The US army currently uses an APC called Stryker which weights about 19 Tons. It has 2 crew and carries 9 soldiers. The Arvus Lighter in Into the Storm says it'll carry 12 people or equivalent in cargo. That's less than 1.5 tons even if those are pretty big people carrying quite a bit of kit. So it's basically a flying minibus.

The Halo Barge on the other hand is a mass hauler. It can carry 40 people or 40 tonnes of cargo. Quite how that equates I don't know. So it might be able to carry two (relatively small) APC's. Probably not 2 Chimaeras or Rhinos. The permitted gross weight of an articulated lorry in the UK is about 44 tons. That's the type of lorry they use to deliver food to supermarkets.

I am having difficulty seeing either of these vehicles as realistic cargo haulers. Should they not be significantly larger in order to supply ships which have tens of thousands of men aboard?

Here's some info about the old warhorse the Hercules transport plane:

"Cargo Compartment - The C-130 can carry more than 42,000 pounds (19,051kg) of cargo. Rollers in the floor of the cargo compartment enable quick and easy handling of cargo pallets and can be removed to leave a flat surface, if needed. Five 463L pallets (plus a ramp pallet for baggage) may be loaded onto the aircraft through the hydraulically-operated main loading ramp/door assembly located in the rear of the aircraft. The ramp can also be lowered to the ground for loading and unloading of wheeled vehicles. Tie-down fittings for securing cargo are located throughout the compartment.

In its personnel carrier role, the C-130 can accommodate 92 combat troops or 64 fully-equipped paratroopers on side-facing, webbed seats. For aeromedical evacuations, it can carry 74 litter patients and two medical attendants.

From 10 August 1990 to the cease-fire, Air Force C-130s flew 46,500 sorties and moved more than 209,000 people and 300,000 tons of supplies"

The Arvus in my mind equates to a Ford Transit van or 2 ton lorry. The Halo Barge is a mere articulated lorry (the size capable of carrying a shipping container for instance). Surely the Imperium of Man would rapidly tire of such relatively small vehicles for equipping such large ships? Not to mention that you couldn't fit a tank in either of those. The British Armys Challenger 2 tank weights about 70 tons. I see no reason the Imperiums tanks would be any smaller or lighter.

As it stands a Rogue Trader wanting to land a battallion of 1,200 Imperial Guard would end up making 30 trips in Halo Barges to drop his men. That wouldn't include any support vehicles or personnel, armoured personnel carriers, rations, extra ammo and so on.

I'm afraid I couldn't find an article that quoted the consumable supplies a modern army needs on a daily basis but I'd be willing to bet it's quite a lot.

There have to be larger vehicles than this available else the Imperial Guard simply can't operate. Are there any mentioned in the fluff? Does anyone recall if Arvus Lighters or Halo Barges are noted as shifting tanks and the like?

There are heavy landers: there's one called the Tetrarch that features in the Tactica Imperialis book by BL, and another whose name escapes me that featured in a classic old Inferno. There's also two of an unknown type featured on the cover of the new Guard Codex (in the background - all the Guard are pouring out of them.)

Heavy Landers are HUGE, though. We're talking the size of small ocean liner / large cargo ferry scale, probably weighing tens of thousands of tonnes. They carry thousands of men and entire armoured regiments in one go. They are so big in fact that specialist warp-capable ships are needed to carry them: these are called (I seem to recall) Cetaceous class transports. They form an open framework around a dozen or so Heavy Landers.

Such Heavy shuttles are therefore too big for the standard lighter bay, and probably are specialist craft only utilised by the Imperial Guard. Rogue Traders tend to operate at a slightly smaller scale.

There are MEDIUM lifters/ shuttles: we haven't seen images of these yet, but Dan Abnett has featured them in the Gaunt's Ghost series, I think in the "Only in Death" book, though I could be wrong. I can't remember the name. They are described as being much bigger than Valkyries, and may indeed be true shuttecraft.

You're right, a Hercules-scale space shuttle is a good idea, though... Or something about the size of the shuttle from "Avatar."

EDIT:-

Here’s one guy’s interpretation of the concept (though I think it’s a bit small)

http://media.photobucket.com/image/tetrarch%20heavy%20lander/DigitsDavid/dropship.jpg

And people forget that there was an almost unknown epic-scale heavy lander, too:-

http://media.photobucket.com/image/tetrarch%20heavy%20lander/richardworthington/WIP/Dropship.png

A comment about the peoples/cargo equivalence :

In my opinion, the easiest way to explain the 40 peoples/40 tons capacity is that the transport is rated for 40 tons of cargo and has life support for 40 peoples. Though there are also volume consideration too - 40 tons is about the capacity of semi truck. How many peoples can you have into that in bus-like conditions ? I'd say about one hundred if you want them to be operational on exit. Peoples are a fairly bulky acrgo item despite their rather low weight.

