weappon batteries damage fluff

[Demoulius]

Hey guys,

Ive been wondering this a while now and I dont think theres a topic on this yet...

How do weapon batteries cause damage? If I renember correctly it is stated that damage in BFG is representing crew casualties due to radiation getting past shields. If thats correct I would assume critical hits are the hits actually cause hull damage... That said, im not sure if plasma weapons cause radiation at all... If im not mistaken many ships have plasma batteries instead of weapons firing "typical" shells that cause atomic radiation (or whatever radiation is present in the 40K universe...) So how would the weapons cause damage in those cases Just old fashioned hull damage?

What I also want to know though is how batteries can be represented. Can they for example not be batteries at all but ranks upon ranks of missle launchers? Can they be old fashioned laser turrets (small versions of lances for example?)

If im not mistaken the Tau have railguns which function as weapon batteries... Im sure tyranids are firing something special as well...

Am I right to assume weapon batteries are just a catch all phrase for direct firing weapons?

[Jakeman214]

You are correct in that Weapons Batteries are a catch all phrase for direct firing weapons.
I've always seen the way that weapons batteries work is this: you have all the guns/lasers/missile banks/whatever aimed to fire in a set pattern, and you fire them at the enemy ship after getting range info and the like. After adjusting on the Gunnery Table, the number of dice actually thrown are actually *hitting* the target ship, but exploding harmlessly on the ship's armour, and the difference missed the enemy ship, such as str6 WB only throwing a max of about 4 dice at any time. The first dice to beat the armour value go against the shields and the rest make it through. Any number of dice that beat the armour value and cause damage actually hit something vital/punched through/blasted a hole in the ship/etc.

It works for me, but if you've got a different idea, hey, go ahead and use that.

[Demoulius]

Well no I thought that was what damage meant first but then I renembered reading that damage represented how much of your crew dies, not specificly parts of your ship that fly off (though that does happen to )

It also explained that many times the crew dies off before the ship and all thats left is a uncrewed ship (hulk)

I just dont renember where I read it

[andrewchristlieb]

That is the common idea, that ships crews die before the ship is destroyed. This represents crew lost to the void from holes in the hull, overheating of crew areas, damage to what ever they have on the ships that may be radioactive, even just standard back ground radiation can kill in some instances if unshielded. In game turns its far more likely that a fairly well running ship is destroyed and left as a hulk or a burning hulk and every once in a while you see a big explosion (most of the time for me for some reason :/.

If you read the fluffy bits in the bbb and armada you can pickup on what most of the races use, IN is mostly laser based (kinda like guard), chaos uses a lot of different kinds of las, shell, etc and that's why they have so many tiny guns, tau have rail guns, orks have scavenged whatever they can superglue to the hull, necrons use lightning, eldar are mostly laser type (more like really small lances I imagine) and nids actually spit a bio acid which is just nasty when they get in range (auto fire crits). Lances are typically large energy cannons, I don't think anything mentions them being "lasers" more like a phaser from startrek or the energy cannons from B5, they are tied directly to the plasma drives and that's what powers them.

[horizon]

In the rulebook there is a description on what weapon batteries are. It is in the section where the rules are explained.

[MuGGzy]

In many of the Black Library novels they describe single ballistic explosive shells the size of train cars. I have always enjoyed the scale they describe in the books and imagine guns and ammunition so huge that it is really beyond our comprehension at this point of our technological evolution. I know there are mentions of radiation and such but not specifically that the cannon shells are nuclear ordnance.

So I would deff say that even with armor, a train car sized hardened tipped shell would do considerable structural damage to ANYTHING it hit.

[Kharn_21]

I think the thought that damage represents crews death is quite accurate. If I draw a few parallels with historical and less so modern navy's I can explain.

During the age of sail and solid shot cannons, it was extremely difficult to sink a ship, however hitting it with cannon would send splinters flying trough the ship, butchering the crewmen and while it was possible to disable a few cannon, break the steering cables or demast a ship, it was far easier to kill the crew and take the hulk. This was common practice, I don't have a reference on me but I can dig up a few tonight. I assume the same goes on a massive scale for BFG, as evidenced by damage points not reducing effectiveness until crippled, while critical damage is somewhat random but potentially catastrophic.

How much structural damage is a train going to do to a 10km long ship? I'd say about as much as a 15in gun to a battleship, which is kill crew unless it hits something lucky
Sent from my SGH-i917 using Board Express

[Mallich]

During the age of sail and solid shot cannons, it was extremely difficult to sink a ship, however hitting it with cannon would send splinters flying trough the ship, butchering the crewmen and while it was possible to disable a few cannon, break the steering cables or demast a ship, it was far easier to kill the crew and take the hulk. This was common practice, I don't have a reference on me but I can dig up a few tonight. I assume the same goes on a massive scale for BFG, as evidenced by damage points not reducing effectiveness until crippled, while critical damage is somewhat random but potentially catastrophic.

An example would be the battle of Trafalgar. The French/Spainish lost 22 ships - of those, only one of them sank during the battle. The other 21 were captured (although iirc some sank later during a heavy storm).

In many of the Black Library novels they describe single ballistic explosive shells the size of train cars. I have always enjoyed the scale they describe in the books and imagine guns and ammunition so huge that it is really beyond our comprehension at this point of our technological evolution.

There are descriptions of torpedoes the size of sky-scrapers, too. As for the guns...

The groans of the gun crew were drowned out by the bellow of Gun Captain Murman.
"Heave faster, yer lacklustre space rats! Put yer backs into it, Emperor damnit!"
The forty men pulled harder at the traversing chains, heaving the massive barrel of the macro-cannon into position amidst the clank-clank-clank of rusty gears.
"Avast heaving! To to for reloading!" ordered Murman and the men dropped the chains and hurried to stand by the gun's huge breech. At a signal from the Gun Captain, ten of the men sprang into action, pushing back the breech block. When it was open, the others bent their back to the loading winch, lowering the shell, which weighed several tons, into the heart of the cannon. With a deafening clang the breech was closed again.

[andrewchristlieb]

The iowa class turrets had around a hundred man crew and fired shells from just under 1 ton to just under a ton and a half so that almost sounds like a reasonable size increase, are you sure that's 40k fluff lol.

[Mallich]

The iowa class turrets had around a hundred man crew and fired shells from just under 1 ton to just under a ton and a half so that almost sounds like a reasonable size increase, are you sure that's 40k fluff lol.

... Wow.
Well, it's in the rulebook, so I guess that means it's canon (no pun intended). Maybe?

[Demoulius]

Concering "small" things damagin the ship... Well no, the ship itself will indeed not be damaged to much if nothing critical is hit. Hence the crew gets sucked out by explosive decompression and you lose a HP worth of crew

Thanks for clearing things up guys wanted to have an IN ship firing missles instead of er...other stuff. Think its safe to say that it would be possible

[andrewchristlieb]

Lexicanum has a good write up on weapons batteries under the imperial navy section also.