorum alone could probably do a number on the Empire, sowing chaos for the main attack. Taking out factories, shipyards, key personnel, etc.

Wounld't the Empire make the first move since they have more rebible FTL and communcations? Also, a lack of proof that there is a general equal to Thrawn does not equat proof, untill backed up otherwise, it is estintilly a strawman's arguement i think.

[Talkkno]

Also, 40k can match the power of CS or the Galaxy Gun. *points at C'tan*



HOw about the Centerpoint staion and the suncrusher?

[Rogue 7]

Thrawn, to put it simply, wasn't quite that good. He lost, if you'll note. His advantages were not really due to his brilliance. They included a. A Jedi capable of coordination of attacks on a level unparralelled in history. B. 200 fresh ships, found by little more than sheer luck. C. Knowledge of Technology the Rebels didn't have- Clones and a cloaking shield (which wasn't actually that effective). His tactical maneuverings in battles were superior, and his analysis of his opponents were unmatched, but that doesn't make him godly. We don't have enough info on Macharius, and I personally don't know enough about Kreed to make a call on how good they are, but hopefully they'd be on the level of Garm Bel Ibliss, who seemed to be a competent match for Thrawn.

[LordVader]

Wounld't the Empire make the first move since they have more rebible FTL and communcations? Also, a lack of proof that there is a general equal to Thrawn does not equat proof, untill backed up otherwise, it is estintilly a strawman's arguement i think.

Actually, the Imperium's communications seems to be more reliable, if it's instantaneous, as to take out a ship's comms you have to kill the astropath on each and every ship, but with the Empire, all you have to do is knock out HoloNet transmitters.

And the Officios would not necessarily make the first move, but they'd make one heck of a move.

Since Creed single-handedly controlled the defense of Cadia against the 13th Black Crusade, I'd say he's at least a decent general. :P


HOw about the Centerpoint staion and the suncrusher?

Yep, them too. Maybe not entirely Centerpoint, but they can easily destroy it, and easily knock out the sun crusher as well.

[Talkkno]

Actually, the Imperium's communications seems to be more reliable, if it's instantaneous, as to take out a ship's comms you have to kill the astropath on each and every ship, but with the Empire, all you have to do is knock out HoloNet transmitters.
Obi-wan's hyperwave transciver had a range out to 30k lightyears, so while the loss of the Holo-Net would be a annoyance, it would't crippple them.


Since Creed single-handedly controlled the defense of Cadia against the 13th Black Crusade, I'd say he's at least a decent general. :P
Examples of what specifically happened?
Has he ever done the equivalent of 3 Trade Federation cap ships brimming with fighters and laser cannons with one outdated small frigate and 3 fighters without any losses what so ever and total capulation of the enemy forces?




Yep, them too. Maybe not entirely Centerpoint, but they can easily destroy it, and easily knock out the sun crusher as well.
The suncrusher was made out of stuff so strong that it shrugged off a Death Star's laser prototype with minamil damage, plus the thing is the size of a snubfighter, so its going to be a hell to hit one, not to meation it has hyperdrive.

[LordVader]

But y'see, the C'tan are gods.:smalltongue:

Also, Commissar Yarrick has certainly done the equivalent of the three TradeFed battleships. I cite the defense of Hades Hive during the second War of Armageddon.

[Mr._Blinky]

Hmm....Perhaps those are powered down shots?

ROTJ novelization p.141

"We've added power to the forward shield, Admiral."
This looks in a range of a gigaton level explosion.
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/c/c1/BaseDeltaZero.jpg

"Good. Double power on the main battery, and-"

Firstly, we have no point of reference, being a 2d image, on how big that thing is. At first glance, it doesn't even look that big compared to the SD, though that's probably wrong.

And DEAR GOD HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO GET THE POWERED DOWN ARGUMENT!?!?!??!?!?! Seriously, I'm sorry, but I've gotten that argument so many times that you'd think that the Empire routinely went into combat with their weapons at fractional power.

Imp. Gunner: Should I power up the continent-killing guns and destroy their pathetic ships, sir?
Imp. Captain: Why, gunner, I'm terribly surprised at you! That would be simply unsporting of us! Now, let's be decent chaps and give the jolly old buggers a bit of a light show first, you know, let them get a few good one-twos themselves, what what! Right-o, guns to 1/100th power men!

[Talkkno]

Also, Commissar Yarrick has certainly done the equivalent of the three TradeFed battleships. I cite the defense of Hades Hive during the second War of Armageddon.

Details...if you please?

[Talkkno]

Firstly, we have no point of reference, being a 2d image, on how big that thing is. At first glance, it doesn't even look that big compared to the SD, though that's probably wrong.



That is Cammes I believe, which has to be at least in the range of Earth sized to be big enough to support an amposthere that is breathable to humans.

[LordVader]

Details...if you please?

A millions-strong Ork horde attacked an Imperial sector at one point. Commissar Yarrick single-handedly masterminded and lead the defense of Hades Hive, a "city" (picture a chunk of Coruscant) against overwhelming odds, and succeeded, barely. The Orks broke in right as the Space Marines arrived to attack the horde outside.

And Thrawn is hardly an uber-l337-pwnage ubergeneral. Look what happened to him at Bilbringi. He lost that battle, even before he died.

[BRC]

I just thought of another reason for the imperium, the only SW knowledge I have is from the movies so this is proably wrong, but IG troops would be much more experienced in actual combat then stormtroopers.
Training is all well and good, but it's no replacement for actual combat experience.
Imperial Guardsmen get constantly shuffled from battlefield to battlefield, fighting all varieties of foes. They have to deal with Orcs, Tyranids, Necrons, Eldar, Dark Eldar, Chaos, Tau, rebels, and who knows what else.
From the movies the impression is given that the Galactic Empire is preety much limited to the one group of rebels, oh sure they may have to deal with an outer rim uprising occasionally. And though the rebels appear to be well funded, their still a small force, especially on the scale were talking about.
People state that the GE has a massive amount of troops, truely massive, which considering the scale of this conflict I can believe.
However, besides the rebels there isn't an orginized threat for them to fight, nothing constant, nothing that controls planets and has serious fleets. Nothing that dosn't have to hide.
So what are the rest of those troops doing, apparently making sure the rest of the galaxy keeps quiet while vader and his troops handle the rebels. This means that, for the most part, they are sitting around shooting at targets.
Now, this is arguable, but I'm preety sure the GE troops in the original trilogy (the ones that will be in this conflict) are not perfect solider clones.
This means, that when fighting the Imperium, it will be the hardened veterns of the Imperial guard, whose numbers consist of those who survived battles against foes the GE troops couldn't dream of. Oh every guardsmen isn't Rambo (Thats just the catchans), but a large number of them would have seen serious combat on multiple occasions, same goes for the imperial fleets.


Meanwhile, many of the stormtroops will be experiencing mass combat for the first time. It will be Rookies versus veterns. And my money would be on the latter.

[Talkkno]

A millions-strong Ork horde attacked an Imperial sector at one point. Commissar Yarrick single-handedly masterminded and lead the defense of Hades Hive, a "city" (picture a chunk of Coruscant) against overwhelming odds, and succeeded, barely. The Orks broke in right as the Space Marines arrived to attack the horde outside.

That is rather vague....city enviroments naturally favor the defender against such unorganized rabble such as Orks(Was it part of Waggh! thing?)

[LordVader]

Plus, the GE may have a massive amount of stormtroopers, but the Imperium has massive+∞ amount of troops.:smalltongue:

They can easily swamp stormtroopers through sheer numbers, and BRC makes an interesting point about experience, too.


And city environments don't favor you against Orks, trust me. Orkz don't shoot, dey chargez.:smalltongue: They benefit from the cover more than you do.

Linky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yarrick)to Yarrick info.

[Talkkno]

Plus, the GE may have a massive amount of stormtroopers, but the Imperium has massive+∞ amount of troops.:smalltongue:

They can easily swamp stormtroopers through sheer numbers, and BRC makes an interesting point about experience, too.


And city environments don't favor you against Orks, trust me. Orkz don't shoot, dey chargez.:smalltongue: They benefit from the cover more than you do.
.

Vader, I will now concede that the Imperium of Man would defeat the Empire by a very small margin. Cheers.

[Rogue 7]

Examples of what specifically happened?
Has he ever done the equivalent of 3 Trade Federation cap ships brimming with fighters and laser cannons with one outdated small frigate and 3 fighters without any losses what so ever and total capulation of the enemy forces?

When was this, exactly? I can't recall thrawn doing that in any of the Trilogy books (Heir to the Empire, etc.)

[Talkkno]

When was this, exactly? I can't recall thrawn doing that in any of the Trilogy books (Heir to the Empire, etc.)

Outbound Flight, a prequal of sorts to the Thrawn's trilogy.

[Eita]

OK. How many of those systems the Imperium controls actually contain habitable worlds? Could easily be as low as a million, because nobody really knows how many habitable worlds a galaxy contains. Also, the Galactic Empire also controls pretty much all of THEIR galaxy, and since it's larger than the Milky Way (130k light-years in diameter as opposed to 100k), they perforce control more systems than the Imperium does.

Let's try to answer this before I read the other two pages...

All worlds are an asset to the Imperium. If they are lifeless, they are transformed into replicas of Mars, and become Forge Worlds. Vast machines give air to workers as they mine the surface and create massive weapons of war.

Also, the Milky Way is the larger of the two galaxies. Milky Way=130k, SW Galaxy=100K.

[Mr._Blinky]

I'd actually say that if anything SW is just as stagnant as the IoM. Why? Because if you look at KotOR, which is supposed to take place thousands of years before the Empire, tech has change so little it's practically the same.

[Talkkno]

I'd actually say that if anything SW is just as stagnant as the IoM. Why? Because if you look at KotOR, which is supposed to take place thousands of years before the Empire, tech has change so little it's practically the same.

Look at the bombing of Tardis compareed to a true BDZ which is supposed to "slag" a planet. ANd indicator cruisers are a recent invention, dating only about 7 years before the onset of the clone wars.

[Rogue 7]

Outbound Flight, a prequal of sorts to the Thrawn's trilogy.

Haven't read that one yet.

[Eita]

I'd actually say that if anything SW is just as stagnant as the IoM. Why? Because if you look at KotOR, which is supposed to take place thousands of years before the Empire, tech has change so little it's practically the same.

Stardestroyer.net in fact agrees on that. According to it, the technology behind the Death Star has been around for a long time. IE: The planet blowing superlaser.

[Elder_Kin]

Inquisitor Eisenhorn has mentioned "a billion Imperial worlds, and more, stood in danger...".

