Are Battleships actually weak in naval combat?

[DogWelder]

Obviously, space combat in 40k revolves around gigantic battleships shooting each other to bits in the void but I have to ask, is the focus on size actually misguided? I feel the large dreadnoughts/battleships may not be as indomitable as they appear. Lets take a look at the fate of two Gloriana class battleships and two Abyss-Class ones.

 

Fidelitas Lex: The official flagship of the Word Bearers Legion and Lorgar's personal ship. It was destroyed over Nuceria when Guilliman decided that numbers where what really mattered in space and threw about 30 smaller Ultramarine ships (frigates/destroyers/Strike Cruisers) at it. It did take out 12 of the enemy before it was destroyed to be fair to the Word Bearers. However, the smaller escort class vessels could easily be replaced while mega-battleships like the Gloriana could not.

 

Chronicle of Ashes: Another Gloriana class ship belonging to the Word Bearers. It was ambushed and boarded by the Nemesis Chapter (22nd Ultramarines Chapter). After several days, the Nemesis marines were able to secure the vessel. It was re-fitted and rewarded to them when they became a successor chapter.

 

The Furious Abyss: A super-battleship of the Abyss-class that whose size was comparable to that of the Phalanx. Apparently it needed 1000 Astartes simply to man it. Sent by Lorgar to destroy Maccrage during the Shadow Crusade. Was boarded by a small task force of Ultramarines and Space Wolves, its reactor breached and left as a drifting wreck over Maccrage.

 

The Blessed Lady*: Another Abyss-Class vessel that was apparently destroyed in the outer edges of Ultramar in an enormous space battle between the Ultramarines and the Word Bearers fleets. Scanning its corpse, it was theorized that the Ultramarines had boarded it and detonated its warp drive.

 

*This is not a 100% confirmed. The source is from the novel: Deathfire. Its not explicitly stated but it is heavily implied that the ship the Ultramarines destroyed was the Blessed Lady. 

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

When historical naval battles were only being fought in two dimensions, the battleship was king. Once aircraft invaded the third dimension and nullified all the strengths of the battleship, they died or were put out to pasture in favor of larger numbers of smaller and faster ships. It should work the same in the 40k setting, but sci-fantasy plot magic.

[DogWelder]

When historical naval battles were only being fought in two dimensions, the battleship was king. Once aircraft invaded the third dimension and nullified all the strengths of the battleship, they died or were put out to pasture in favor of larger numbers of smaller and faster ships. It should work the same in the 40k setting, but sci-fantasy plot magic.

I would say it did work out in the end since two Glorianas went down to a huge number of a smaller ships.

[Claws and Effect]

The size of ships like the Gloriana and Abyss classes had benefits too, though.

 

1) You could put much larger weapons systems on larger ships. Mostly used in planetary bombardment, some of those guns would literally tear apart a smaller ship when fired.

 

2) When you want to make sure your entire ground force arrives somewhere at the same time, stick them in a ship big enough to carry them all. Risks losing all of them in the Warp, but at least you won't have companies showing up weeks apart and getting obliterated before their reinforcements arrive.

 

3) If your enemy doesn't possess dozens of smaller ships, the sheer durability of something that large will win battles.

 

Worth noting is that you've mentioned 4 destroyed ships. Hundreds of battleships were constructed, and probably better than half of them are still in service 10k years later.

 

4) Only a fool sends a single large ship into battle by itself. They are almost always accompanied by cruisers and frigates.

 

Also worth noting: All 4 of the destroyed ships you mention were Word Bearer vessels. Lorgar is probably the worst tactician among the Primarchs. He very well could be the fool that sends a big ship by itself.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

My issue is that it took a flash of insight from a Primarch to "figure out" something that should have already been common sense.

[DogWelder]

The size of ships like the Gloriana and Abyss classes had benefits too, though.

 

1) You could put much larger weapons systems on larger ships. Mostly used in planetary bombardment, some of those guns would literally tear apart a smaller ship when fired.

 

2) When you want to make sure your entire ground force arrives somewhere at the same time, stick them in a ship big enough to carry them all. Risks losing all of them in the Warp, but at least you won't have companies showing up weeks apart and getting obliterated before their reinforcements arrive.

 

3) If your enemy doesn't possess dozens of smaller ships, the sheer durability of something that large will win battles.

 

Worth noting is that you've mentioned 4 destroyed ships. Hundreds of battleships were constructed, and probably better than half of them are still in service 10k years later.

 

4) Only a fool sends a single large ship into battle by itself. They are almost always accompanied by cruisers and frigates.

