1. The scale of 40k is ridiculous, so we will be using an Imperial Battlefleet or two to face a hefty chunk of the Empire's Imperial Navy. Let's not get bogged down in the exact number of ships, as this is a theoretical scenario after all, and the debate about the exact number either of those fleets would comprise of would never end.
2. Shield/Deflector, Lance/Blaster/Laser, and appropriate technologies are analogous between the two universes. I.e. if technology works a certain way in one universe, we assume it works the same way in the other universe, to avoid "immunity" arguments.
3. Psykers/Psychic Powers/Jedi/The Force are analogous between the two universes.
4. The Warp isn't involved, Psykers are for all intents and purposes merely Force Power users.
So what do you reckon? Who would win? Try to leave your loyalties to either brand out of it.
My opinion is that the Imperium of Man seemingly has quite a few more advantages than you might think.
Their average Cruiser clocks in at about 2.5-3.5km long, whereas the average Star Destroyer (a cruiser equivalent) of the Empire is around half that, maybe 1.5km. The sheer size of their vessels makes them ungainly, but they would be far more resilient to a sustained "slugging match" of trading broadsides.
The Empire has a fairly loyal military, but the Imperium has absolutely bat shit insane levels of loyalty. The Emperor in 40k is a living God, the Emperor in SW is a dude they're afraid of. Stormtroopers would fight for the Emperor, but Imperial Navy marines will die for theirs.
Ramming is an entirely alien concept to the SW Imperial Navy, whereas 40k Imperial ships are designed with that in mind. That's not to say that SW ships couldn't effectively perform a ramming attack, but they are not trained to do so nor experienced in doing so, and their ships would suffer far more damage doing so.
Boarding attacks are commonplace in the 40k universe, whereas in Star Wars it is far less common. Boarding an enemy vessel is standard practice for a 40k Imperial Vessel, and they have trained extensively to do so. Stormtroopers undoubtedly have trained to repel boarders, but have not been seen to perform boarding attacks.
The distances involved in Star Wars combat are often quite small, a few dozen kilometers at most. It's unclear what the maximum range of their ship based weapons are. The 40k Imperial Navy however are capable of engaging an enemy at broadside at far greater ranges.
Kayden Lee
Last Jedi showed us SD guns have an 'effective' range of a few hundred kilometres. IoM ships 'effective' range is literally over an AU.
But OP dun gon goofed and said that a psyker is just a force user. No Chaos Daemons trying to eat your soul and suddenly that astropath and that navigator on every IoM ship is a true monster. Imperial captains would have their brains boil, Storm Troopers would explode within their armour before even the first shot is exchanged.
Kayden Green
TLJ really fucked over the SW navy to be completely worthless. A couple fighters & bombers can wipe out any large ship and they have no effective anti-fighter defenses other than their own fighter screens. Which really makes me wonder why SWs just doesn't use exclusively carriers. On top of that we are shown in the movie that while their FTL is quite fast their in system transit is slow as balls, and that their effective range on ship weapons are pathetic.
If we were using the non-cannon EU SW would probably win, but new SWs would get its shit pushed in.
Grayson Rivera
They're inconsistent too. Those small transports were FTL equipped in earlier movies and lore, and now they are reliant on giant cruisers?
Aaron Brooks
It also doesn't help how small they made the size of every fleet the resistance had 1 large ship 3 transports, like 12 fighters, and 8 bombers. Also why isn't a ftl bomb the resistance / rebellions go to strategy all the time every x-wing can do it and they "heroically" win every fight by suicide bombing anyway,
Jacob Lewis
The dreadnaught they bomb isn't a SD. It's serveral giant guns attached to a targeting computer and engines. It had no anti-fighter weapons because it's meant to be well guarded and supported in a fleet. Hux, was a daft idiot with no stratergy what so ever. Meanwhile, we've always been shown that SDs and the like have a few hundred kms on their guns. Tiny fucking range has been the most consistant part of SW space fights and only EU ever said anything to the contrary.
Joshua Morales
Is this the most repeated thread on Veeky Forums?