The trick is that 40K's universe is OUR galaxy. The SW "galaxy far, far away" seems to be much smaller than our own.

(I recall that Bob Brown did a page on it, figuring on the fact that some book mentioned a distance between 2 worlds as X number of Light-years, and giving a travel time between the two (Y days), and another book said that travel across the whole galaxy would take a set amount of time that was Z days with the same ship type. With that data, he plotted the size of the SW galaxy as roughly 1/8th the size of ours. Unfortunately, his pages went down in 2003, and I can't provide a link...)

Example of the above (NOT CANON - JUST AN EXAMPLE)
Earth is 10 LY from Alderaan
It takes 2 days to travel from Earth to Alderaan.
Therefore travel time is 5 LY/day.
If it takes 8 weeks to travel from one side of the galaxy to the other (56 days), the galaxy is roughly(56 days x 5 LY=280 LYs) across.

That's the type of math he used.

No offense but that's way to small to be a spiral galaxy and have a million worlds in. The density of stars would make life literally impossible. I'd love to go into a discussion but it's really a pain in the ass to come up with the numbers again...

The estimated size of the SW galaxy from clacs I've seen has been from about twice our galaxies size to just under half and thats from the most reliable sources I know of. SD.net is pretty good they will be a bit forceful in their opinions their math is generally on point. Even if biased, they will support an idea that's contrary to their own if it's more solid.

[LordVader]

Also, the description of "master of a million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies" comes from the opening "poem" in the front of the 40k rulebook, and as such is not a reliable source. It sounds much more...romantic, for lack of a better word, then "he is the master of 12.5 million worlds by the might of his inexhaustible armies".

Also, if Thrawn is so amazing he can single-handedly win if no one as skilled as him is opposing him, no matter what the circumstances, what happened at Bilbringi?

The Officio Assassinorum would make short work of him anyways.

[Daimbert]

Overall, the Galactic Empire seems to have the potential for a heavy numeric advantage. By supplementing the Stormtroopers with battle droids (and i'm sure the Empire can build ones better than those crappy B1s we saw in the prequels), they could have trillions of soldiers. And while the Imperium's Space Marines are undoubtably superior to Dark Troopers, the Space Marines seem to replenish very slowly, while the Empire has the industrial capacity to pump out legions upon legions of Dark Troopers.

And if the Empire would devote it's huge industrial capacity to building more Star Destroyers and SSDs instead of not one but two Death Stars, they could have a numeric advantage in fairly short order.

Okay, I know I'm coming in late and this might have been said already, but aren't Dark Troopers the Force using troopers? So they aren't droids (droids can't use the Force), and I don't think the Empire's cloning facilities are that good, frankly.

Of course, if they're something else, then forget I said anything [grin].

[LordVader]

But the Imperium can grab someone and stick a lasgun in their hand far faster than you can make droids, and they don't have any massively vulnerable production facilities to target. And the Imperium will go for them, and they have massive amounts of heavily experienced talent available for covert ops like that.

And as I've said, Titans and Superheavys will roll and stomp all over Battle Droids. Baneblade > Battle Droid. You can make millions, and they'll just keep on dying, right up until your production facilities are crushed. You also have to find the resources to make these droids.
They don't just spawn out of midair.

[Illiterate Scribe]

The Space Marines are so rarely in a No Retreat, No Surrender situation it's not even funny. They're that good. They strike where they know they'll win. Simple as that. In the rare instances where they're in a no surrender situation, it's rarely more than 50 marines, and the resources needed to rescue them (Let's say 2 Thunderhawks) are simply more valuable, especially seeing as those 50 marines should take down at least 10 or more times their number in grunts.


The over-the-top lads, no mercy, frothing mad bulldog charge tactics can be associated with the Black Templars and the Blood Angels Death Company but for shame! Even a cursory reading of any of the Space Marine books or snippets show that they are far from being a blunt hammer like the Imperial Guard but a highly developed tactical force, quite capable of sophisticated stratagems and most definitely not a "Enemy! KILL!" force.

Try the Ultramarine Novels, or the Dark Angel novels, or the Horus Heresy books.


I grant you, the SMurfs are OK at tactics, but that's mostly because of that ridiculous article way back in White Dwarf - 'sieges - yeah, they're the best in the universe at that. Guerilla warfare? They're the pros. Ship-to-ship? Don't get me started.'

However, space marines do seem to regularly get their first companies wiped out due to making a 'heroic last stand', whereas they could have teleported out to fight another day, much more teleologically effectively.

[LordVader]

I grant you, the SMurfs are OK at tactics, but that's mostly because of that ridiculous article way back in White Dwarf - 'sieges - yeah, they're the best in the universe at that. Guerilla warfare? They're the pros. Ship-to-ship? Don't get me started.'

However, space marines do seem to regularly get their first companies wiped out due to making a 'heroic last stand', whereas they could have teleported out to fight another day, much more teleologically effectively.

Actually, in the defense of Ultramar, they did good. If they had run away, the 'nids would have eaten the planet and spawned even more guys. Sure, the whole first company of a chapter dies every now and then, but hey, you should see the other guy.:smallwink:


Also, the SMs are more than okay at tactics. There's a short story in Let the Galaxy Burn where a Black Templar, one of the most zealous chapters, falls back to facilitate his enemies' destruction, even abandoning a shrine.

[Arang]

And "heroic last stand" is more of a strategic decision anyways. Strategy is answering the question "What do we do?". Tactics are answering "How do we do it?"

And I'm sure while they may have lost the entire 1st company, they did a damn good job of it.:smallwink:

[Moff Chumley]

Meh, losing battles are fun for a short while. I concede, however. The one Imperial stratagy that would work is hide for a while and hope the IoM collapses eventually. But no... they would be found out before then... :smallfrown:

The point is, as someone said, I can invent a Sci-Fi setting just like 40k, except all men have eight times the power of space marines, can blow anything up at will, and can travel throug time. 'Nuff said.

[Swordguy]

The point is, as someone said, I can invent a Sci-Fi setting just like 40k, except all men have eight times the power of space marines, can blow anything up at will, and can travel throug time. 'Nuff said.

The same argument applies against Jedi and Dark troopers, or centerpoint Station and the Suncrusher. And since that argument invalidates the ENTIRE discussion, let's leave it be, shall we?

[LordVader]

Meh, losing battles are fun for a short while. I concede, however. The one Imperial stratagy that would work is hide for a while and hope the IoM collapses eventually. But no... they would be found out before then... :smallfrown:

The point is, as someone said, I can invent a Sci-Fi setting just like 40k, except all men have eight times the power of space marines, can blow anything up at will, and can travel throug time. 'Nuff said.

Yes, and the same applies to all the threads where Star Wars completely WTFBBQZOMGPOWAHs all of the other Sci-Fi universes. So suck it up.:smalltongue:

[warty goblin]

The thing that I appreciate about WH40K is that although the Imperium is hideously powerful, they are at least consistantly so, and although some of their units are terribly powerful (space marines) their real strength lies in their numbers and determination. Also, the universe is as I said consistantly broken, everybody is that powerful, not just the Imperium, and although the Imperium might be the most powerful in some ways, it is hamstrung by problems and the sheer number of foes it faces.

[LordVader]

The idea being that they're broken through sheer size rather than intsa-win buttons. That's why I like it better, the Imperium at least is more "realistic".

[idioscosmos]

No one's pointed out the Empire's "instant win" strategy. "Hyperspace" or whatever a death star and as much of a fleet as you can (heck, the whole fleet if you want...every ship in the Star Wars Universe), get within range of Holy Terra, and blow up the planet.

The Emperors presence in the warp (the Golden Beacon or somesuch) makes warp travel possible for the Imperium. Take him out and the Empire gets to take all billion+ planets of the Imperium one at a time, or let the orks over run them...or whatever they want.

[warty goblin]

No one's pointed out the Empire's "instant win" strategy. "Hyperspace" or whatever a death star and as much of a fleet as you can (heck, the whole fleet if you want...every ship in the Star Wars Universe), get within range of Holy Terra, and blow up the planet.

The Emperors presence in the warp (the Golden Beacon or somesuch) makes warp travel possible for the Imperium. Take him out and the Empire gets to take all billion+ planets of the Imperium one at a time, or let the orks over run them...or whatever they want.


I think the name "Holy Terra" implies that the planet is probably very very well guarded- and among millions of worlds, most likely not that easy to find either. And given the level of fanaticism common in the Imperium, its not like the Empire's gonna be able to drive the defenders off, they'll literally fight to the last battleship, cruiser, destroyer, frigate, bomber, fighter, man in a space suit, and probably to the last man without a spacesuit as well. Expect very very high Empire casualties- like the destruction of most (if not all) of the fleet.

[Rogue 7]

*chuckles*...and you emerge from hyperspace surrounded by battlefleet Sol and all of the orbital defense stations on Mars and Earth, along with Luna... I give you 10 seconds to live.

[Mr._Blinky]

Yeah, the Death Star still has to target the planet, power-up its weapon, etc. It's subatomic particles within seconds of arrival, because Battlefleet Sol brings ridiculous amounts of firepower down on it. Terra is described as being the most heavily defended planet in the galaxy, and that nothing can hope to get into the system and survive, unless it's a fleet so massive that it's pretty much wiped out the Imperium already. Yeah, Death Starring Terra is not a good idea.

[Talkkno]

Yeah, the Death Star still has to target the planet, power-up its weapon, etc. It's subatomic particles within seconds of arrival, because Battlefleet Sol brings ridiculous amounts of firepower down on it. Terra is described as being the most heavily defended planet in the galaxy, and that nothing can hope to get into the system and survive, unless it's a fleet so massive that it's pretty much wiped out the Imperium already. Yeah, Death Starring Terra is not a good idea.

Galxey gun missile?

[Emperor Tippy]

And don't forget the Emperor and his 10,000 Psykers.

I wonder what they would do to a death star. Or galaxy gun shot.

[Talkkno]

And don't forget the Emperor and his 10,000 Psykers.

I wonder what they would do to a death star. Or galaxy gun shot.

Would they be able to detect it as it kicks inside the planet from hyperspace and turning said planet into a nice NDF recation.

[SurlySeraph]

@^: Probably. Holy Terra is constantly surrounded by an immense fleet. Luna has lots of defensive lasers that could likely fire towards Holy Terra to shoot down the missile of the fleet didn't hit it. And even if the normal defenses didn't hit, the Emperor is special. During the Horus Heresy, he killed Horus - the most powerful human alive after him by far - with a single psychic attack when he used his full power. The Chaos Gods which had been strengthening Horus abandoned him because otherwise the Emperor's attack would have destroyed them too.