 

Also worth noting: All 4 of the destroyed ships you mention were Word Bearer vessels. Lorgar is probably the worst tactician among the Primarchs. He very well could be the fool that sends a big ship by itself.

True but these 4 were irreplaceable super-battleships. The capability to build Gloriana ships (only slightly more than 20 were ever constructed) who had the ability to take on entire fleets and Abyss-Class vessels (of which only 3 were built) which had the ability to take on entire worlds by themselves. Lorgar fully expected the Furious Abyss to destroy Maccrage by itself. Thats how powerful the Abyss class ones were.

[Paradigm]

Battleships in a 40k setting would not be like battleships on water. If the curvature of the earth didn't hide the enemy fleet, and weapons fired in strait lines, the battleship era would have never ended.

 

That said, they are more like Achilles than Hercules. Even the biggest and best armed and armored warship can be sunk pretty easily if someone with knowledge of the vessel gets onboard, even second hand or knowledge of similar ships can suffice. In ships the size of those in-universe and in space, they only get more vulnerable to boarding actions.

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

It wasn't the curvature of the earth the undid the short-lived glory of battleships, it was the inability to adequately defend themselves against swarms of airplanes dropping bombs and torpedoes on them. WWII era battleships were covered in AA guns and it still wasn't enough, even with support from other ships and their own air forces. I'll give you that they could potentially do more damage from a longer distance in space than terrestrial battleships being unable to see beyond the curvature of the earth, but that same weakness would still haunt them.

[Paradigm]

Fair enough, I'm definitely no expert on battleship history, I was a submariner. I still think boarding and defeating the ship is more effective than hitting it from the outside with strike craft, since the vessel isn't going to sink anywhere in space. But I can see a very large fleet of strike craft having some serious potential. It just seems very hard to break something that is Kilometers long with weapons that could be carried on things not much larger than airplanes. Even thunderhawks seem lacking. Though they can certainly tear through the armor if enough of them were involved, I suppose.

[chapter master 454]

Land Raiders can roll over mines, take gun shots like champs and carry a can of very peeved off astartes extremely well however, they very rarely do so well when one leaves them on their own. Sure, they are devastating but when those infantry boys who number in the 100s start running at you with melta bombs, melta guns or just start busting out lascannons you can't very well get very far. A large battleship is capable of destroying vast numbers of enemies with some incredible firepower but like everything it needs support. Like the land raider, we have tactical squads just behind it or stationed to help aid against lesser threats while we have our assaults and devastators ensure that enemies that aren't worth the fire power of the land raider need waste it's time.

 

 

Lorgar literally sent those ships to their doom. Even if you run all armour you still bring vindicators and predators to help support your army. Lorgar just sent 4 battleships and that's it. No escorts. Gulliman must of looked at that and called it free and by all rights embarassing. Must of lost the 12 ships that were lost on purpose just so lorgar didn't feel so bad (heck, even the EMPEROR'S main ship was hamstrung by small fighters when Horus lead them so it goes to show: Right tool for the right job)

[Wolf_Lord_Hardrada]

Battleships in 40k are force multipliers. Huge, gothic-cathedral force multipliers. One their own they can* be taken out by mere escorts, but properly protected with their own escorts and fighter screens they are a major pain in the butt to deal with.

 

Not only are they (BFG) high wound models, but they tend to dish out a huge deal of fire power. If you can protect your flying cathedral of choice and allow it to work unchecked it can deal a huge amount of damage. They are also great distraction carnifexes.

 

Not that they are the be all and end all of space combat (that's escorts!) but they are hard to ignore, and something like an Emperor-Class which is basically your WW2 Pacific fleet carrier. If its left to roam where it wants it can put fighter and bombers exactly where you Don't want them.

[SpecialIssue]

When historical naval battles were only being fought in two dimensions, the battleship was king. Once aircraft invaded the third dimension and nullified all the strengths of the battleship, they died or were put out to pasture in favor of larger numbers of smaller and faster ships. It should work the same in the 40k setting, but sci-fantasy plot magic.

 

Some thoughts on this age-old question: why doesn't 40k <naval> war work like modern war?

 

All these thoughts are based on material given in the BFG tabletop rules and fluff material, without recourse to later material.

 

Carriers vs Battleships in 40k:

 

The Gareox Prerogative was a 36th millennium shipbuilding program and tactical doctrine in the Segmentum Tempestus Imperial Navy which emphasized the primacy of carriers and strikecraft at the expense of traditional big-gun battleships. In the civil war it sparked, the Big Gun lobby's ships proved more effective, showing that in 40k, relying on guns beats relying on carriers. How though?