Aaron Lee
In an engagement? 40k - 40k has a better range, better weapons, better armors, better shields, a better crew and most importantly a better morale.
As whole? SW - SW can built faster and moves faster.
Jaxson Richardson
Yeah where the FUCK are the Interdictors or Gravity Well ships? Those are literally designed to prevent Hyperspace collisions or escapes.
Furthermore how could a Dreadnought or any of the First Order ships have no tractor beams?
Joshua Young
The Death Star was wrecked by starfighters, the Executor was killed by starfighters, B-Wings were specifically designed to be capital ship killers. OT and EU always had stargihters fucking up capital ships under the right circumstances, and TLJ makes it very clear that had the grizzled older commanders been in charge Poe and Holdo would never have been to pull that shit off.
Sebastian Evans
>but have not been seen to perform boarding attacks. that is LITERALLY the opening scene of a new hope
Parker Hughes
Still at least in the OT we had the illusion it was that those were only pulled off because space wizards were the pilots, but now it is clear that anyone could do it large ships are just worthless.
Jeremiah Robinson
>x is more powerful than y >so let's create a scenario in which x is about as powerful as y >who would win?
Jacob Sanders
also standard Imperial tactica is apparently to keep their star destroyers out of weapons range at all times so they look intimidating but don't actually do anything while one oversized ship handles the workload
Sebastian Murphy
Navies in Sw have a effective fighting range of "almost ramming". Most engagements between 40k navies are over the range of several AEs.
In short SW would never even make visual contact before being reduced to scrap.
Eli Carter
Here's an idea.
Have some star destroyers go FTL, and come back from a different direction.
Aaron Green
>Most engagements between 40k navies are over the range of several AEs. Unless it's Orks, then it's 'RAMMING SPEED!! DAKKA-DAKKA-DAKKA!!', and not even the mighty void shields of the Imperial Navy can protect them from the impact.
And considering Orks are the most numerous race in 40k (after the Nids and maybe daemons, but they're extra-galactic bugs and warpspawn so who cares?), 'ramming' as a tactic happens quite a lot in the 40k galaxy.
What the fuck is with Veeky Forums and star wars lately?
Brody Lewis
The terrible new movie that just came out.
Kayden Wright
Uh, the Last Jedi came out (finally going to see it tomorrow with the family), and the shitshow that the movie's apparently caused by managing to be more divisive than the Force Awakens (surprisingly) has brought Star Wars lore back into focus?
Just a guess.
Austin Lopez
Both lose to the REAL Galactic Empire.
Robert Hernandez
At this point the millennium falcon is a jedi or perhaps one of the greatest gunships ever designed based on its performance in every movie.
John Collins
The Imperium has the Adeptus Mechanicus/Foundation - The Emperor protects.
Joseph Cooper
Okay, I'm actually curious. We talking pre or post Foundation here? I haven't read the After Foundation trilogy yet, but I've ready just about all the others and I don't recall any focus being given to what any of their ships can do. Grant Asimov was writing science fiction, not space operas, so that was never the focus.
But if we're talking pre-Foundation wouldn't they eat hard shit to psykers or force users, since The Mule proves that without the Second Foundation there's, like, 0 psychic protection in their universe?
After Foundation I'm guessing that Second Foundation men are more commonly spread out, thus giving the Empire better defense against psykers and force powers.
Jackson Phillips
Considering he posted the Galactic Empire symbol I'm assuming it's Pre-Foundation. Which means the problem is we have no actual idea how strong their military actually is. We know it's strong enough to maintain order over 25 million worlds for over ten thousand years but beyond that we have no idea. I guess the non warp reliant FTL is nice as well as the personal force fields.
Evan Cox
Naw mate, that was a smaller ship they had pulled INSIDE their own.
Blake Rogers
The Commonwealth during the Void Trilogy would beat both without even noticing. During Pandora' s Star and Judas Unchained though it would be an interesting fight at least up until the solar system destroying gravity bombs.. I don't think 40k has ever come up against a force that fought like the Commonwealth.