If you could theoretically destroy four gods with a single attack, you can bloody well stop a missile. Granted, the Emperor's in a coma so we don't know how directly he can affect the outside world, but given that he guides all the ships of the Imperium using the Astronomicon he must have a pretty good idea of what's going on in the Warp/Hyperspace around him.

[factotum]

That's assuming that the Warp and Hyperspace are the same thing, which they may well not be. However, there's a first hurdle to overcome before the Empire can even attempt an attack like the one described--they have to find out it's possible to do this! Who in the Imperium universe is likely to tell them?

[Dhavaer]

Who in the Imperium universe is likely to tell them?

The Eldar. They can see the future, and while they don't like the Imperium, they're very much aware that it makes a very, very good meatshield.

[Illiterate Scribe]

The Eldar. They can see the future, and while they don't like the Imperium, they're very much aware that it makes a very, very good meatshield.

Wouldn't that mean that they wouldn't tell them?

Seriously, though, if you wanted to strike a major blow against the Imperium, blow up Cadia. OK, Abaddon's tried and failed, ~13 times, but there's still a chance of death-star-ing it - if you succeed, the universe as we know it is pretty much ended, since chaos can happily waltz through unimpeded.

[Swordguy]

Wouldn't that mean that they wouldn't tell them?

Seriously, though, if you wanted to strike a major blow against the Imperium, blow up Cadia. OK, Abaddon's tried and failed, ~13 times, but there's still a chance of death-star-ing it - if you succeed, the universe as we know it is pretty much ended, since chaos can happily waltz through unimpeded.


I'd call that pretty much a mutual kill, as Chaos would whomp on both sides in that scenario.

Again, it matters what universe in which the battle is taking place. If it's in 40K, the GE has to deal with the Warp and it's attendant dangers. If it's in Star Wars , then the Imperium doesn't have to deal with the Warp and it's attendant dangers. Knowing which can seriously swing the battle.

[ZeroNumerous]

If it's in Star Wars , then the Imperium doesn't have to deal with the Warp and it's attendant dangers. Knowing which can seriously swing the battle.

But it also means that they entirely lose out on psykers and the Emperor, and thus they don't exist as a coherent fighting force any longer.

I propose we set it in a hypothetical universe where the Warp exists, but Hyperspace does not interfere with it. Thus allowing both sides to have their conflict without dealing with independent third parties.

[webgem]

Well I'm about to chime in with a few points, mostly invalidated by the "hypothetical universe thing." Also, while they are somewhat interesting points, totally disregard them as being stupid if you like....cuz they kinda are. Though there are a few nuggets of importance there.

A: Imperium has other enemies, if they get in a brawl with the GA (empire) the others will probably take into account the fact that it is weakened and work against it. The GA empire only has a piddly bunch of rebels that it has to worry about, I totally doubt they would provide much of a fight, I mean come on. :smallamused:

B: Here is a biggie in my mind, if there was to be this war, one side would have to go to the other. Which is more likely to attack, probably the Imperium, since the Empire likes humans, those guys over there are humans, lets let them be, and the Imperium would probably see a lot of the Empire as being heretical. Okay, maybe not, but whoever decides to attack will be at a disadvantage do to the ability of the other to start building defenses as soon as they find out. Assuming they both learn about each other and decide to attack might work better for the alternate universe theory where the empire has all the hyperspace it wants (pre mapped) and the Imperium has all the warp it wants (doesn't affect the star wars side), this way I suppose works.

C: I would like to provide another alternative thought. Since the movies are set long ago, this is obviously a hypothetical grudge match, but even at the height of the empire's power, we probably have an issue with the Imperium having the numerical advantage if for example say, the two galaxies hypothetically moved way closer to each other or something. Because I think that distance issue is really pretty important. So the few advantages the Empire gets are based on if they have distance and a bit of time....the ability to build droids really fast and catch up (maybe this is debatable, since I don't think that the empire would have the death star and robots......since the combat droids were outlawed by that time I think) and the ability to create new tech (although the KOTR point might invalidate this too...damn....but they are probably still more likely to do it than the Imperium). So my main point is that a better arguement might be what happens if the Imperium doesn't have a numerical advantage, and the empire doesn't have the ability to come up with new tech much more quickly. Say that hypothetically the rebellion was crushed, the emperor allowed more force users, in fact a lot more (and was able to keep things stable still), and was able to grow a great deal larger. I know this is all hypothetical, but it puts things on a bit more even footing. I think this might be more interesting, though maybe not. Another way of going about it would be the GA after the Vong invasion with time to get their stuff together. Either way, the SW side has at least 40K years to get ready, or less if they get to an even keel if you really thin about it! The big bang (theoretically, I'm not going to debate this, but lets say everything in existence started around the same time.) happened. It's not SW's fault that evolution (another theoretical) took longer on earth :smalltongue:

[factotum]

C: I would like to provide another alternative thought. Since the movies are set long ago, this is obviously a hypothetical grudge match, but even at the height of the empire's power, we probably have an issue with the Imperium having the numerical advantage if for example say, the two galaxies hypothetically moved way closer to each other or something.

The problem is, once you start introducing timescales, the whole "versus" scenario falls apart anyway--the Galactic Empire ceased to exist as a cohesive political entity when the Emperor was killed at the Battle of Endor, which is a "long time ago"; conversely, the Imperium of Man takes place at some point way into our future, so the two groups simply could not meet up without time travel involved. This is another reason why it probably makes more sense to have this battle take place in neutral territory which is not "home" to either empire.

[webgem]

That was the part about the rebellion hypothetically being crushed and all, I guess I included the emperor not getting ganked in my head. That, I think, is just as likely as them meeting up via time travel thats all. And if the tech hasn't evolved much in 2000 years, I'm also giving a slight stretch that it hasn't in 40000 years, I'm just saying it's an alternate possibility, not one that has to be explored, just one I'd like to see explored.

I'm still okay with neutral territory in this situation

[LordVader]

Actually, we don't know how long before KOTOR the tech was the same. And we're not factoring other factions in either, if we do the Empire has as much of a problem as the Imperium, due to all the alien species that would rebel.

And 40k technology stopped evolving around the year 30,000. It's been stagnant for 10,000 years, not 40,000, unless we have Warp travel and Space Marines right now.:smalltongue:

[webgem]

Yeah, that was kind of a joke in the first part, about the rebels not being much of a nuisance......yup.

[warty goblin]

Well I'm about to chime in with a few points, mostly invalidated by the "hypothetical universe thing." Also, while they are somewhat interesting points, totally disregard them as being stupid if you like....cuz they kinda are. Though there are a few nuggets of importance there.

A: Imperium has other enemies, if they get in a brawl with the GA (empire) the others will probably take into account the fact that it is weakened and work against it. The GA empire only has a piddly bunch of rebels that it has to worry about, I totally doubt they would provide much of a fight, I mean come on. :smallamused:



One crucial difference in terms of enemies- the Imperium survives despite being under attack from Eldar, orks, dark Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids, Tau and Chaos. The Empire is destroyed by its one enemy. If we give one side its enemies, its only fair that the Empire has to deal with theirs as well. So I propose leaving the enemies out of this equation altogether. The Warp can be chaos-tainted, but let's suppose no invading Chaos armies. Similarly a little political turmoil can exist in the Empire, but no organized rebellion.

Seems more fair to me that way.

[webgem]

I totally agree, since the part about the rebels not being nuisance, definitely was a joke in case anybody was still wondering on my stance there.

[warty goblin]

I picked up on the smily after I had posted, but yes, they would be an "nuiscence"

[webgem]

So anyone for an if they were numerically equal sort of fight? Otherwise it seems to be that the imperium wins easily, I still think they might win in an equal battle, even though I like starwars a little more, the arguments seem to be favoring the imperium on equipment as well.

[Swordguy]

So anyone for an if they were numerically equal sort of fight? Otherwise it seems to be that the imperium wins easily, I still think they might win in an equal battle, even though I like starwars a little more, the arguments seem to be favoring the imperium on equipment as well.

Indeed. Except for 1-of-a-kind vessels (suncrusher, et al), the Imperium has across-the-board better (or at least equal to) equipment, including several battlefield roles that SW simply doesn't cover. In particular, Titans are a BIG advantage to the Imperium. While arguments about them falling to airpower exist, and are accurate, they severely underestimate the quantity of munitions required to drop a Titan through airpower alone. Titans are, for one thing, shielded, which gives them an advantage over ever piece of ground equipment we've seen the Empire or the previous regime employ (I ignore the existence of stuff that gets invented after Endor, because that's the end of the Empire. This argument is about them fighting at their zenith 0 roughly during the period in Empire Strikes Back).

Equipment:
Personal Weapons: Lasguns=E-11's. Simple.
Personal Support weapons: E-webs (not bad) vs Anti-armor lasguns, heavy bolters, autocannons, and mortars (indirect support is a very good thing).
Personal Armor: The Imperial Army has helmets. Joy. The Stormtroopers have NBC armor that has minimal protective value. The IG has armor that may or may not be NBC-capable (regiment depending) that stops 1/3rd of all shots against it from a weapon equivalent to thier lasgun (or the E-11).


Mechanized Support:
Empire: AT-ST's, AT-ATs, and I'll even give them AT-PTs (which are nice) and some of the random droid stuff we saw on Geonosis. They employ laser/blaster weapons almost exclusively (there are a very few missile-carrying vehicles). This simplifies logistics to a certain degree. Very laudable. They do have artillery, seen on Geonosis, that fires a realy big laser/blaster weapon.
Imperium: A dozen different varieties of tracked tank (Leman Russ Chassis) and a dozen different varieties of Tracked cargo carrier (Chimera APC chassis). Primary weapons tend to be ballistic, though energy support armaments are common (sponson lascannons, etc). This gives them a really important capability. They give up the accuracy of a laser weapon for the ability to fire indirectly from their artillery.

In general, ranges compute to about even. Neither gameplay on the tabletop or what we see inthe SW movies supports the ranges given in "technical" documents.

Heavy Mechanized Support:
Empire:...AT-AT's?
Imperium: About half a dozen varieties of Titan. The smallest, the Warhound, is described in the Horus Heresy books and the Last Chancers novels to be about 60m tall. That's 3-4 times the size of an AT-AT. It's the smallest Titan.

