00:00 The Fleet of the Imperium of Man: A Naval Historian’s take on Warhammer 40k Human Fleet
25:00 Part 2
50:00 Part 3
01:15:00 Part 4
01:40:00 Part 5
02:05:00 Part 6
02:30:00 Finale
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The interwar RN…..or who gave the politicians at the time anything except a crayon to write with
I actually became giddy when I saw this. 😂
no one runs from the Conqueror.
Going by the way you talk about weapon layout it would seem your ideal layout would be the one from the Nova class Dreadnought from Babylon 5 as it has fore and aft weapons as well as turrets mounted on the 4 long edges of the ships elongated oblong shape giving it a fully spherical engagement envelope.
Tech issue, around 46 minutes in the sound starts stuttering. Not enough to make it unwatchable, but enough to be noticable.
"A lord high Admiral in charge of a fleet, and you have your own Forge Worlds. You can build ships to your own ideas". Lord High Admiral J Fisher jump-clicks and whistles on his way all the way to the AdMech design rooms.
The Plasma Drive on Imp ships probably leak/expel so much radiation. That it either kills crews in months or it destroys weaponry.
1:02:43 NGL I am kind of interested in that big video but it is true that it would be impractical with how the Youtube Algorithm works.
1:13:12 In fairness, I am quite certain those turrets are lances, therefore laser weaponry, not ballistic.
I personally have an unreasonable dislike of Grand Cruisers. I very much prefer the Battlecruisers to them, even if the former is objectively more powerful. (Thought I suppose the BCs do at least come with forward coverage of various sorts)
2:00:00 I mean, torpedoes instead of a Lance is a difference. Thought more of a side-grade than a true upgrade perhaps.
IIRC Endevour, Endurance and Defiant are slower than the Dauntless (not sure if they are slower or the same speed as the full size cruisers) as unlike the more independent operation/scouting Dauntless they were designed for convoy escort.
Also I completely understand the annoyance at the lance batteries. Depicting them as turrets instead of the relatively fixed broadside guns of the macro batteries do give them a nice visual distinctiveness and it is good looking but it was probably a mistake to depict it like that because by all rights those turrets should have wider coverage. Like even without putting more turrets to cover rear arcs the turrets that are already there should probably realistically have larger arcs of fire than the 90 degrees the game gives them but balancing and stuff I guess.
Hey, Eldar practically only have fixed forward guns so I guess Imperium could have done worse for coverage.
2:04:10 I would say closest thing from history to the Defiant is probably the Escort Carriers or something like that (maybe the Independence class, but I think I lean closer to CVEs). As for why it does not have marco batteries or torpedoes? While I don't know if the lore gives any proper answer my guess would be that the hangar space for the strike craft makes the ammunition for torpedoes or macro cannons impractical. Any extra space freed from the lack of those ammunition likely goes to extra storage for supplies related to strike craft.
BTW, the bits for the Grand Cruiser and Escort seems to be switched for some reason.
2:09:40 AFAIK the lack of the macro turret is because it has increased sensors for scouting purposes… But yeah I would also go with a regular Cobra over the Widowmaker.
2:12:00 Falchion as the mini-Endevour/Endurance/Defiant (I mean, they all essentially share the same hull lines) are probably my favourite escorts followed by the Cobras, as I am more of a torpedo guy rather than lance that Firestorm (or Dauntless Mk1 in comparison to Mk2) provides, thought I am not actually all that expert at their use. I still do prefer torps over prow-lances (thought sacrifing some torpedoes for Nova Cannons or even the carrier capability of the Emperor or Defiant classes is definitly worth it, I just prefer the torpedoes over the heavy lance in smaller ships.
Apparently some weapons batteries/macro batteries on some escorts are described as laser weapons so it seems not all energy weapons are lances and not all macro cannons are ballistic (well, a bunch of macro cannons were already plasma based of course).
I have actually run the Iron Wolves special detachment from 7th Edition in game and it's glorious. You get free dedicated transports for blobs of Blood Claws, use them to screen packs of Wulfen until they can charge.
The issue with Forge Worlds producing ships: they Can’t
Forge worlds how can manufacture the weapons that go on the ships.
Orbital Yards are also not limited to forge worlds the can be built in deep space, the greatest example of such a yard would be Port Maw in the Gothic Sector.
