WMD's in the 40K universe

[Aldramelech]

Ive read a few SM novels and Ive just started on the "Gaunt" ones. What I keep asking myself is why there seems to be so little in the way of orbital bombardment. In the opening pages of the founding a WW1 situation is happening and has been for six months. The Guard are in their trenches and the traitors are in theirs, the planet (a forgeworld) seems to be completely wrecked with all the factories empty burnt out shells. Why don't they just Nuke the place from orbit? A sure way to break a strong defense is the limited use of "Tactical Nukes". 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?

In the Space Marine novels there were quite a few times, especially when Nids where involved when I thought "Why don't they just kill the Planet?, its lost anyway".

[jodrell]

The true reason is that it would make games very boring:

1. Select Army.
2. Deploy.
3. Get nuked.
4. The end.

I suppose if you're looking for a logically consistent reason, you could argue that perhaps orbital bombardment *is* used regularly, but occasionally there are reasons for not using it, such as a particular strategic or tactical objective: an artifact or person that you don't want to destroy, and it's those scenarios that we play with our toy soldiers.

[Aldramelech]

The true reason is that it would make games very boring:

1. Select Army.
2. Deploy.
3. Get nuked.
4. The end.

I suppose if you're looking for a logically consistent reason, you could argue that perhaps orbital bombardment *is* used regularly, but occasionally there are reasons for not using it, such as a particular strategic or tactical objective: an artifact or person that you don't want to destroy, and it's those scenarios that we play with our toy soldiers.

You misunderstand me. I not advocating this from the game point of view, purely from a fluff perspective.
Although Nuking my regular Ork opponent does have its charms! lol

[Aldramelech]

Just finished Dawn of War 2. The Blood ravens are on a planet (only 3 squads of them!) and the entire planet is covered with Nids. Now they have a couple of thousand civilians with them, but other then that its a total right off. As we know Nids just don't plonk down on a world and live happily ever after, they consume that world until nothing remains. Now 3 squads of SM's doesn't sound like a fair trade for a couple of thousand bods, surely thats the time to return to the strike cruiser and push the big red button? And yet they don't. In fact they don't do it before they leave anyway! why?

This Forge World in the first Gaunt novel seems pretty much a right off too. Totally overrun with Traitors, the manufactorums destroyed, the techpreists dead. Time to reach for that button again........

[eldargal]

I think the reason you see chemical and biological warfare vs overwhelming orbital bombardments is practicality. You can unleash biological or chemical weapons on and area and the infrastructure will survive, whereas opening up with nukes will destroy it all far more than even conventional bombardments. The Imperium may be a tad wasteful in how it deploys resources, but it doesn't seem to like destroying resources. Cities can be rebuilt and settlers brought in from other overpopulated planets, but not if the place is irradiated.

[Aldramelech]

How about conventional orbital bombardment? They don't appear to make use of that either.

[Cryl]

I might be way off here but I'm sure I remember something about "atomics" being considered to be too nasty to use, wasn't the destruction of Krieg nuclear and considered an affront to the God-Emperor? If true it's weird when you think of what a virus bomb will do to a world and the rather liberal (by our standards) use of biological and chemical weapons on a smaller scale.

I get the impression that the Imperium would rather fight to keep a world than nuke / virus bomb / cyclonic torpedo it out of existence, guardsmen are cheap, the world has a value to the adminstratum / munitorum etc.

Finally in the books there's usually a relic or temple or something similar that justifies the seemingly pointless fight.

[AirHorse]

Yeah what cryl said, guardsmen are cheap, worlds are not. Especially not forge worlds which possibley have stc knowledge and crazy production levels for armaments.

[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