Air Support:Empire: TIE fighters of varying capabilities. Easily destroyed, very fast and maneuverable.
Imperium: Starhawk and (can't recall the name) fighters and bombers. MUCH bigger than Empire craft - an Imperium fighter has a crew of 7 (though 1 is an Astropath for long-range comms). Much tougher to destroy, but much less maneuverable due to sheer size than a TIE. Roughly equivalent to a Skipray Blastboat. I think the Empire wins here, at least in space superiority, but Imperium craft are atmosphere-capable, while TIE's don't do so well there. And even if the Empire gets highly atmosphere-capable craft, using them for ground support limits thier tactical options (direct ground support craft MUST come in on a predictable vector and AoA), which makes them easy meat for Imperium fighters (that goes both ways, though).

Space Superiority:
Empire: Various Capital Ships, the most common is the 1600m Imperial-class Star Destroyer (note: it's NOT a "destroyer" - which is a ship role. It's a destroyer as in "it's a ship title that sounds good", like the F-14 is the F-14 Tomcat Air Interdiction Fighter. A destroyer's role is anti-submarine work (anti-stealth ships) and air defense. Therefore, if the Imperial-class was a destroyer, it would have uber-sensors and lots of anti-fighter guns.). The Imperial carries 72 (36 fighters, 24 bombers) craft, and 60 anti-capital ship guns of uncertain, but potent, power. There are a very FEW Executor-class Super Star Destroyers that are about 16km long. They aren't as good as one would think, largely because they have MORE of the same guns, rather than larger ones. It also only doubles the fighter load - to 144 craft. Note that Imperial craft tend to be "kitchen sink" ships. They can do some of everything (because they most often operate alone or in small task groups seeming of a dozen ships at most), but they can't do something just as well as a dedicated ship. This hasn't hurt them so far, because nobody else in the SW universe has fielded dedicated ships.
Imperium: Dedicated ships. The most common will be the Dictator Fighter Carrier and the Lunar-class Cruiser. The most common deployment seems for 1 Dictator to be paired with 2 Lunars. 1 Dictator carries about 240 fighters and bombers (1 squadron is 20 craft, the Dictator can launch 4 squadrons per turn of Battlefleet Gothic essentially indefinitely - but a GW "optional" rule limited you to 3x your launch rate, so 12 squadrons) - the ratio of such is unknown. The Dictator carries weapon batteries of uncertain power, but a single orbital bombardment from a weapon battery of identical size in the first Last Chancers novel leveled an area of 25km wide by 25 km deep in about 2 minutes of fire. A Lunar carries an identical weapon battery armament, and adds several Lance turrets. As previously noted, Lance turrets are big enough to require a crew of 3000 each (BFG rulebook) and a single shot can turn a 2km tall mountain fortress into a 1km deep crater (Faith and Fire novel). Ship size for cruisers seems to be in the 18-20km range, with a significant variance in canon sources (150m in an Rogue Trader novel, which is patently impossible with the stated crew of 2000, up to 30km in one of the Space Wolf novels - though this was a CHAOS-tained cruiser, and Chaos does weird stuff to perception and to actual dimensions).
In addition, the Imperium has screening forces (destroyers and frigates in the 1-2km size regoin) and actual Battleships that actually are in the 30-40km region, and increase the size of thier guns to match (the Broadside from the Retribution-class BB is literally twice the power of that of a Lunar-class CA).

Everything discussed here for the Imperium is standard issue. That is, they aren't limited production runs (Executor SSD) or one-offs (Sun Crusher, Death Star).

[webgem]

Okay, cool I think you have outlined pretty much everything I'm looking for. Only one other thing, so what about those one vehicle things? Say that the empire pulled out the Sun Crusher....boop there goes a star system...er solar system. Thats pretty effective. I'm sure there is some downside here that I'm missing though.

Edit: At least this way with even numbers the death star and sun crusher can be going about disabling key areas, and this gives a lot more emphasis to the maneuverability that the GE might have, (if hyperspeed works).

[Talkkno]

Indeed. Except for 1-of-a-kind vessels (suncrusher, et al), the Imperium has across-the-board better (or at least equal to) equipment, including several battlefield roles that SW simply doesn't cover. In particular, Titans are a BIG advantage to the Imperium. While arguments about them falling to airpower exist, and are accurate, they severely underestimate the quantity of munitions required to drop a Titan through airpower alone. Titans are, for one thing, shielded, which gives them an advantage over ever piece of ground equipment we've seen the Empire or the previous regime employ (I ignore the existence of stuff that gets invented after Endor, because that's the end of the Empire. This argument is about them fighting at their zenith 0 roughly during the period in Empire Strikes Back).
I would actully put the height of the Empire right after they defeat the Galatic Federation of Free Alliciences at Courstant, but right before Krayt coup's the Imperial Throne, which roughly takes place 140 years after the battle of Yavin, as the EMpire has alot more time then to build more ships and etc, but we don't really know what they are equiped with per say, so lets say thats moot point.

Equipment:
Personal Weapons: Lasguns=E-11's. Simple.
Personal Support weapons: E-webs (not bad) vs Anti-armor lasguns, heavy bolters, autocannons, and mortars (indirect support is a very good thing).
Personal Armor: The Imperial Army has helmets. Joy. The Stormtroopers have NBC armor that has minimal protective value. The IG has armor that may or may not be NBC-capable (regiment depending) that stops 1/3rd of all shots against it from a weapon equivalent to thier lasgun (or the E-11).
Err...E-11 is not what you equip when you ae fighting a major war, there the equivlent to a SMG which is more useful for fighting rebels then the big ass heavy blaster rifles then clone troopers in AOTC carried. So i think that would be a better equivilemnt.


Mechanized Support:
Empire: AT-ST's, AT-ATs, and I'll even give them AT-PTs (which are nice) and some of the random droid stuff we saw on Geonosis. They employ laser/blaster weapons almost exclusively (there are a very few missile-carrying vehicles). This simplifies logistics to a certain degree. Very laudable. They do have artillery, seen on Geonosis, that fires a realy big laser/blaster weapon.
Imperium: A dozen different varieties of tracked tank (Leman Russ Chassis) and a dozen different varieties of Tracked cargo carrier (Chimera APC chassis). Primary weapons tend to be ballistic, though energy support armaments are common (sponson lascannons, etc). This gives them a really important capability. They give up the accuracy of a laser weapon for the ability to fire indirectly from their artillery.

In general, ranges compute to about even. Neither gameplay on the tabletop or what we see inthe SW movies supports the ranges given in "technical" documents.)
The SPHA-T is bascilly a turbolaser without the ship. And does the Imperium have anything to equal LAAT/i?


Heavy Mechanized Support:
Empire:...AT-AT's?
Imperium: About half a dozen varieties of Titan. The smallest, the Warhound, is described in the Horus Heresy books and the Last Chancers novels to be about 60m tall. That's 3-4 times the size of an AT-AT. It's the smallest Titan.
You aren't seriously suggesting that that a APC is the only thing the Empire has for Heavy Mechanized Support do you? AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armoed Transport. The X-V1 vipers are proberly what you are thinking for that.


[B]Air Support:Empire: TIE fighters of varying capabilities. Easily destroyed, very fast and maneuverable.
Imperium: Starhawk and (can't recall the name) fighters and bombers. MUCH bigger than Empire craft - an Imperium fighter has a crew of 7 (though 1 is an Astropath for long-range comms). Much tougher to destroy, but much less maneuverable due to sheer size than a TIE. Roughly equivalent to a Skipray Blastboat. I think the Empire wins here, at least in space superiority, but Imperium craft are atmosphere-capable, while TIE's don't do so well there. And even if the Empire gets highly atmosphere-capable craft, using them for ground support limits thier tactical options (direct ground support craft MUST come in on a predictable vector and AoA), which makes them easy meat for Imperium fighters (that goes both ways, though)
LAAT/i's?


[B][B]Space Superiority:
Empire: Various Capital Ships, the most common is the 1600m Imperial-class Star Destroyer (note: it's NOT a "destroyer" - which is a ship role. It's a destroyer as in "it's a ship title that sounds good", like the F-14 is the F-14 Tomcat Air Interdiction Fighter. A destroyer's role is anti-submarine work (anti-stealth ships) and air defense. Therefore, if the Imperial-class was a destroyer, it would have uber-sensors and lots of anti-fighter guns.). The Imperial carries 72 (36 fighters, 24 bombers) craft, and 60 anti-capital ship guns of uncertain, but potent, power. There are a very FEW Executor-class Super Star Destroyers that are about 16km long. They aren't as good as one would think, largely because they have MORE of the same guns, rather than larger ones. It also only doubles the fighter load - to 144 craft. Note that Imperial craft tend to be "kitchen sink" ships. They can do some of everything (because they most often operate alone or in small task groups seeming of a dozen ships at most), but they can't do something just as well as a dedicated ship. This hasn't hurt them so far, because nobody else in the SW universe has fielded dedicated ships.
Imperium: Dedicated ships. The most common will be the Dictator Fighter Carrier and the Lunar-class Cruiser. The most common deployment seems for 1 Dictator to be paired with 2 Lunars. 1 Dictator carries about 240 fighters and bombers (1 squadron is 20 craft, the Dictator can launch 4 squadrons per turn of Battlefleet Gothic essentially indefinitely - but a GW "optional" rule limited you to 3x your launch rate, so 12 squadrons) - the ratio of such is unknown. The Dictator carries weapon batteries of uncertain power, but a single orbital bombardment from a weapon battery of identical size in the first Last Chancers novel leveled an area of 25km wide by 25 km deep in about 2 minutes of fire. A Lunar carries an identical weapon battery armament, and adds several Lance turrets. As previously noted, Lance turrets are big enough to require a crew of 3000 each (BFG rulebook) and a single shot can turn a 2km tall mountain fortress into a 1km deep crater (Faith and Fire novel). Ship size for cruisers seems to be in the 18-20km range, with a significant variance in canon sources (150m in an Rogue Trader novel, which is patently impossible with the stated crew of 2000, up to 30km in one of the Space Wolf novels - though this was a CHAOS-tained cruiser, and Chaos does weird stuff to perception and to actual dimensions).
In addition, the Imperium has screening forces (destroyers and frigates in the 1-2km size regoin) and actual Battleships that actually are in the 30-40km region, and increase the size of thier guns to match (the Broadside from the Retribution-class BB is literally twice the power of that of a Lunar-class CA).
Strike class crusiers, Dreadnaught, there is a carrier craft somewhere...look up on Wookie for list of capships the Empire has tons of them for spefic duties.