If you're packing them like a 17th century slave trader ship, you might be able to stack something like four hundred, but you'll need to add some serious extra life support if you want them to make it alive.

If I uses the C-130 figures, simple transport means one person is somewhat equivalent to 200 kg of cargo, 300 if combat-ready. Applied to the 40 tons transport, that would be 200 and 120 respectively. Since I don't think a paratrooper is carrying 200 kg of extra gear, it means the main problem of a C-130 carting troops isn't weight but rather internal volume - or more accurately floor space. You can't seat peoples on the ceiling, though you can stack cargo up to it. And will probably hit the weight limit before that.

Imperial tech probably improves the lifting power, which means the ratio will be even higher - you can cram more weight in a transport fo the same size. But they won't be able to carry more peoples than a 21th century transport of equivalent size because it won't have more room inside.

If we look once again at the Halo barge, I suppose we can get those figures, assuming it has somewhat the same cargo space as a C-130 :

* liftable weight : 40 tons

* life support : crew + 40 passengers

* passenger capacity - ie how many peoples can you fit inside : 100, 60 combat ready (doable for short flights, extended flights require upgrading hte life support).

* slaves capacity (packed like sardines and accepting some losses from being tossed around during manoeuvers) : 400. And you will need extra life support.

I've house ruled this so that my parties cruiser has several bulk haulers that can carry several hundred tons. They can get three leman russ tanks in each, nsoe to tail. Each is sufficient to land a few hundred troops, although for troops they have some smaller ships that carry about 100 men that are more manueovrable in orbit.

Arvus lighters, as written seem utterly worthless, too small to move cargo or large numbers of passengers. Again, i;ve ruled Argus lighters are small cargo haulers but they hauler a **** sight more than their rulebook loads.

Possibly relevant point: the Halo Barge is listed as carrying "40 people, 40 metric tonnes of cargo". The Arvus is "12 people or equivalent in cargo", whilst the Hepastus is "10 additional crew, 750 tonnes of processed ore, 1 hanger...". This seems to imply that it's 40 people and 40 tonnes of cargo, not or 40 tonnes of cargo.

This seems to imply that the ship can be outfitted with additional seats and life support to move more personnel, or have the seats stripped out to fit in slightly more cargo, but this is the standard arrangement.

On an unrelated topic, when did they release a non-Marine dropship for Epic? I don't think I've ever seen it before.

Darth Fanboy said:

Years ago. It never featured in UK White Dwarf, but I've seen on the internet in a few places, and on the black and white catalogue sheets GW used to produce. Given that it look like some of the metal Gargants, I'd tenatively place it as mid '90s. I'm not entirely certain it's a GW product, on the basis you can't believe everything you see on the net, but if you Google "Imperial Dropship epic 40k" you get a few hits of what appears to be the same miniature. For example:-

http://www.digitalequinox.com/wip/epic/dropship01.jpg

http://www.collecting-citadel-miniatures.com/wiki/images/7/79/Limited_Release_-_Epic_Imperial_Drop_Ship_A.jpg

I was a huge Epic player at the time, and probably would have bought three if I knew it existed!

When thinking about transport I've looked a bit over stats to try to figure out what volumes of merchandises are to be transported. On thing I did was to look up statistics on transport.

As of 2007, the USA transported a little under 11 billions of tons of goods for 300 million peoples - which makes roughly 35 tons a year for each person to support in a modern economy. Since a starship comes quite close to a city, these figures can help setting a guesstimate of the amount of supplies to be moved to crew, fuel, feed and maintain a ship.

Applying them to a cruiser would net about 3 million tons, roughly 10% of the ship's tonnage. Applying it to other ships ends up with numbers in the same range - betwenn 5% and 10% of the ship's tonnage. And close to one Halo barge per crewmember per year.

Lightbringer said:

The one in the Inferno is called a 'Devourer Imperial Class Dropship'. I do have an image of it but I don't know how to copy and paste it on this message board. For the curious the text reads:

"Armed with two heavy las cannon and ram Missles, the craft can literally punch its way through enemy emplacements. Once through the breach, it's uniquely designed nose cone opens like a four, jawed beast. A telescopic catwalk allows rapid access for the imperial guard units housed on the upper deck. The lower decks carries the campaigns assault vehicles tanks and heavy weapons"

It looks like as if it can carry a regiment and its support detachments all in one go, but looks a little too big. Maybe a cruiser could carry it. A frigate? No chance.