Lastly if want any new tech made would require some serious favours with both an Arch Magos and the Fabricator-General (The High Lord of the Adeptus Mechanicus). Cause guess what, the AdMech have a monopoly on what you can have.
The Dr. Clarke protects!
Well this is an unexpected pleasure, poor mon-ken.
I believe that at least part of a hold over from the models. Cruisers were just a spine you attached bays to and then upgraded to BC by adding dorsal weapons.
Maybe the reason that their are no guns in the rear is because the engines and reactors are taking up the space.
Dr. Clarke, thank you for an interesting talk. Being a sci-fi nerd as well as a military history nerd and a tabletop gamer; having all convergence is a treat.
That being said, however, I am not well versed in the 40k lore, and I am most definitely not a fan of some of Games Workshops business practices.
At some point, opportunity permitting, would you consider doing a similar deep dive into the lore of some other universes from visual media and tabletop gaming?
I would love to hear your thoughts as a historian on the workings of the space navies found in Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica. And tabletop games such as Silent Death and Full Thrust have a considerable amount of lore around them, though admittedly some of the official lore may have become intermingled with fan theory over the years.
How Funny after I completed my White Scars army. I'm now building my custom chapter. It going to be a fleet base chapter and there mostly going to use gravis armor.
No rearward facing weapons? just blast them with your drive plume!
Did you say 6hr video?
I'd watch/listen to that while at work.
Turn the Oscar Mayer weenie mobile into an escort?
Starwars vs startrek
Babylon 5 then firefly then startrek tos, deepspace 9, voyager , then captain I surrender (43 minutes into pilot) then the mind raping baby stealers
By the way you swapped the corvette and the grand cruisers intro sections
FOR THE EMPEROR!!!!
I could be getting very wrong, but it seems that you are almost missing an entire type of battery dedicated to dealing with smaller threats. It seems that everything is designed for anti-ship weaponry, and nothing dedicated to cover the anti-parasite in a more point defence type of role, which you would expect to see at least six of them to cover all of the arcs of fire
Great video, but there is one thing that is specific for this world. Warp travels and Empire duties involve dealing with a lot of risk of Chaos corruption. Corruption can hardly be compared to diseases and exhaustion in tropical squadrons. For example mitigating corruption involves boarding Inquistion compartments into larger ships and not just better quarters. When you have two service branches on one ship, one military one, second more political-military then you get into Soviet era comissar problems.
Also, I hardly see a reason why Armageddon Force or Cadia Force need a full long range Warp capacities. Perhaps they have only modular-like Warp engines. Or some sort of Warp barges? For majority of their duties short to mid range operations are perfectly enough.
It'd be interesting to see you do a video on the warships of the battletech setting – the fleets of the Terran Hegemony and later the Star League, the smaller fleets of the successor states and the Clans that followed.
I mean compared to the Space Marines, the Imperial Navy are a bastion of sanity and rationality. Honestly, I think the reason the Chaos Gods sabotaged the Primarch project was to convince the Emperor to continue it: because it's such a bad idea. Modelling your political system on the Middle to Late Roman Empire was always going to end well.
1:13 ish, different size weapons in the turrets. If both guns are laser weapons, then both are literally firing a beam of light in a straight line. The historical problems with multi calibres was due to different ballistics from the projectiles, with light weapons you wouldn't get that issue.
Australia trip "I hope you all get as much fun out of it as we do." – while I'm sure we'll enjoy it, the idea of any of us hitting the fun level of Dr C let loose on a Daring without the aid of chemical stimulants is somewhat unlikely 😁
Okay, those are great looking ships, but I want stern chasers and bow chasers. The ideal ship would be able to fire through the full 360 degrees on all three axes. In short, there should not be a single cubic millimeter of space within the range of the guns that cannot be targeted.
In the Far future there is only war…. I realy hope that someone saved Drachs, Dr.Cs and some other yt channels on a data storage device that survived and is useable in the 41st millenium.
I'm pretty sure the point defense guns (AA equivalent, which fire at incoming torpedoes and small craft) fire in all directions, that's got to count for something.
Edit: macro cannons are ship-ship weapons, they do nothing against fighters and torpedoes, that's what the point defense guns are for.