[Afraidofsharpie]

Well the Sun Crusher didn't exist pre-Endor which is when the Empire was not only at it's strongest but also still able to be called an Empire

[Arang]

Okay, cool I think you have outlined pretty much everything I'm looking for. Only one other thing, so what about those one vehicle things? Say that the empire pulled out the Sun Crusher....boop there goes a star system...er solar system. Thats pretty effective. I'm sure there is some downside here that I'm missing though.

Edit: At least this way with even numbers the death star and sun crusher can be going about disabling key areas, and this gives a lot more emphasis to the maneuverability that the GE might have, (if hyperspeed works).

Well, if we're bringing in the one-of-a-kind stuff, there's always the Emperor ...:smallamused:

EDIT:


Err...E-11 is not what you equip when you ae fighting a major war, there the equivlent to a SMG which is more useful for fighting rebels then the big ass heavy blaster rifles then clone troopers in AOTC carried. So i think that would be a better equivilemnt.

The E-11 is the standard weapon for Stormtroopers. They carried E-11s throughout the Galactic Civil War, which we've agreed (I think) on being the height of the Empire.

[Talkkno]

Well, if we're bringing in the one-of-a-kind stuff, there's always the Emperor ...:smallamused:

Wankatine *Cough* force storms *Cough*

[Swordguy]

Okay, cool I think you have outlined pretty much everything I'm looking for. Only one other thing, so what about those one vehicle things? Say that the empire pulled out the Sun Crusher....boop there goes a star system...er solar system. Thats pretty effective. I'm sure there is some downside here that I'm missing though.

Edit: At least this way with even numbers the death star and sun crusher can be going about disabling key areas, and this gives a lot more emphasis to the maneuverability that the GE might have, (if hyperspeed works).

Re: Sun Crusher:

1) It's NOT an Imperial Weapon. It post-dates the fall of the Empire, and thus isn't a viable weapon for the Empire to employ in this fight.
2) Psykers hit the brain of the guy flying it. They can possess him and turn it around, or just have him fly off randomly into a sun or a gas giant or something. Psykers in the Imperium don't need Line of sight to do their thing (it helps, but isn't necessary).

Re: Death Star:

1) It's big, slow, and vulnerable to a major fleet action. It'd be a BIG fight, don't get me wrong, but it has to come to a planet to matter. Warfighting logic says that it'd only come to planets it absolutely HAS to kill first (Cadia, Armageddon, Terra, Ultramar). Ergot, large defensive fleets and fortifications can be placed at these locations, and wait for the DS to come to them. If it comes to them, it gets waxed (it may kill the planet, but it'll get waxed). If it DOESN'T come to them, then it's flying around blowing up planets that don't really matter, and the Imperium has thousands (at a minimum) of those. And frankly, it's not that hard to knock out of action. Think of it like an aircraft carrier - to render it strategically useless, all you have to do is eliminate it's flight deck, not sink it. Same thing applies to the DS. If you can damage to superlaser, then it's really just a resource sink.

2) It was never intended to go into a defended system and wipe everything out anyway. There was no point - the Empire already controlled most every important system. What it was for was a terror weapon - if you get "uppity", the DS drops by and smooshes you. Great way to stop people from revolting, yes? It was never constructed under a doctrine of large-scale fleet combat, therefore, it's unlikely at best it would perform well in this role.

[Talkkno]

1) It's big, slow, and vulnerable to a major fleet action. It'd be a BIG fight, don't get me wrong, but it has to come to a planet to matter. Warfighting logic says that it'd only come to planets it absolutely HAS to kill first (Cadia, Armageddon, Terra, Ultramar). Ergot, large defensive fleets and fortifications can be placed at these locations, and wait for the DS to come to them. If it comes to them, it gets waxed (it may kill the planet, but it'll get waxed). If it DOESN'T come to them, then it's flying around blowing up planets that don't really matter, and the Imperium has thousands (at a minimum) of those. And frankly, it's not that hard to knock out of action. Think of it like an aircraft carrier - to render it strategically useless, all you have to do is eliminate it's flight deck, not sink it. Same thing applies to the DS. If you can damage to superlaser, then it's really just a resource sink
It thousnads upon thousands of heavy turbolasers and it carries tons of fighters, so it isn't totally useless. And its not like they cant use there fleet to support or anything.

2

[Swordguy]

I would actully put the height of the Empire right after they defeat the Galatic Federation of Free Alliciences at Courstant, but right before Krayt coup's the Imperial Throne, which roughly takes place 140 years after the battle of Yavin, as the EMpire has alot more time then to build more ships and etc, but we don't really know what they are equiped with per say, so lets say thats moot point.

Umm...E-11 is not what you equip when you ae fighting a major war, there the equivlent to a SMG which is more useful for fighting rebels then the big ass heavy blaster rifles then clone troopers in AOTC carried. So i think that would be a better equivilemnt.

Re: bolded text. Ummm...no. See "canon sources", below.

Dealing with the E-11, the power of the shots has roughly the same visual effect against things like walls. Ergot, it's not a more powerful weapon - just bigger. (Which makes sense, btw...tech gets smaller as it advances, so a small E-11 that's the same power as a larger blaster follows that). Also, there's not really a point in making it more powerful, since it's quite powerful enough AS IS to do the job.

I also do not accept that the clonetrooper weapon is the primary weapon of the Imperial Army or the Stormtroopers. 1) We don't see one really deployed in ANY scenarios in the Empire era in any sort of numerical strength. Basic military doctrine thus indicates it's employed as a squad support weapon (1-2 per squad), which IS borne out in the movies. In a group of STs, you'll see one, maybe 2 guys with the big guns. 2) Why weren't they deployed in scenarios where it would have been really handy? Endor and Tatooine (going after the Falcon) specifically, were outdoor combat zones where there was sufficient space to employ such a weapon.



The SPHA-T is bascilly a turbolaser without the ship. And does the Imperium have anything to equal LAAT/i?

You aren't seriously suggesting that that a APC is the only thing the Empire has for Heavy Mechanized Support do you? AT-AT stands for All Terrain Armoed Transport. The X-V1 vipers are proberly what you are thinking for that.

LAAT/i's?


Canon stats on all of them. And images. From the movies preferably (Ep III through VI)...and NOT from anything that happened post-Endor (since there's no way to be sure if they came about after that time or not).



Strike class crusiers, Dreadnaught, there is a carrier craft somewhere...look up on Wookie for list of capships the Empire has tons of them for spefic duties.

All less powerful and capable than the Imperium ships (less than 10% the size, for one thing). Secondly, these don't seem to be in COMMON use in the fleets. Again, canon sources from the previously listed movie era. While they exist, I'm comparing the baseline, "core of the fleet" craft. That means (x3)ISDs vs Dictator/Lunar trios.

And, just as a point: Lucasfilm canon=Movies, Scripts, Novels, Radioplays, in descending order of canonicity. Everything else is "official", meaning "cool, but not canon, and George reserves the right to say no". Ergot, "official" stuff may not actually be in use in SW.

Therefore, when I ask you to show a CANON source...well...now you know what you can pull from.

(Before you ask, if it has a GW label on it, it's considered canon. All of it.)

[Swordguy]

It thousnads upon thousands of heavy turbolasers and it carries tons of fighters, so it isn't totally useless. And its not like they cant use there fleet to support or anything.

2

I'm not saying it's not powerful, or that it can't be supported. I'm saying it's constructed under a fleet doctrine that has nothing to do with fleet actions and everything to do with civilian suppression.

And I'm not saying that it mightn't accomplish a few planet killings. What I AM arguing against is the fallacious argument that says "the Death Star can just cruise around blowing up Imperium planets and they can't do anything about it."

Show me where a Death Star has taken, by itself, a heavily-defended planet (with orbital defenses, planetary void shields [in use they are similar to the Yuzaahn Vong "black hole" shields], and a large starfleet of its own), and I might give that arguement some consideration.

[webgem]

Okay, I suppose that makes sense with the sun crusher, although with equal numbers the fight wouldn't be quite as short I'd guess, giving the empire time to finish the sun crusher, which would fit with the idea that the empire has the ability grow a bit tech wise. Although that invalidates some of my earlier points I suppose, such as giving hem the equal numbers. So the whole sun crusher debate is a bit iffy. However, since Thrawn is one of there generals in this situation, one could assume he would just fall back to the maw with as many people as he could, be like hey emperor, we have this. Also, could you send a powerful dark jedi and pilot like Vader to come fly this thing around their galaxy once we get it built, stall until then please. I'm working on the assumption vader could resist their psykers here. So even if they are fighting a loosing battle until then, maybe even if it was just at the height of their real power, not with inflated numbers, this might work. In the end the empire might be reduced to the role that the rebels had, fighting from a hidden base striking randomly, but it might work. This whole line of thought invalidates some of my other points such as (what if they were equal in numbers and had the same strengths) so this is a bit of a tangent, and feel free to correct me here, because I know its not really fair of me to retract one of my own statements here.

Edit: I know you said post endor stuff wasn't allowed, but I'm guessing the sun crusher was at least being worked on by this time.

[Swordguy]

Okay, I suppose that makes sense with the sun crusher, although with equal numbers the fight wouldn't be quite as short I'd guess, giving the empire time to finish the sun crusher, which would fit with the idea that the empire has the ability grow a bit tech wise. Although that invalidates some of my earlier points I suppose, such as giving hem the equal numbers. So the whole sun crusher debate is a bit iffy. However, since Thrawn is one of there generals in this situation, one could assume he would just fall back to the maw with as many people as he could, be like hey emperor, we have this. Also, could you send a powerful dark jedi and pilot like Vader to come fly this thing around their galaxy once we get it built, stall until then please. I'm working on the assumption vader could resist their psykers here. So even if they are fighting a loosing battle until then, maybe even if it was just at the height of their real power, not with inflated numbers, this might work. In the end the empire might be reduced to the role that the rebels had, fighting from a hidden base striking randomly, but it might work. This whole line of thought invalidates some of my other points such as (what if they were equal in numbers and had the same strengths) so this is a bit of a tangent, and feel free to correct me here, because I know its not really fair of me to retract one of my own statements here.

It's perfectly fair.

Here's the thing with limiting the time scope in which this fight happens. You can't pull "well, the Empire had fallen, but 10 years down the line their scientists came up with this ubar-invincible fighter so we get to use it" because, frankly, it opens up the field too much. The Imperium has a 10,000 year block of stuff to pull from, but that's largely because there's been no appreciable technological growth in that time period (and it's arguable there's been no net population growth either, depending on which sources you want to check). The Empire gets a period of time where they were at the height of their success (just post-Empire), where they've had enough time to bring into play all the technologies they've really wanted to, and in fact technological progress has hit a plateau (much like the Imperium's 10k block of time).