On an other point it might be worth reminding that when the ship weighs anchor about a planet with decent docks, the resupply is done by the planet and its dock ships a docking guilds, just like in the age of sail. The Halo Barges and the lighters are more for the rogue trader to set planet side and steal a couple of tons of archeotech or send a small raiding party, not for major resupply runs.

SmokedHalibut said:

Actually, read the capacity for the Halo Barge a touch more closely... It's stated as 40 people, 40 tonnes of cargo. There is no either/or there. It has seating for transporting 40 persons and the capability to carry 40 tonnes of cargo. Every other vehicle clearly makes a distinction between X people or equivalent cargo.

-=Brother Praetus=-

It is pretty clear that it carries 40 passengers AND 40 tons of cargo.

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Two decks?

Pardon me while I parody certain people's responses to me using modern information and or transport information re: 40k who are conspicously not doing so in this thread re C-130s.

Achem.

"HOW DARE you use modern vehicle information in 40k!!! You whoreson, you're getting sci-fi in my space fantasy! THIS IS 40K! The inside of a Portugese slave scow from the 17th century should SEEM LUXURIOUS compared ot the hell that the hapless fools that the rogue trader is packing in to the lander endure! If ONLY 30% of them are killed just by boarding, IT'S NOT 40K!!!!11111one1one"

This flame pointing out some people's hypocracy re 40k has been brought to you by the letter WAAAAGGGGHH!

Who really knows? I would have thought that cargo containers would have been a standardized size, since here on Earth they have really revolutionized freight hauling and stevedores. It would only seem logical that their would be a standardized freight unit for the Imperium, since it would speed up transfer of goods considerably.

I have no way to tell if it has 2 decks, it would seem like it to be more likely that that their is a smaller area where passengers can sit buckled in behind the cockpit area, probably 5 rows of 8 seats each, seperated by an aisle. this would be an area 10 meters X 5 meters, giving each person a seat which takes up roughly 1 meter squared. This does not allow for a reclining seat or lap trays, and it is pure supposition.

Next people will be asking about the Gates and wait times.....

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Gates and wait times?

Also does the Halo Barge have astropath-radio?

I heard that somewhere in the Koronus expanse there is a Freebooter weirdboy Station that plays classic Goffik Rokk tunes including such anthem classics as:

" Waaaghh Rapzordee " Bugeye Spawna

" Two nobz " Spin Doktarz

" Waaagghh all ova da galaxy " Whut Stayz da Same

" Eye of Da Mor Snappa " Dem oo dont git mashed

"Gates and wait times" was my sarcastic reference to how stupid I realized this entire thread was to begin with, and how it seemed like people wanted to play a game where they ran a shipping concern or "airline" in space, as opposed to a Rogue Trader Dynasty where moving a package from ship to planet or planet to ship was IRRELEVANT!

THere's nothign stupid about people asking how something might actually work.

Except that, as I pointed out earlier, the usual response is less then helpful.

And, frankly, how to ship things might be a keystone of how a given dynasty works. Those who can ship more farther cheaper end up with monopolies and those are worth some serious PF.

Establishing monopolies is difficult : the Imperium is chronically short of ships (which might be alleviated) and navigtors (that one might with cloning and such, but the Navigator Houses would fight it tooth and nai, as their power is built upon that scarcity).

Rather than monopolies, it means the most efficent dynasties will get to transport the high paying cargos while the worst will end up carting raw ores and other low-value cargos.

Also keep in mind that rogue traders dynasties aren't the only one involved in the Imperium's internal trade : merchant houses, the Administratum and Ministorium, the Adpetus Mechanicus all have their own ships - at least for sensitive items, things an 'outsider' can't be fully trusted with, or which would give him too much of a leverage.

On a less effcient note, there's plenty of corrupt officials who won't like too much of a monopoly : if there's only one competitor, the bribes will dwindle, they might even reverse if the monopolist has a position domainant enough that there's nobody to replace him.

In resume : the best cargos, sweethearth deal and the like yes. Complete monopoly no.

BaronIveagh said:

I must disagree with you here, but my tone was perhaps harsh and I do apologize to those offended. Your party should have charter captains or merchant captains as contacts/resources who step in behind the scenes and do these things. At the worst, your Seneschal handles all of this with a little time and dice rolls. Dealing with the minutiae is not an RPG, it is an accounting exercise. You get +3 Profit from an endeavour which involves raw materials to a world in exchange for luxuries: you do not concern yourself with the shipping. It is assumed to be happening and generating a profit. What you worry about is when it stops and you have to look into it.

Of course perhaps an adventure dealing with stevedore contracts, standardized weights and rates, and bribing customs to look away could take quite a while to play out:

1: Negotiate with angry stevedores to work the longer hours required of the new cargo shipment. +1 to profit

2: Calibrate scales to take into account the differing measurement system target world traditionally uses. +1 profit AND +1 additional profit from manipulating said system to your advantage.

3: Bribe Imperial Customs officials to NOT examine the contents of certain packages. +1 to profit.

4: Play out the Imperial Tithe Audit. +1 to profit

Wow, sounds like heaps of fun. I would much prefer to have all of this dealt with offstage, so I can be out plundering the cosmos, or investigating the great mysteries of the 40K Universe, such as "Does a Space Marines junk work?" LOL

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Captain Harlock said:

Yes that is true however there being no hint of these ships in the game is a real problem. Not every RT is out there dealing in tiny quantities of goods. Some want to take whatever bulk cargo they can get their hands on as it's all profit. As for raiding, even if the Halo takes 40 passengers and 40 tons of cargo as some are saying, that's still one APC. It'd take a lot of trips or Halo barges to a significant number of troops which is what you need to do if you're attacking anything more than a feudal society.

Manunancy said:

Thanks that's very helpful information. If a light cruiser has 65,000 crew that's an awful lot of trips to resupply it. Even if they were using 10% of the goods a US citizen does it's still 6,500 trips. With the best will in the world that's going to take an awfully long time.

Gribble_the_Munchkin said:

I agree. This is the only sensible solution. I shall pick a name for a sensible sized class of bulk transport capable of deploying actual tanks since by definition the Imperial Guard/Navy must have them and most if not all warp capable ships must need to use them to resupply.

As for Fulminarex's comments I disagree entirely. We aren't discussing such things because we all love the idea of getting down into the nitty gritty of Imperial logistics. When my players tell me they want to land a regiment of troops to invade a 20th century tech level planet I need to be able to provide them with a description of how that's done. I need to know some limitations so they can enjoy figuring out their plan of attack. I can't just say they can just do it.

It's up to the GM to set the scene in a roleplaying game. Being able to describe the world and setting well is very helpful and brings it to life for the players. One thing I love about (good) pre-written campaigns is the flavour text that you can simply read to players that gives them a sense of immersion you cannot get by simply stating that cargo is moved to the ship. If for one have some players who aren't at all familiar with GW's IP so I need to give them some of the flavour and scale of the world in order for them to understand it and visualise it.

None of us have to run our campaigns the way anyone else does Fulminarex but whilst you aren't going to offend me some of your comments weren't really constructive.

Well I have no idea what happened to the formatting there

Hmm... Bad coding, BAD!

Honestly, my GM and I cooked up something pretty simple to solve the problem. We have a contingent of House Zhukov armsmen on board our ship, 5000 troops called the Legion of Redemption (2 regiments). 1 regiment of 2000 guards the ship, 2nd regiment of 3000 hits dirt when we need 'em. Not to mention the Legion has 50 Rhino APCs as an "armored" battalion...

I know, it's a bit excessive. I had some really, really, REALLY lucky acquisition rolls there, and quite frankly, we rarely use the Legion except in situations where an army is needed, like in a boarding action or helping to seize a planet. Which, oddly enough, comes up a lot less often than you'd think.

But I digress. We basically took the Gun-cutter, expanded it to fit 40 people (or 4 Rhinos, each Rhino being worth 10 men in mass. I know, it doesn't make sense, but it works for us and we iz happy.), and over the last few campaigns I've managed to collect a small fleet of 30 Gun-cutters. Standard operating procedure when we're really trying to ruin someone's day (full invasion or the like) is all 30 guncutters, each gun-cutter carrying two 10-man squads with each squad having 1 Rhino. So we can hit dirt with around 60 battle-ready squads and 60 Rhino APCs.

They've come in pretty handy so far, and they have suffered some pretty severe losses, and the GM usually only lets us bring them out once or twice an adventure (more than that and they incur penalties for lack of rest, wounded, lower troop count, etc).

But yeah, tweaked Gun-cutters work pretty well. And the party has a special command Gun-cutter and command Rhino for use as well, so we've got modes of transportation. S'all good.

Heh, just wait till I talk the GM into letting us give the Legion Leman Russes...