My favorite setup is usually a minimum of two carriers (a pair of Defiants for starters) a whole gaggle of Sword or Falchion class frigates and maybe one or two gun-armed cruisers if necessary. Space them out a bit to avoid plasma bombs and a fleet of many small ships can be quite effective. Just make sure to set up the rules of engagement at the start or you're in for a lot of micromanaging.
I used to play tabletop BFG with my housemates when I was a uni student 20 years ago. It's awesome to see the same ships that I remember playing faithfully recreated in this video game. IIRC the rulebook said that the problem with rearward firing guns was targeting the enemy through the thermal backwash of your own engines, which was why practically no ships in the game had them. In the shooting rules that same backwash also protected ships slightly, though not as much as turning abeam. Good positioning was everything in that game.
I had a white and gold prowed Imperial fleet. No worries there regards damage, the imperium has plenty of manpower to get out there and repaint it!
The reason for the lack of rear-facing weapons (on the whole) in the IN is, according to fluff in the rulebook, that the drive flare dumps out that much heat/radiation etc that it's beyond Imperial technical means to affordably make sensor systems good enough for a fire control lock in that aft arc.
37:05 if you ever want to see a hodgepodge navy comprising 80% parasite craft, check out some of the Battletech fleets
(47:30 Having progressed a bit further) The other complicating factor with trying to use raw seniority to work out who should be in charge is the fact that the Imperial Navy travels through the Warp, which has weird effects on time. "Congratulations, you're the senior admiral in this crusade, you have a thousand years ahead of everyone else." "… But I was only promoted last week!"
I think you're perhaps a bit harsh on the Widowmaker variant. Firstly – it is not defenceless against fighters, it has the same high level of point defence/"AA" batteries that the rest of the escorts have (ie: the same as a cruiser but on a far smaller hull). Secondly, while it lacks a macrobattery, it's intended use is to use the massive sensor suite that replaces it (with the same range as the one on the Emperor-class) to plot extreme-range torpedo salvoes alongside other Cobra-class ships. Point two-and-a-half is that the IN doctrinally doesn't deploy escort-class vessels in formations smaller than three, so having one lose its (honestly kind of token) macrocannon to dramatically improve its scouting and long-range strike capabilities is a trade-off worth considering.
It was the eponymous Widowmaker Squadron, operating alongside a division of Lunar-class cruisers, that killed Abbadon's Planet Killer, by staying outside of its sensor/weapon range and firing wave after wave of torpedoes, exploiting that massive sensor advantage to achieve it.
Sing along if you know the tune!
Lord Commander says we are His chosen race
we "Hail! Hail" in Lord Commander's face
not to love the Emp'ror is heretical disgrace
so we "Hail! Hail!" in Lord Commander's face
when the Highborn say we own the worlds and space
we "Hail! Hail" right in the Highborn's face
Planet Governor says "No 'nids infest this place!"
so we "Hail! Hail!" in right in the Gov'nor's face
Are we not true pure humans?
Emperor-blessed pure humans?
Yes are we are His blessed humans!
Truly blessed and truly damned!
Aren't Imperial worlds so good?
Would you leave them if you could?
Yes Imperial worlds are good!
we'd have stayed there if we could!
We herald His New Order
God-Emperor's Golden Order
Xenos, demon, apostates, all will fear the Emperor's face
When His children bring about dis order
When the commissar says "Trust the Emperor! Be brave"
we yell "Hail! Hail!" and he beats us all like slaves
When the preacher brags and lies and yells and rants and raves
we shout "Hail! Hail!" and march behind him to our graves
great video Dr C but the game misses a lot of stuff some of the fire angles were changed to match the tabletop game so some guns had better arcs and others had worse and it misses the ground attack weapon underside of the ships plus the hundreds of defense turrets as you see they only get a defense rating to see how many look at the exodites where they show a space battle between tau and imperium. can't wait to see your review of Chaos so much space on the flat top but no backward gun still XD, imperium reminds me of Age of Sail and how they fight and navigate, Necrons a more modern fleet, tau cold war Nato, Drukhari are very ww2 germany with raiding strategy, craftworkers remind me as of ww2 japan with very high tech ships but no infrastructure to replace them, chaos is running royal navy ww1 vibe of we out range you and we dictate the range of combat with are speed or if you faster we out gun and amour you, orks are just the battle of Lisa just ram everything XD, nid reminds me of more of the battle of diu style of fighting