Carter Hernandez
That's still super vague. I mean, the IoM has been around for 10,000 years and holds an empire that spans the Milky Way, and that's with daemons and aliens to content with.
David Powell
The IoM doesn't have even 1/25th of what the Galactic Empire has.
Gabriel Lopez
I went into that movie with low expectations. I was somehow disappointed.
Mason Thompson
The reverse boarding action forcing the enemy onto your ship truly they are tactical geniuses.
Nathaniel Morris
We know they had blasters that could one shot a man. I think the emperor was described as "crumpling" from the blast.
Daniel Murphy
40k, by mere virtue of the scale of combat. Not the size of the ships but the actual distances at which combat takes place, thousands upon thousands of kilometers. Even if we ignore all other factors, such as the fact that the payload of 40k weapons is much greater than that of SW, this alone decides the victory for 40k. SW space combat relies primarily upon extremely close ranges and is mostly done by small fighters. This means that while SW ships are still getting in range, 40k ships are able to blast them into pieces, and can move away from SW ships as they attempt to get closer. If SW ships were to get in range, their much weaker weapons and reliance on fighters would prove ineffective against the much larger and more resilient 40k ships, while also exposing SW ships to 2 major new threats: boarding and ramming. 40k space combat in such close quarters relies heavily upon boarding actions. If a thunderhawk was to board a ship or terminators teleport onto it, it would prove disastrous for the SW ships, and even against normal guardsmen and the like, the superior numbers of the imperium would go a long way to help them. Then there's ramming. It's shown countless times that a single fighter flying into a capital ship can do a good amount of damage, and a capital ship against capital ship crash is almost always fatal for both ships. 40k ship are designed to ram into each other, and would be able to ram into the much smaller SW ships and destroy them while sustaining limited damage. In short, 40k wins, unless SW has the purple haired admiral to ram into them at lightspeed
Jayden Myers
Might have something to do with a movie being released...
Jason Nguyen
I find the irony of the last living character from the original trilogy is played by a dead actress hilarious.
Josiah Adams
I think psykers would fuck the Commonwealth's day up. Especially since the Commonwealth is so reliant on computers to run everything. I seriously doubt force fields will slow down the Warp.
Joshua King
no, let's bombard the single cruiser for 18 hours with the four cannons we have that are in range
Christopher Rogers
The droids got away.
Anthony Gutierrez
Psyker's don't have anything on the ranges the Commonwealth can fight at. Not to mention the simplicity of dropping the Gravity bombs and gtfoing.
Adam Gonzalez
Are you kidding? There are psykers who can fuck people over from adjacent star systems. And void shields would make gravity bombs go 'poof'. Plus the Warp works a whole lot differently than wormholes.
Ryan Parker
SW Imperial Navy will easily win. They just suicide bomb the 40k Navy by going lightspeed.
Logan Nelson
The ranges that the Commonwealth can fight at are much much farther than Star Systems away. They can call in tunnels from half a galaxy away. The gravity bombs are not designed to take out ships but rather a star and this is some of the most basic things the Commonwealth can call into action at the end of the first set of books. Get into the Void Trilogy and 40k is a simple bug on their metaphorical windshield.
Benjamin Phillips
>4. The Warp isn't involved, Psykers are for all intents and purposes merely Force Power users.
Ayden Ross
>3. Psykers/Psychic Powers/Jedi/The Force are analogous between the two universes. 4. The Warp isn't involved, Psykers are for all intents and purposes merely Force Power users.
The one thing that makes life hell for 40k, removed? 40k wins hands down. Psykers outnumber Jedi hands down and that's restricting it to alpha level psykers, who ate an actually measurable threat to Jedi just by scale of abilities. It's like comparing a oxy/acetaline torch to a bonfire. Then ships come into the equation...