If we open the field up to "any equipment available to this faction at any time", then it just becomes silly. It ALSO means that all the REALLY uber lost technologies from the Age of Strike in 40K become available (planetkillers, battledroids, etc), to say nothing of both the Emperor, AND Horus, AND the Primarchs, AND the Space Marine legions before they were artificially reduced in size (they used to be 10,000+ in a legion, now they're mandated to 1,000 at a time and no more).

It renders the entire discussion pointless.

EDIT: re: your edit. The problem is we don't know how far along it was. It wasn't fielded until over a decade after the Empire fell. Was the invincible armor done by then? How about the supernova torps? We CAN'T know. Therefore, we can't accurately predict the effect it'd have on the battle. A response of "it was fully complete and would WTFPWN every Imperium ship ever" is equally as idiotic and invalid as a response of "it's still on the drawing board." Since we can't know, and can't even begin to predict it's effects, than in a logical argument we have no choice but to discount it until further data is acquired.

[Illiterate Scribe]

LAAT/i's?

A LAAT/i:
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/thumb/f/f8/LAATi_swtcw.jpg/600px-LAATi_swtcw.jpg

But may I submit to you the Thunderhawk (space-capable):
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/events/blood1.jpg

And the Valkyrie (admittedly not space-capable):
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/valkpaint1.jpg

Similar, no?

[webgem]

Well, actually that isn't exactly what I was going for. As far as I understand it the sun crusher was under construction since it was at a place created by Tarkin. Yeah, I said the wrong dude earlier actually. So it started construction b4 yavin 4 (episode 4). Since we are working on the assumption that we have a fully functional death star (I think that means the first one) I assume Tarkin is still alive. So if we're at that point, it's not something just made up after the empire is gone, it is something that is in progress at the time, that gets finished. Probably sooner since more funds would be devoted to this type of thing if it were this necessary. I'd also allow a similar project that is being built in some canon source for warhammer 40 k. That seems fine to me.

Edit: sorry read your edit, that makes sense, its true there probably isn't a real way to tell for sure how long it would take, but since hypothetically it only takes like 6 years after Endor, couldn't we say if the empire could survive that long they have a chance, if not who cares? I mean by then the whole thing might be moot, because if the Imperium can wipe out most of the empire by then or find the installation we probably have MAD (mutually assured destruction). so yeah, basically the sun crusher thing is irrelevant

[Illiterate Scribe]

Also, could you send a powerful dark jedi and pilot like Vader to come fly this thing around their galaxy once we get it built, stall until then please. I'm working on the assumption vader could resist their psykers here.

Given what we've seen Vader use of the force (and I grant that he may have more power than this), he would fall fairly quickly to an Inquisitorial psyker, or even wors, a daemonhost.


So even if they are fighting a loosing battle until then, maybe even if it was just at the height of their real power, not with inflated numbers, this might work. In the end the empire might be reduced to the role that the rebels had, fighting from a hidden base striking randomly, but it might work.

A Callidus assassin would give this plan trouble. Imagine what would have happened to the rebels if the Leia rescued on the Death-Star wasn't actually Leia, but a superhuman killing machine perfectly disguised as her, who would then proceed to start bumping off Rebel leaders in their base. Yeah.

[Swordguy]

A LAAT/i:
http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/thumb/f/f8/LAATi_swtcw.jpg/600px-LAATi_swtcw.jpg

But may I submit to you the Thunderhawk (space-capable):
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/events/blood1.jpg

And the Valkyrie (admittedly not space-capable):
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/valkpaint1.jpg

Similar, no?

Thank you. I'm not as up-to-date on Prequel equipment as I'd like to be.

IIRC, he was pointing out that the LAAT/i invalidated the Chimera as an APC. It does not. It's roughly equivalent to a Thunderhawk, which means that its battlefield role is arial troop insertion. The role of ground APC is still filled solely by the AT-AT, as far as I can tell.

For filling the same battlefield role:
LAAT/i = Thunderhawk
Chimera APC = AT-AT (The AT-AT actually win this particular matchup, due to its phenomenal durability - but there's something to be said for the target saturation that the Chimera provides).


(I am also waiting on a Titan equivalent. Or a Leman Russ equivalent. Or a Basilisk equivalent [the Geonosis Artillery can't fire indirectly...]. Etc, ad infinitum, ad nauseum).

[Illiterate Scribe]

Or a Fortress Monastery equivalent ... :smallbiggrin:

[Swordguy]

Or a Fortress Monastery equivalent ... :smallbiggrin:

*wince*

Aye...

[webgem]

Yup, I was already leaning Imperium, and I think I'll have to fall that way. The only other thought was that wouldn't the strongest point of the empire been when the sun crusher was created? Except the empire didn't really have it then, because nobody knew about it. Even if they did there would be that whole brain popping thing, assuming the psyc guys it could pick out a target like that.

[Talkkno]

And, just as a point: Lucasfilm canon=Movies, Scripts, Novels, Radioplays, in descending order of canonicity. Everything else is "official", meaning "cool, but not canon, and George reserves the right to say no". Ergot, "official" stuff may not actually be in use in SW.

Therefore, when I ask you to show a CANON source...well...now you know what you can pull from.

(Before you ask, if it has a GW label on it, it's considered canon. All of it.)

False, it is only noncanon if it speficilly stated under the infinites label or directly condricts the movies.

The OP did not restrict EU so :smallbiggrin:

[Rogue 7]

Chimera APC = AT-AT (The AT-AT actually win this particular matchup, due to its phenomenal durability - but there's something to be said for the target saturation that the Chimera provides).


(I am also waiting on a Titan equivalent.

The AT-AT, at least in terms of relative effect, would be roughly equal to a Warhound in my mind. Warhounds weren't that big (see forgeworld's models), and the AT-AT has much greater durability (ground-based heavy weapons and heavy speeder-mounted weapons, which I compare to be lascannons and autocannons respectively in terms of power) couldn't scratch the things. Now, autocannons might not work against a titan, but lascannons are fairly effective, and in terms of sheer mass, the AT-AT was larger. An AT-AT would step on a Chimera with little problems, and I imagine that its weaponry would be correspondingly more powerful (two sets of twin-linked las, at minimum). Add to that 40 Stormtroopers (Chimeras can carry a squad of 10), with speeder bikes for added mobility, armed with meltagun equivlants, and you could most likely take on a Warhound.

Also note the relative rarity of the Adeptus Titanicus. They're aspects of the Adeptus Mechanicus, and fairly few in number. A fairly midsized conflict like the Taros Campaign (not huge-scale by any means, but planetwide), had, what, 3 Warhounds and a Reaver/Warlord? (I think it's in IA 3, if someone has that, could they confirm?)

AT-ATs are decent heavy walkers. They're a bit lacking in weaponry, but their sheer toughness and ability to carry troops makes up for it.

[LordVader]

But the AT-AT is ridiculously undergunned compared to a Warhound Titan. I'd give it two Lascannon equivalents and two Multi-Laser equivalents, which will barely harm a Titan. Also, lascannons are more powerful then speeder blasts.


Let me ask you. What do you think would win, an AT-AT or http://www.homem-azul.com/var/homem-azul/storage/images/media/images/mars_pattern_warhound_titan/11501-1-por-PT/mars_pattern_warhound_titan_large.jpg?

Really, it's a no-brainer. Just look at relative gun sizes.:smalltongue:

[Swordguy]

False, it is only noncanon if it speficilly stated under the infinites label or directly condricts the movies.

The OP did not restrict EU so :smallbiggrin:

Oh, well then, we're back to the "whomever can pull the biggest fanwank in any way vaguely related to the universe in question wins" point. (See also: TIE Defender, aka "look how many gunz I can stick on my ship!")

As for canonocity, try here:
A simple explaination of Lucasfilm's levels of canon. (http://www.spiritus-temporis.com/expanded-universe-(star-wars)/current-official-types-of-canon.html)

Ergot, an argument such as "the E-11 isn't the common-issue weapon for stromtroopers" doesn't hold water, because the movies contradict it. It also cancels out discussions about "every fleet had a bunch of support ships", because we SEE a fleet onscreen at Endor, and they don't, ergot every fleet doesn't. In short, since anything not onscreen (G-level canon) can be contradicted by George Lucas at any time, you can't count on something that's NOT G-level to be an actual part of the SW Universe. Simply some author or comic books artist's interpretation of what they'd LIKE to see in SW.

If it was ALL canon, onscreen evidence couldn't override, say, a novel.

[Rogue 7]

But the AT-AT is ridiculously undergunned compared to a Warhound Titan. I'd give it two Lascannon equivalents and two Multi-Laser equivalents, which will barely harm a Titan. Also, lascannons are more powerful then speeder blasts.


Let me ask you. What do you think would win, an AT-AT or http://www.homem-azul.com/var/homem-azul/storage/images/media/images/mars_pattern_warhound_titan/11501-1-por-PT/mars_pattern_warhound_titan_large.jpg?

Really, it's a no-brainer. Just look at relative gun sizes.:smalltongue:
I note that that Titan's armed with a Vulcan Mega Bolter. The Plasma Blastgun will probably do a lot of damage, but that bolter's anti-infantry (admittedly, it shreds infantry so badly it's not funny). So the blastgun will be its only weapon against the AT-AT, and the AT-AT's noticeably tougher than a titan. I said it's undergunned, and it's not a direct comparaison, but it's certainly not a chimera. If anything it's a souped-up Gorgon.

[sikyon]

I'd like to point out again that imperial fleets can rip apart planets. Case: Dark Angles fleet, arriving home to Caliban (space marine legion fortress world) is surprise attacked, crippling a large part of their fleet, and fights a battle with a world designed to resist attack. The combined fleet firepower rips the world apart in the battle, and that's trading shots with anti capital ship guns (not, say, sitting there and bombarding a defenseless world at leisure). That's the amount of firepower the Imperium has at its disposal. I'd wager that ripping apart a planet is far harder than ripping apart the death star.

[LordVader]

I note that that Titan's armed with a Vulcan Mega Bolter. The Plasma Blastgun will probably do a lot of damage, but that bolter's anti-infantry (admittedly, it shreds infantry so badly it's not funny). So the blastgun will be its only weapon against the AT-AT, and the AT-AT's noticeably tougher than a titan. I said it's undergunned, and it's not a direct comparaison, but it's certainly not a chimera. If anything it's a souped-up Gorgon.

