Mark V Armour

[grimmas]

Forgeworld have rereleased their Heresey era Armour marks and very nice they are too (the MkII are my favourite). However the MKVs just don't sit right with me.

MKV Heresey armour is supposed to be an amalgamation of jury rigged Mks II-IV armour parts necessary to make up for a lack of spares for the current issue MK IV. If this is so why the hell does it have a totally different helmet, knee guards and greaves to any of the preceding types. It just doesn't make sense. I know there was some flannel about the helmet being an prototype for MKVII but why the devil would there be so many of them when it hadn't even gone into production, don't forget MKVI wasn't issued still after the drop site massacres.

I know the rule of cool rules all and I could just get the models for the other Marks a just mix them up, but it just seems strange how they'd go out of there way to produce a narative for the armour (they make quite a thing about in Deliverence Lost) and then produce somthing different. It's quite a good idea and justification for why it exists the models just don't fit it.

Does this bother anyone else or does anything else spring to mind of stuff that's described but the models don't fit the description?

[Kirsten]

it was something I noticed, but MkV has been a thing for a long time, so it isn't really easily explained

[Path Walker]

I always thought MK V wasn't so much jury rigged repairs to armour but suits that were able to be manufactured by Techmarines given limited parts. So they used stop-gap techniques (like the molecular bonding studs) and scavenged certain parts from other Marks and used those to make into a serviceable suit of Power Armour.

[Haighus]

I think a lot of the justification comes from MkV also being a simplification of the earlier marks- the greaves and shoulders and knee guards are different because they are crappy copies made from worse material and only comparable because they've shoved the molecular bonding studs all over them.
Likewise is probably true of the helmets- that pattern of respirator was only just beginning to come into use at the out-break of the Heresy, and Legion armourers probably decided it was much faster to produce than the advanced systems of MkIV, and just started churning them out to replace losses.

I think MkVII actually ended up in mass production before MkVI, as the Raven Guard, Alpha Legion and Imperial Fists were still the main users of the pattern by the Battle of Terra (the Raven Guard due to being issued the first mass prototypes, the IFs due to their proximity to Terra and getting as much of the good equipment as they could in preparation for the Siege over the course of the Heresy, and Alpha Legion because... no one knows.)

[completeHook]

Back in olden days they just used to break out the sketch pad and the Milliput, stick the kettle on, whack on Powerslave and have a bit of a go at it.

This abomination (#2)



became this sexy beast



Forgeworld do have a really good track record of taking the the essence of the old designs and making something that stands up to today's standards.

[YorkNecromancer]

The reason's pretty simple.

Mark IV =


while Mk V =


Logistics and economics are what drove the production of the Mk V. The Mark IV suit is the pinnacle of power armour; it's elegant, sophisticated, in every way the technological apex of humanity's personal defensive technologies. But, in the words of Lucius Fox, 'turns out the bean counters didn't think a soldier's life was worth thirty grand'.

Enter Mk V. It's cheap, ugly, but damn does it get the job done.

It's pretty much the only time 40K has ever acknowledged economics is A Thing, and I cherish it for that exact reason.

Wars cost a sh!tton of money, and even with the entire resources of the Imperium, that doesn't mean the precious Astartes get all the toys they want. Sometimes, they have to make do too.

[Chris*ta]

Ugh. Every time I see that Walther, it still looks awful. And I'd say a better analogy would be:

Mk IV


Mk V


Which would mean Mk 6 is a late-production Sten, and Mk 7 is ... an H&K MP5? And I suppose the Mk 8 is the UMP ...

[Haighus]

Ugh. Every time I see that Walther, it still looks awful. And I'd say a better analogy would be:

Mk IV


Mk V


Which would mean Mk 6 is a late-production Sten, and Mk 7 is ... an H&K MP5? And I suppose the Mk 8 is the UMP ...

I reckon Mk6 would be a Sterling?

[Chris*ta]

I reckon Mk6 would be a Sterling?

I did consider that.

My understanding is that the later Stens and the Sterling are fairly similar, right?

[grimmas]

MKV was never mass produced though it was an Ad-hoc affair using what ever was available which was basically bit of other suits. It wasn't the cheaper option it was the only option because they were unable to access the manufacturing base for power armour. Really none of the suits should look the same much less all have the same helmets and greaves that look to come from a design not yet manufactured.