Jaxson Lopez
I have read them. They lose to Dyson technology (Earth gets sealed away where not even the magic wormholes can access it). And yes, they have 'magic' weapons. But 40k has actual magic and without worrying if a daemon is going to munch on their soul psykers are going to be absolute rape machines. Hell, Librarians can stop and deflect lasers, make boomy things go fizzle and see the shit you're going to pull long before you think of it. I'll back actual Warp fuckery over technological fuckery any day. As an aside, the Commonwealth can't even keep the Silfen from screwing with shit, and they're bloody children compared to 40k psykers.
David Fisher
Well I'll back the deterrence fleet before I back anything the Imperium can throw. Even before we get to these legendary psyker you are so proudly talking about you forget to mention that at best they only have a handful of powerful psykers and the rest are being turned into a meatshake for the emperor. The Commonwealth doesn't use lasers, they use radiation and not to mention what the other races are capable of.
Gavin Phillips
You mean one man versus the entire Imperial Navy? The one guy who got brushed aside by the crazy bitch who then sealed Earth away? Yeah, you go with that.
Ayden Powell
Ok tell me a single thing the Imperium could do to The Deterrence Fleet and how they could counter it? Plus if I remember correctly that one crazy bitch was sealed away in her own cacoon with impenetrable shielding. Much stronger than void shields.
Aaron Bailey
What did Kazimir actually do with the fleet besides move really fast? Nothing. So your question itself is pointless, since the Commonwealth did not have the Dyson shields, and since the Warp can take you places so fast you get there before you left, I'm really not seeing it hid all powerful advantage you think Kaz had.
Luke Jackson
I don't have the Books with me so I'll have to borrow from TV tropes sadly but There Deterrence Fleet is capable of the following.
Detecting and manipulating any systems made of matter before its operators can even react, while running in near-perfect stealth and presumably invulnerability to most weapons designed to affect physical objects. And it's brought online by Fleet Admiral Kazimir merging with it to become an Energy Being with fleet-scale superpowers that he selects from a quantum armory!
Plus the warp is also so slow it can get you to a place in 5000 years. The warp is so unreliable saying that it can get you somewhere yesterday has no meaning.
Jack Stewart
Disabling ships with ion cannons to board them with transport shuttles was quite common in TIE fighter, as well as the opening scene of ANH. They're good at this.
Imperial Armsmen require Commissars to maintain order, their loyalty is only assured by equal amounts of fear.
Asher Rivera
OP you forgot about Navigators. The people who can literally teleport ships around the battlefield with sufficient focus. While only the best navigators can do this, those navigators are going to be on the biggest and most dangerous ships. So you have a ship that can literally dodge incoming fire by ceasing to exist for a few moments, then re-appear in a new location.
Luis Richardson
FFS sake, why does no one listen to Thrawn ever. Super Weapons don't work in the long term!
Justin Butler
40k ships fight at almost light speed. SW can't fight when they are doing hyper drive thingies.
John Robinson
>Comissar meme >2017 God damn it Also Navy is another beast compared to IG. You are basically boarding their home when boarding IN ships
Christopher Mitchell
yeah Voidsmen are much better equipped and trained than standard Guardsmen. They're the stopgap between Guardsmen and Stormtroopers essentially.
Ethan Jones
Every warp capable ship in the IoM has a Navigator and at least one Astropath onboard. Navigators are middle range in power levels whileAstropaths are on the low end. However both have the ability to see and manipulate the warp at extreme distances. This is par and part of why they are on board. Like I said earlier, SD captainsin the opposing fleet just all have their brains boil away, killing them where they stand and throwing the comand chain of the fleet into disarray.
Benjamin Ross
Thing is, they do. You just need to use them properly. The Dreadnaught is basically a Paris Gun. You don't fight and win a battle with it alone. It should have sat behind the SDs and fighter screens to protect it while using it's guns to take out capital ships with the SD doing the main gruntwork but they didn't. Hux sat back and watched as twelve fighters and half a dozen bombers attacked and took out their long range artillery without even trying to intervene himself.
Parker Sanchez
In Battlefleet Gothic, armsmen have the same score as Guard Stormtroopers. Only Sisters and Marines rank higher. Commisars add to the score, yes, but without them they are still formidable. As said, they are defending their very home.
