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.

[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.

[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.

[AirHorse]

Cant remember where i read it but conventional bombardment does require a starship to enter a lower orbit though, which would also make the ships more vulnerable to fire from the ground and lets face it the ships are pretty valuable. Obviously this doesnt account for every situation but it does make sense.

[Grotzooka]

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.