 

The specifics of space combat in 40k are much larger in general than most other scifi universes. Ships are much larger on average - a Cobra destroyer, the smallest common escort in the Imperial Navy is 1km long, mainline cruisers which the Imperium has a relative abundance of being 5-10km. They thus also have massive ablative and energy armour, and similarly massive main weapons in order to damage each other.

 

The fact that they are in space, with such massive weaponry that often travels at the speed of light (lances) means that engagements are often taking place at huge distances (tens of thousands of kilometers), in comparison to other universes where ships are basically in visual range before they engage. In BFG tabletop, the introduction to the game states that the models themselves do not represent in any way the scale of the ships relative to the board - rather each ship is actually an infinitesimally small dot on the stem of each base.

 

With this huge scale, space fighter and bomber analogues in 40k are much larger than you'd expect from other scifi universes, simply because of the distances they needs to traverse, as well as the need to carry weaponry able to damage capital ships kilometres long. The Thunderhawk fills the role of a fighter (and assault boat) in BFG; the mainline fighter of the Imperial Navy, the Fury interceptor is dozens of metres long, has multiple crew/gunners/lascannon banks, a toilet, and the possibility of both a navigator and an astropath for communications. The huge Tau Manta is that race's main space fleet bomber. The size of the cruiser-carriers of the 41st millennium can carry many thousands of these craft at once.

 

These huge distances and huge numbers of strikecraft predicate the importance of pathfinding and navigation to the target, should strikes be launched from long range (tens of thousands of kilometres). In order to ensure ease of navigation, and that the attack is effective by having the whole strike package hit at the same time, sending these strikes out in huge formations ('waves' in tabletop BFG) makes sense.

 

However, these huge groups are prime targets for the mainline weaponry of battleships. Most broadside weaponry in BFG is described as working as like flak, but on a WMD-scale to take out other capital ships. These batteries fire detonating shells or energy bolts, or a cluster of beams, which try to bracket the area of the target. Hitting even a capital cruiser, something less than a dozen kilometres long from tens of thousands of kilometres away, largely precludes better aiming (except for the much-hallowed lance turret). Thus, the WMD-level of destruction a broadside can blanket space with, combined with the distances strikecraft travel, and the tendency for large attack waves, means guns are actually effective against massed long-range strike sorties by attack craft.

 

In BFG tabletop terms, an entire wave of strike craft, no matter how many units strong, is eliminated by a single hit from a weapon battery. Thus is often the tension in composing your strike waves launching from extended range - putting enough craft into a wave to overwhelm point defences and CAP (Combat Space Patrol?) while also not being a juicy target for main guns.

 

Rather, it seems reasonable to infer that in 40k, fighters/bombers/assault boats are often much more integrated into a traditional big-gun line of battle. Rather than holding carriers back and launching from extended range, they instead are seen directly on the frontline with cruisers and battleships as 'assault carriers'; holding their strikecraft right till the fleets are close enough that it's too late to respond with main guns, and providing direct close-in fleetwide CAP to the line of battle. Indeed, it can be seen that there are no real pure carriers in 40k that fit our modern description - all strikecraft carriers also have a heavy complement of main guns, have heavy armour and are more of a hybrid between carriers and cruisers/battleships.

 

In a pitched battle, these carriers would in fact function similarly to other ships of the line, essentially contributing direct damage to other ships in visual range via bombers along with their guns. Perhaps an advantage of strikecraft over guns in this environment is responsiveness in re-targeting and picking out targets in the battleline, with ships not dependent on weapon orientation to bring firepower to bear. Downsides are the obvious ability to intercept bombers, attrition of pilots/craft, and needing squadrons of craft to deal damage equivalent to one fleet gun.

 

Carriers are however noted as being more popular in the vast expanses of Ultima Segmentum, as well as the sparsely populated Tempestus, due to their ability to patrol vast reaches of space. Against pirates and raiders, carriers are certainly preferable since their extended reach with their strikecraft enables them to cover whole systems at once with patrols, and most such skirmishers/small fleets will lack the ability to counter huge attack waves from long distance.

 

On the demise of super-dreadnoughts:

 

The first Planet-Killer, Abbadon's superweapon of the Gothic War was destroyed when it was caught without support, and succumbed to wave after wave of torpedoes from squadrons of Lunar cruisers launching at extended range around the ponderous ship. Notably, this ship is not so much a pure fleet battleship, but rather a specialised superweapon.

 

In most of the examples of the super-battleships given in the initial post, they were taken out by boarders.

 

The Imperial Navy has dozens of cruisers, but only a 12 or so battleship-class hulls in Battlefleet Cadia (not including reserves).