Dominic Diaz
As soon as a 40k ship rams a SW ship its all over.
David Hall
A dreadnaught is what thrawn suggested over a death star DESU
Michael Flores
>unless SW has the purple haired admiral to ram into them at lightspeed It would end up in a draw at best.
Isaiah Ross
Can anyone explain the fleet doctrine of both universe?
Josiah Davis
>Be captain on Emperor's Wrathful Throne of Woes, an Imperator-class vessel >Come across tinier triangular ship that looks kindof xeno? Engage pursuit and catch up pretty quickly >have lower-level serfs whipped harder to load nukes into the bombardment tubes >Psykers and auspex says it's humans inside >By the Emperor's shrinked left ballsack, a lost world from the Great Crusade? >Hail them and try to have brief conversation >Humans inside are all white males which is good for the Imperium, however crap taste, no skull decoration whatsoever, lack of golden trims, cathedral architecture or fine captain uniform >Apparently they use artificial intelligence and have walking and talking robots >techpriest has a rageboner and starts greasing up his pistons for a severe STC-raping >Continue talking, hear mention of Emperor but apparently not the same Emperor >Politely demand they convert and join Imperium of Mankind or get destroyed >Teenage renegade Psyker with a massive nose has a hissy fit and tells you your Emperor is false >nigga what >Fire a volley of nukes in their face to calm them down >receive some space lasgun back >laugh >Techpriest is now humping chair and demands to be sent aboard >Prepare boarding action, have techpriest in for good measure >Sit back and enjoy on screen massacre as white plastek armoured dudes get torn to shreds by chainswords and miss more hits than a teen conscript >Hissy fit angsty teen psyker drops his cape and seems to wield a powersword >Send in the battle psyker >Techpriest has a blast prodding circuitry >Send in another battle psyker >Send in another battle psyker >Get pissed, ask space marine chapter to send in a Librarian, a blank, or a navigator with his eye open, whatever they come across first >Get rid of scrawny renegade psyker >See ship attempt to flee >Tell your people to GTFO of the ship >Ram it for good measure
Brandon Fisher
Love that series, but they're not really focused on balanced ship combat. If you're just talking Second Chance-era commonwealth who haven't even got more than four ships yet then it's a curbstomp, but as soon as you start bringing out Douvoirs it becomes even as they can dart around with in-system FTL throwing barrages of lightspeed RKKVs at the enemy while the Empire/s spam lasers at them. Quantumbusters are just bullshit OP and the Deterrence Fleet is basically a full C'tan that can disable an entire alien doomfleet from complete safety. Hell, one C'tan is stuck in a Dyson Sphere, so that's actually equivalent.
Sure, psykers are strong, but after a few books in that series it's "click-dead" for entire fleets instantly from lightyears away while being undetected. Emperor might be able to stop them, but that's about it.
Samuel Reed
>sanctioned psykers are jedi in this matchup
Jesus that's a lot of jedi.
James Peterson
There's going to be at least one alpha class in there to take out Ma-Rey Sue.
Jonathan Foster
Nucanon says the Empire just sacrifices a handful of ships to hyperdrive-bomb the significantly-larger vessels of the Imperum's flotilla.
Ryan Wilson
>Not sending a sexually frustrated zeta class blank to make an example out of her.
Nathan Martin
Yes. We should start a /SWvs40kg/ general.
Chase Ward
The Imperial Navy has much faster and more reliable interstellar travel which is a HUGE advantage.
However, the IN depend on accurate navigational data which is essentially useless to imperium starships (and an imperium navigation map will confuse the shit out of them).
Without that navigational data they're useless so they have no chance of doing anything useful in the imperium.
Similarly, the imperium need the astronomicon to navigate and this doesn't exist in the SW galaxy so they can't go anywhere.
TL;DR Both are fucked if they tried to operate in the other's galaxy.
Julian Cruz
Actually IN only needs the Astronomicon due to the colosal cluster fuck the warp is right now.
Cooper Reyes
Just send Jurgen, the fucker could defeat the entire Empire and rebels by himself while serving tea.