I say again, I don't believe lascannons to be the equivalent of a snowspeeder laser. Those fire in bursts and the beam seems much smaller and less powerful. We don't really know the relative strength of those lasers, either. Given the Rebels' lack of funds, they're probably pretty crappy. Also, if the Warhound is equipped with (I believe it's called) the turbo-laser destructor (?) the AT-AT chances go down even more.

Regardless, there's no way an AT-AT head can be armored enough to shrug off a plasma blastgun/turbo-destructor shot without taking serious damage through the front viewport.

[Rogue 7]

Which is why I called that gun an Autocannon.:smalltongue: I was referring to the ground-based turret thingies used in the trenches. If those aren't lascannons, then the rebels were so under-armed it's no wonder they lost so badly.

[LordVader]

I would call the snowspeeder gun an autocannon equivalent as well, and the ground turrets maybe krak missile equivalents. Not really going to bother a Titan either.

[Rogue 7]

Ruleswise, S:8 will do something to a titan, even if it's only on a 6. Highest armor being 14 and all that. Fire enough of them...

However, the fact that the shots were hitting the vulnerable leg machinery and not even scratching it seems to suggest that they were truly invulnerable. That seems to me to beat titan armor.

[sikyon]

However, the fact that the shots were hitting the vulnerable leg machinery and not even scratching it seems to suggest that they were truly invulnerable. That seems to me to beat titan armor.

Titans can take on starships in orbit. That's ALOT of firepower/armor.

[LordVader]

Ruleswise, S:8 will do something to a titan, even if it's only on a 6. Highest armor being 14 and all that. Fire enough of them...

However, the fact that the shots were hitting the vulnerable leg machinery and not even scratching it seems to suggest that they were truly invulnerable. That seems to me to beat titan armor.

Rules-wise. In the rules, 2 Imperial Guardsmen, points-wise, are a match for a Space Marine. In the fluff...no.:smalltongue:

The 40k rules are a good guideline, but for some of the things they have to bend them to make them playable-Marines are an example.

[Rogue 7]

Titans can take on starships in orbit. That's ALOT of firepower/armor.

Not the scouts we're running the comparaison to. Of course, the fact that these hulking avatars of war and destruction are *scouts* says a lot.

Alright, I'll concede the point. Titans will vape AT-ATs. They're still not chimeras, dammit!

[idioscosmos]

I'd just like to point out some things that seem like...how shall we put it...holes in people's reasoning. I'm pretty neutral in all truth, but the 40k fanbois seem to be missing some things. (BTW - this is going to seem a little disjointed - that's because I'm writing it during lulls at work ^_^)

1.) Stormtroopers. Anyone here going to call Boba (or Jango) Fett a wuss? No? Stormtroopers are his freakin' clones. That's why they're actually pretty bad-arsed in I-III, and in the beginning of IV (they cut through Leia's marines like a hot knife through butter). Heck after order 66 they take out (offscreen admittedly) Kashykk - a planet full of Wookies defending their home planet. AND the fact they do quite well in the Hoth assault - They get "dissed" if you will based on 2 things. 1.) Not being able to hit the heros (plot armor gives them a 1+ invulnerable save) and 2.) Ewoks (being cute and fuzzy in a Lucas film gives you a 2+ invulnerable save). Based on their performance against non-hero/cute things in all 6 films I'd say they're about equal to Sisters of Battle except with perhaps a 4+ save vs a 3+ save. Good troops.

2.) The Death Star. If you re-watch the films the opinion is that capital ships won't even get close to one, and if they do the bloody things are supposedly quite literally coated with captial-ship sized weapons. As for the super-laser or whatever it is, if you re-watch ROTJ it fires twice within about 3 1/2 minutes. Everyone seems to think it needs to warm-up for each shot - the films suggest it has a warmup for the first shot, and after that it can crank shots out pretty fast (I don't know how many times though - one would assume the energy consumption would prohibit shooting it off too many times during one battle. That being said during the end of ROTJ they used it on Frigate-sized vessels - not a major combatant. If it was a VERY limited use weapon I'd say you'd skip targeting smaller ships and focus on the Mon-Calamari ships exclusively).

As for how long it takes to target a planet - everyone seems to think it takes a while - why? It's a big rock that goes in a pre-determined loop you can watch from a telescope a bajillion miles away. Come out of hyperspace, shoot, hyperspace out of there. The empire <i>likes</i> technology. They use computers and stuff w/o a problem. Blowing up a <i>moon</i> took some time in A New Hope because they <i>had no need to hurry</i>. Indeed, they already had a target lock on it when it was on the other side of the planet.

3.) Transportation. The empire doesn't use the warp. Unless you're suggesting Han Solo is a psyker - the only people in the imperium who can plot a course through the warp are psykers who have a bloody eye-thing in the middle of their forehead. Mutants, but accepted ones. As we have any number of examples of people who're not psykers plotting hyperspace routs, the Empire still has the ability to hyperspace...I'm thinking the empire uses a method of transport that doesn't involve the Warp at all (think Necrons here - they do the same thing so there's 40k precident here).

4.) Regular Soldiers. You don't hear about them much, but the Empire has a large number of "regular" soldiers. They're the grey guys with the big black helmets. You don't see them much because...probably because Lucas wanted to de-humanize the empire during the films. Makes it easier to dislike them. Anyway, they have a lot of them. Maybe not billions, but a lot.

5.) Empirial Armor (misspelling on purpose - it's a joke) - there's a crapton of it in "Clones". Re-watch the film. You don't see it in "A New Hope" (or later) because the rebels don't have any - why bring anti-armor weapons to an infantry fight on Hoth or Endor? One thing you can say about the AT-AT and AT-ST is they seem be able to ignore terrain modifiers.

6.) Cute Aliens - If Lucas is directing do you honestly think the Dark Angels would do any better against Ewoks than the Stormtroopers did? <i>Nothing</i> saves at better than 6+ against cute or pretty things when Lucas is involved (even the bloody Gungans took like 2 dozen casualties in PM - like I said, 2+ invulnerable save if you're cute).

7.) The Empire has all of one crappy little rebellion to deal with. The Imperium is pretty much hated by everyone - including the people who live in the Imperium. It'd take maybe one win by the Empire and all the sudden you'd have Abbadon launching a dark crusade, the Tau kicking off their 4th sphere expansion, craftworld Beil Tan being vaguely psychotic, the Dark Eldar being wholley psychotic, half a dozen "Whaags" being launched by Ork warlords, a crap-ton of rebellions in the Imperium of man (because lets be frank - when you've been living in the Imperium of Man, living in the Galactic Empire looks like a vision of paradise).

And the odd Necron attack and Tyrannid splinter-fleet that needs mopped up.

[LordVader]

Agreed. An AT-AT walks all over a Chimaera. I'd call an AT-AT as closer to a Land Raider.

Also, in response to your statements:
1. Imperial Stormtroopers are equivalent to 40k stormtroopers, of which there are many. And even then, you'll just be drowned beneath a living tide of Guardsmen.

2. Death Star? Wow, that sounds like Exterminatus, except it's not vulnerable to attacks through a small thermal exhaust port.:smalltongue:

3. Regular Troopers- Yes, there are regular troopers, but for every one of them there are 10 guardsmen.

4. Imperial Armor- Yes, it's there, but do they have Superheavy equivalents? No.

I'm ignoring the part about cute aliens. :P

[idioscosmos]

Agreed. An AT-AT walks all over a Chimaera. I'd call an AT-AT as closer to a Land Raider.

Also, in response to your statements:
1. Imperial Stormtroopers are equivalent to 40k stormtroopers, of which there are many. And even then, you'll just be drowned beneath a living tide of Guardsmen.

2. Death Star? Wow, that sounds like Exterminatus, except it's not vulnerable to attacks through a small thermal exhaust port.:smalltongue:

3. Regular Troopers- Yes, there are regular troopers, but for every one of them there are 10 guardsmen.

4. Imperial Armor- Yes, it's there, but do they have Superheavy equivalents? No.

I'm ignoring the part about cute aliens. :P

1.) A New Hope - Stormtroopers are described as being pretty much the most precise shots in the Star Wars galaxy. Jango Fett - the same DNA here folks - is shown dropping Jedi w/o a problem (not plot-armored ones) and fighting someone who BEAT the potentially most powerful Jedi like...ever...in a one-on-one fight (AotC - Jango ties Obi Wan, who later beats Darth Vader. Darth Vader is described by Palpatine as having the potential (before he did his "Knights that go Neep" imitation) to be twice as powerful as Palpatine himself). So..if you want to get really technical, with the right training and equipment an individual Stormtrooper should be able have a decent chance of at least getting a draw with ANY jedi (save Yoda probably, but then he's small and cute and in a Lucas film).

2.) Exterminatus scourges the surface of a planet. A whole fleet of ships surrounds a planet and basically pounds it - virus bombs, explosives enough to burn the atmosphere off...nasty stuff. The Death Star turns a planet into an asteroid field. Think throwing Mars at a planet at about 60,000 mph to get an idea of the forces involved here - and I'm not even sure that'd work (to completely annihilate the Earth). I mean - you'd think it'd just crack the planet open, or dunk the crust into the mantle - the mass of the planet would have enough gravity to hold its self together. Not so - it blows apart.

3.) With superior transportation (Hyperspace>the warp) the Empire could outnumber the IG locally. Focus on the...whatsit...schwerpunkt. Plus the Imperium seems to have two tactics with the Imperial Guard - Dig In and Human Wave. Not the most efficient use of the numberical advantage when you have it.

4.) Superheavy - who knows? There was very obvioius development in walker design between the two trilogies - why would the Empire stop all other armor development? Just because you don't see it in the films doesn't mean it doesn't exsist.

[Illiterate Scribe]

I'd just like to point out some things that seem like...how shall we put it...holes in people's reasoning. I'm pretty neutral in all truth, but the 40k fanbois seem to be missing some things. (BTW - this is going to seem a little disjointed - that's because I'm writing it during lulls at work ^_^)

Hey! I resolutely back the Recongregationalist Arkhanite/Belisarian Schism movement! Don't go calling me an Imperial fan-boy :smalltongue:


2.) The Death Star. If you re-watch the films the opinion is that capital ships won't even get close to one, and if they do the bloody things are supposedly quite literally coated with captial-ship sized weapons. As for the super-laser or whatever it is, if you re-watch ROTJ it fires twice within about 3 1/2 minutes. Everyone seems to think it needs to warm-up for each shot - the films suggest it has a warmup for the first shot, and after that it can crank shots out pretty fast (I don't know how many times though - one would assume the energy consumption would prohibit shooting it off too many times during one battle. That being said during the end of ROTJ they used it on Frigate-sized vessels - not a major combatant. If it was a VERY limited use weapon I'd say you'd skip targeting smaller ships and focus on the Mon-Calamari ships exclusively).

