WMD's in the 40K universe

[Aldramelech]

Don't forget that a bombardment of any kind is NEVER as powerful as one might think it is. If I had a dollar for every historic battle I've read about in which the navy promised to "wipe the enemy off the beaches" and then bombarded it for hours and failed to do diddly, I'd at least have enough for a blister pack. There is always somewhere you can hide, even from uber nukes from space.
Fluff examples include Armor of Contempt, where the one strongpoint gets blasted from space and the Guard still have to slog through it mopping up cultists, and Isstvan III, where plenty of Marines live through being virus bombed AND firestormed.

A good point. Artillery has always been rather overrated throughout history, WW1 being the prime example, and the Russian bombardment of the Seelow heights during the Battle for Berlin was just comical.

But orbital bombardment should in theory be much more effective. Look at the fuss the Russians make every time America even thinks about FOB systems.

[Lord Azaghul]

Part of the way I've understood things is that bombarding a planet isn't used terribly often as least from a purging aspect. In Dawn of War1 'Exterminatus' is mentioned: and it seems like a rarely used tactic, reserved only for the worst of heratics. I think it would still take alot of fire power/resources to oblitarate a planet, from a stricly imperial navy perspective.

Standard orbital bombments (as in a Guant Ghost novel) are used to 'soften' targets FOR ground or naval intervention. I'm thinking of the one where Corbec calles a friend up in one of the orbiting ships, and asked to a building containings a pretty nasty looking daemon to be destroyed. Most of the time guard or SM are called in when the target is too valuble just to demolish.

After WMD seems to be scalable thing, in the right context a medusa, maticore or deathstrike could all be consider weapons of mass destruction, as could most of the weaponry on titans.

[Aldramelech]

Standard orbital bombments (as in a Guant Ghost novel) are used to 'soften' targets FOR ground or naval intervention. I'm thinking of the one where Corbec calles a friend up in one of the orbiting ships, and asked to a building containings a pretty nasty looking daemon to be destroyed.

Spoilers!!!!!! I haven't got that far yet! lol

[Lord Azaghul]

Sorry! Its a brief part, and not the major conflict! I also don't remember exactly which book in the omnibus it was in!

I just finished reading 'Double Eagle' this weekend if you want to know how that one ends! j/k

[Nabterayl]

I think Grotzooka has the best answer. Remember that the actual scale of BFG weapons does not seem to be that much greater than the scale of 40K/Epic weapons. A single FP of lance fire seems to be about equivalent to on on Strength D weapon, or possibly S10 AP1. Ships have LOTS of them, but ship firepower is not on a totally different scale from ground firepower. Couple this with the inaccuracy of fire from orbit, the long lead times to get a ship on station, and the short time it can REMAIN on station, and orbital bombardment is clearly not some kind of superweapon. More intense than ground bombardment, but only for brief periods of time. The situation seems analogous to (and consciously modeled on) Napoleonic times, where on on single ship of the line holds more artillery than any entire regiment, and some army groups - but artillery that is fundamentally of the same kind, even if it is heavier. Now imagine that the ship of the line can only fire for half any hour before its orbit takes it off station, and you can see how any artillery regiment might be a preferable source of artillery for many applications.

Regarding the use of nukes on "trashed" planets, remember that the Imperium takes the long view of things, and its entire tech base is essentially built on recovering "trashed" tech. A forge world demolished by decades of war is still a treasure trove of reclaimable technology by the Imperium's standards, and even if the planet seems lost, the Imperium won't mind reclaiming it in another campaign two centuries later. Obliterating the resources of on on ruined forge world through nuclear or cyclotronic bombardment doesn't make a lot of sense in light of those two attitudes, I think.

[Aldramelech]

Makes sense........

This is why they use a virus bomb for Exterminartis rather then nukes I guess.

Thats made thing alot clearer for me.

[Aldramelech]

Sorry! Its a brief part, and not the major conflict! I also don't remember exactly which book in the omnibus it was in!

I just finished reading 'Double Eagle' this weekend if you want to know how that one ends! j/k

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol

[Melissia]

Now I know the SM's have some kind of virus bomb that can kill an entire planet, but does the Imperial Navy have something similar? Are nuclear weapons available in the 40K universe?

The Space Marines don't have it unless it's given to them, it's just not what they do. esides, in the grand scheme of things, Marines are actually relatively unimportant except in the absolutely most major battles in history-- their actual presence is so tiny that they have little effect on the majority of the Imperium the majority of the time-- so don't think of them when you think of common battles :P

The Inquisition and Navy, however, have plenty of them. For that matter, even just orbital lance strikes can decimate entire continents, rendering them uninhabitable. Never mind the cyclone torpedo, which can turn a planet into an asteroid belt. But that's just the thing... it reduces an otherwise useful planet into uselessness. Even a virus-bombed planet can house people underground. Where they can be productive mining resources that would be lost if the planet was really and truly destroyed.

[Nabterayl]

I don't know about nukes, but according to BFG, battle barges come standard with virus bombs and cyclotronic warheads. And the magna bombs their bombardment cannons fire seem to be better suited to planetary bombardment against even hardened underground structures than the combined broadside weapons batteries of most Navy battleships (this on top of broadside weapons batteries that are already on par with the heaviest Navy battleship broadsides).

I'm not one to wave the space-marines-can-do-ANYTHING flag, but planetary bombardment of all flavors is one of the things they ARE equipped for.

EDIT: where are you getting that about lance strikes, Mel? Everything I've read about them indicates that a) they aren't that much more powerful (if at all) than turbo-lasers or defense lasers and b) they're precision weapons. Not sure how you use a weapon like that to render a continent uninhabitable (except maybe by cracking the crust in many places over a series of passes), but I'm sure you have your sources ... cough up

[Aldramelech]

I have to agree with Nabterayl there. I admit my reading on the subject is limited but in the Blood Ravens omnibus Gabriel performs not one but two Exterminartes completely on his own authority from the Litany of Fury. I also understand that Lance batteries are precision anti ship weapons? Also is there not a problem with laser energy dissipating in the ionosphere if fired from orbit? I sure that was one of the major problems with SDI.

How does the cyclone torpedo work? not come across them yet.