 

It does seem true from trends that larger battleships are less effective and not worth an equal investment in perhaps a number of cruisers. In-line with much of the technology adopted in the wake of the Heresy, these ostentatious and technologically demanding weapons of the grand old Great Crusade were phased out for more practical and rugged technologies for want of knowledge in their construction, tactical doctrine, or both.

 

It could be that having multiple cruiser hulls are in general more flexible than a single hull for patrolling and maneuver, while also offering similar or greater firepower when squadroned. A larger ship also means that more of its armament and thus its firepower might not be able to be focused on targets due to firing arcs on its structure, while independent hulls are able to maneuver about to focus fire. A larger ship also conversely means it might be harder to ensure internal security from overt or covert boarders, who use its size to their advantage to hide from and bypass defenses. These single huge assets can be effectively crippled by a single strike from within.

[Paradigm]

Very good info.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

The size and internal vulnerabilities are definitely a problem, but in a fair few cases they're also the difference between breaking through an enemy blockade/system defenses. While I do see the complaints that they're generally pretty vulnerable to strike craft, they typically have their own complements of fighter-class ships for interdiction duties and are usually accompanied by escorts and cruisers, which will also have their own interception capabilities.

 

In a somewhat hilarious way, they took steps towards providing something of an effective solution for the IRL issues we find for battleships; they were able to: mount effective point defense, slap on ridiculous amounts of armor, and throw world-breaking firepower onto a single hull. Battleships in 40k are effective in CQC as well as mid-long range combat, and with setting population numbers the crew and auxiliary maintenance personnel is an afterthought. How precisely they achieved these goals I don't think is ever explained in detail, but suffice to say there's some super magical materials (plasteel, ferrocrete, adamantium, artificial gravity generation, <insert random sci fi sounding thingy here>) and technologies that allowed them to do so.

Edited June 17, 2017 by Apothecary Vaddon

[Closet Skeleton]

When historical naval battles were only being fought in two dimensions, the battleship was king. Once aircraft invaded the third dimension and nullified all the strengths of the battleship, they died or were put out to pasture in favor of larger numbers of smaller and faster ships. It should work the same in the 40k setting, but sci-fantasy plot magic.

 

Battleships were never king. The age of battleships was short and relatively peaceful so they never really got tested as weapons and were just built entirely on theory.

 

There were basically only four wars were battleships even fought.

 

Third War of Italian Independence (pre-dreadnoughts only, 1 naval battle)

Russo-Japanese War (pre-dreadnoughts only, two decisive naval battles)

World War I/Great War (no decisive naval battles)

World War II (Carriers prove superior but still had more battleship engagements than any other war)

 

Battleships were built because rich countries felt that they needed war ships and they were the most up to date way to spend a lot of money on a warship. It was an arms race in a void of experience that ended after the only war that actually saw heavy battleship engagements convinced everyone not to bother.

 

In space, every ship operates in three dimensions and there's no air resistance only speed advantages come from having bigger engines so small fighters have no advantage what so ever. When you have fictional force fields and energy weapons then a bigger ship = carries more fuel = bigger reactor = better shields and guns.

[Laughingman]

The thing I will never understand about the portrayal of naval warfare in 40k (and 30k for that matter) is that outside of orbital engagements and sieges, the ships should not be able to even see each other, let alone engage each other with broadsides and boarding actions.  

 

The Heresy era super-battleships were designed with the space marine legions and the great crusade in mind. With the end of legion  there was little reason to attempt to build such war machines anew. If I recall most chapter battle barges in the post heresy era are described as being largely unused, They were intended to support thousands of marines in the great crusade era, most would struggle to fraction of that in regular chapter era combat operations. 

[KhorneHunter57x]

Note that all four of your examples were destroyed by the Ultramarines, which are kinda known for going up against massive targets/impossible odds and triumphing (see: Battle for Macragge, among others).

[Wargamer]

Most of these examples are of tactical stupidity, using Battleships alone and unsupported. These vessels are meant to be flagships, not one ship navies.

 

A good comparison to how Battleships work in 40k is the Bismark. This massive warship with colossal cannons could obliterate any rival ship in single combat. However, it was caught alone in the ocean, damaged by torpedo bombers and then attacked from all sides by four cruisers. Despite the fact that the Bismark had one-shot a cruiser in a previous battle, it couldn't effectively attack everyone at once and ultimately burned.

 

The same is true in 40k. While few ships can hope to best a Retribution Class in a broadside slugging match, a squadron of smaller, faster ships can outmaneuver and defeat it should it be caught unsupported.