As for how long it takes to target a planet - everyone seems to think it takes a while - why? It's a big rock that goes in a pre-determined loop you can watch from a telescope a bajillion miles away. Come out of hyperspace, shoot, hyperspace out of there. The empire <i>likes</i> technology. They use computers and stuff w/o a problem. Blowing up a <i>moon</i> took some time in A New Hope because they <i>had no need to hurry</i>. Indeed, they already had a target lock on it when it was on the other side of the planet.

I submit to you the Ramilies Starfort:http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/ramilies3.jpg

That's no moon, but it's close! Bear in mind that these things are warp-capable, and fairly unique in that the STC for them is known - the Imperium began churning them out at a fairly rapid rate (one of the reasons that Medusa IV mattered so much - source of materials) - it would probably be considered a reasonable strategy to crash one of them into the Death star.


7.) The Empire has all of one crappy little rebellion to deal with. The Imperium is pretty much hated by everyone - including the people who live in the Imperium. It'd take maybe one win by the Empire and all the sudden you'd have Abbadon launching a dark crusade, the Tau kicking off their 4th sphere expansion, craftworld Beil Tan being vaguely psychotic, the Dark Eldar being wholley psychotic, half a dozen "Whaags" being launched by Ork warlords, a crap-ton of rebellions in the Imperium of man (because lets be frank - when you've been living in the Imperium of Man, living in the Galactic Empire looks like a vision of paradise).

Well, I think that we exempted the other races of the 40K universe, because if we do, then, suncrusher or not, Chaos/the Hivemind/the C'tan win against all. It's pretty much the Imperium, with a little help from the Eldar, who keep them back.

Also, with regard to rebellions (in my Imperium?), it's less likely than you think. I mentioned earlier in this thread the memetic strength of the Imperium - it's incredibly good at keeping people together. Imagine 1984 x fascism to the power of fundamentalist religion today. Yeah, its more virulent than that.

[LordVader]

Rebellions are basically either directly influenced by an outside agency, such as Chaos. They don't really occur normally in the IoM.

On the other hand, the Empire is a seething mass of races enraged by their virtual enslavement and oppression.

[Illiterate Scribe]

On the other hand, the Empire is a seething mass of races enraged by their virtual enslavement and oppression.

Similar to the situation in the turn of the century Balkans - the Serbs in B-H wanted their independence from Austria-Hungary, and would even look to Russia, who were much nastier, to give it to them.

[idioscosmos]

Hey! I resolutely back the Recongregationalist Arkhanite/Belisarian Schism movement! Don't go calling me an Imperial fan-boy :smalltongue:



I submit to you the Ramilies Starfort:http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/acatalog/ramilies3.jpg

That's no moon, but it's close! Bear in mind that these things are warp-capable, and fairly unique in that the STC for them is known - the Imperium began churning them out at a fairly rapid rate (one of the reasons that Medusa IV mattered so much - source of materials) - it would probably be considered a reasonable strategy to crash one of them into the Death star.
.

The Death Star could still one-shot kill those all afternoon.

.

Well, I think that we exempted the other races of the 40K universe, because if we do, then, suncrusher or not, Chaos/the Hivemind/the C'tan win against all. It's pretty much the Imperium, with a little help from the Eldar, who keep them back.

Also, with regard to rebellions (in my Imperium?), it's less likely than you think. I mentioned earlier in this thread the memetic strength of the Imperium - it's incredibly good at keeping people together. Imagine 1984 x fascism to the power of fundamentalist religion today. Yeah, its more virulent than that.

That's another thing - why wouldn't the Eldar find having the Empire as a neighbor a better deal than having the Imperium?

[LordVader]

The Death Star could still one-shot kill those all afternoon.

.

That's another thing - why wouldn't the Eldar find having the Empire as a neighbor a better deal than having the Imperium?

Here's basically what happens. Death Star fires superlaser, killing one battleship. Death Star is then swarmed by Imperium capital ships and boarded by Space Marines and Terminators in the hour it takes that laser to recharge. GG.

Gee, I don't know, maybe because the Empire subjugates all the alien races it controls? And we've already said, this is strictly the Empire vs Imperium. The Empire is the one in more trouble if we include all other races from both galaxies.

[Manticorkscrew]

I'd just like to point out some things that seem like...how shall we put it...holes in people's reasoning. I'm pretty neutral in all truth, but the 40k fanbois seem to be missing some things.

Wow. The lack of self-awareness is hilarious. Did you even read through their posts before insulting them?

Anyway, let me refute your points:


1) So, you have one relatively small cadre of clone soldiers. And they're no match for the original Jango or his protege. And some recruits who can't even shoot straight. They would get swarmed under by Imperial Guard so quickly it wouldn't even be funny. And the Elite Imperial Guard (Cadians, Mordians, Tanith, Catachan) would be more than a match for Stormtroopers.

2) The Death Star would manage a fair amount of damage and then get destroyed, as per the Star Wars films. The Imperium would soak up the damage without even noticing it.

3) Transportation: As was explained above, the Galactic Empire can move very fast within their own environs, but would find it hard to strike outside in order to take the fight to the Imperium. The Imperium may have the advantage because they can strike anywhere they like, albeit at a slower rate. Unless the Galactic Empire plan to fight a purely defensive battle, this is no advantage at all.

4) Great, so you have some cannon fodder who can't even shoot as well as Storm Troopers. What a coincidence! The dregs of the Imperial Guard are about the same, and they have vastly superior numbers.

And, seeing as even the lower levels of Star Wars canon don't acknowledge these guys, I have trouble accepting their existence.

I remember seeing some guys with black uniforms and silver helmets in the Star Wars films, but seeing as they didn't do anything except surrender whenever the heroes burst in, I assumed they were Non-combatants: techies, administrators and the like.

5) This has already been addressed. And the concensus seems to be that the Imperium have better armour and the advantage of numbers. Remember that even when making a stategically vital assault upon Hoth, the Empire only used two AT-ATs. And even if they had the capacity to use more of them, Titan weaponry would reduce them to slag within seconds.

6) No comment. George Lucas is not involved in this discussion. And anyway, if this applied to the Imperium, wouldn't the Eldar (pretty, pretty aliens) be much more effective than they are?

7) This is the only one of your points that might present the Imperium with a serious problem. The Tau Empire have so far survived because the Imperium is unable to bring its full force to bear against them. The Galactic Empire might survive for the same reason.


Although, I've often thought that the Empire of Star Wars has a ridiculously small number of troops considering the number of worlds involved.

I mean, a million clone troops? One per world? Yeah... that's really useful. I suspect that if we were to consider the total military output that the Galactic Empire should have, it would be a match for the Imperium in numbers if not in terms of overall skill. But then we'd have to disregard all the official and canon materials completely, and this whole thread would be even more redundant than it already is.

[Illiterate Scribe]

The Death Star could still one-shot kill those all afternoon.


Da plan was to fly it at top speed (warp-jump as close as you can to it) into the death star, and do a Bruce Willis Armageddon on it - even if you blow it up, there's still a whole lot of debris heading your way.


That's another thing - why wouldn't the Eldar find having the Empire as a neighbor a better deal than having the Imperium?

They grudgingly recognise the Emperor as a big factor in their continuing survival - he's one of the only non-eldar beings that has been given the honorific of 'seer', and his warp presence helps keep back the Chaos gods.

Darth Vader, on the other hand, or indeed, any of the Sith, don't have sufficient will power to keep the combined avatars of lust, mutation, decay, and wanton destruction just under control.

EDIT:


I mean, a million clone troops? One per world? Yeah... that's really useful.

You'ld have trouble keeping control of Earth (admittedly, a capital planet even by future standards) using 1 million people - they would keep getting hammered by 300 Spartans, who would give their last breath to defend it.

[Manticorkscrew]

The Death Star could still one-shot kill those all afternoon.

The Death Star takes a long time to recharge. It would destroy one starfort, and then have to rely on its smaller armaments.

It might get a second shot, but I doubt it would get three. And then... BOOM! The Galactic Empire has to spend a vast amount of time and money making another one.

The films showed one Rebel Capital Ship being destroyed by the Death Star. Even though the Galactic Empire had the advantage of a super-weapon and a larger fleet, they still lost. You could argue that the Death Star should be more powerful, but then you'd be disregarding the films entirely.

[idioscosmos]

Rebellions are basically either directly influenced by an outside agency, such as Chaos. They don't really occur normally in the IoM.

On the other hand, the Empire is a seething mass of races enraged by their virtual enslavement and oppression.

Virtual enslavement is still better than ACTUAL enslavement. I think people underestimate the horrid life of your average member of the imperium of man. Your life is less than worthless. You're not considered an individual so much as a natural resource to be farmed/exploited as needed. And if they over-farm one planet and use up all the people, who cares? There's a billion other worlds to farm. Get restive? Wipe it out as a lesson. Have some member of the Exclessiarchy think they interpret a bit of scripture wrong? Wipe the planet. The only reason the Imperium doesn't have a restive alien populace is because genocide is standard operating procedure for the Imperium. If it ain't human, it's dead. If it tries to run away to another system, follow it there and kill it.

The Empire is far more humane - indeed chattel slavery existed during the Republic, but it was eliminated under the empire. The Empire was actually not without redeeming qualities - they replaced a system of law enforced by a hereditary group of enforcers (the Jedi) with a sort of Despotic republic (In A New Hope the senate was dissolved and rule descended to the Governors of individual systems - who were subordinate to Palpitane.) meritocracy (you could rise up quite quickly through the imperial ranks, as failure caused quite rapid turn around in the upper ranks).

[idioscosmos]

The Death Star takes a long time to recharge. It would destroy one starfort, and then have to rely on its smaller armaments.

It might get a second shot, but I doubt it would get three.

Once again I don't know what you're basing that on, watch Return of the Jedi. 2 shots in 3 minutes during the battle of Endor, causing the Rebel fleet to go point blank with the imperial fleet (thus using it as cover). This implies that once it's warmed up, they can shoot an undetermined number of times in rapid succession.

[Manticorkscrew]

Once again I don't know what you're basing that on, watch Return of the Jedi. 2 shots in 3 minutes during the battle of Endor, causing the Rebel fleet to go point blank with the imperial fleet (thus using it as cover). This implies that once it's warmed up, they can shoot an undetermined number of times in rapid succession.

Based on The Return of the Jedi, actually. It's a hypothesis that's born out with actual evidence.

Like I said. Two shots. And then boom. :smallwink: