Lascannon vs Leman Russ Battle Cannon

By Myrion, in Only War Rules Questions

I've just been reading the entire Core Rules a second, more thorough time and noticed something odd:

The man-portable lascannon is much more powerful than the main cannon of a Leman Russ.
5d10+10 Pen 10 vs 3d10+10 Pen 8 is pretty clear.
Sure, it has some drawbacks: It's range and clip size are about half, and the Battle Cannon has the Blast quality, which presumably makes it great for anti-infantry action, but purely in terms of anti-tank firepower the lascannon wins.

That just seems... off, to me, anyway. Can anyone tell me why it's not off and I'm wrong? ;)

On a side note: The Demolisher cannon has a listed range of 50m.
I get that it should have shorter range than the other tank cannons, say, 500m, but 50m seems really ******* short for a siege tank. I mean, this way you basically have to walk right up to the enemies' most heavily defended position to be able to crack it open...

I'm pretty sure this is always the case.

In tabletop is not a Lascannon Strength 9, whereas a Battle Cannon is Strength 8? (been a while since I looked at these values so obviously I may be off a bit).

As far as range, remember, the listed range represents a point thats about 1/2 medium range. Its total range is much greater than that. Also, once again, the Demolisher's cannon in tabletop has a rather short range, and as such is represented here.

In the Warhammer 40K tabletop game on which Only War is based, the battle cannon is an anti-infantry weapon while the lascannon is the tank killer. So, it's true to the source material.

As for the Demolisher cannon, now that you mention it, that range is a little short. Again, going by the tabletop it should have a range comparable to a lasgun.

Okay, thanks. I didn't expect the battle cannon to be an anti-infantry weapon, but now that bit makes sense.
I should have mentioned that I don't really know the tabletop rules, too.

Yeah, sure, KommissarK, but if I'm not mistaken, then maximum range is 4xRange, which would still give it only 200m range. I don't want to have to get to 200m from the enemy fortifications unless it's already demolished... Especially as it may be staffed with anti-tank weaponry like the lascannon (or missile tubes or autocannons...) which has a maximum range of 1200m!

But okay, it's the way it is in the tabletop, so that's okay^^

OK it's true that the Vindicator doesn't make much sense from the point of view of military tactics ;) , but the best way to make it sort-of make sense, esp. considering that it is designed to go through rough terrain, is to think of it as an urban combat vehicle. I think.

The Demolisher has FA, in the TT, that is as good as it gets, and I vaguely remember top armor equals front, but I could be making that up, so it is as safe, rolling up to the enemy, as any tank could be. If you have snipers, or even regular Guardsmen, loosing fusilades of las-fire at the top of a wall, keeping the guys who might shoot down at your Demolisher pinned, it will happily roll right up, and knock on their door. 6E might even make it more survivable.

In OW, the Demolisher has FA almost as good as a Land Raider did, up there with the superheavy Baneblade. If things waste time firing at that, they aren't going to win, and the Demolisher has acceptable StrPts. I would say, so long as the Demolisher isn't a lone asset, so it has infantry to clear away any suicide melta-charge toting jerks, and some other stuff, it'll be fine, and could enter it's blasting range no problem.

As for LCn vs BCn, that's why they could mount a LCn, in addition to their BCn. Even Space Marines would insta-splutch to a Battle Cannon, a whole squad at a time, if lucky, while the Lascannon pings them one at a time. The battle cannon was still EFFECTIVE against vehicles, especially clumped ones, but drift is a pain, so they have the lascannon to pinpoint pop other vehicles, but most enemies of the Imperium were infantry, and the BCn was fine there, or carried more fragile vehicles; I remember when turning the turret of the battle cannon was enough force to demolish DE vehicles, possibly along with the misfire of a lasgun, as a dying soldier fell to the ground.

In the end, it all comes down to what you are comfortable with. The Demolisher SHOULD be able to wade into its firing range, and succeed at the objective, but it SHOULD have some infantry or light vehicle support. The Battle Cannon should be good, and the HBlt should clear up any surviving infantry, or a lascannon to go transport-hunting. IO, anyway. Some of this is more from TT than here, but even here, the Demolisher and Battle Tank seem like they were written well to kill what they kill.

Thanks a lot for that explanation, now those tanks make more sense. And yeah, I think I was forgetting the point that it needs infantry backup. I was looking only at the stats and thinking that those look very strange.

It's always worth remembering that the Imperial Guard is an army. They don't tend to commit forces alone, but prefer massive numbers.

1. The people who wrote the tabletop rules have no idea of the differences in scale between personal arms and ordinance.

2. The demolisher cannon is probably based on the 290mm Spigot mortar found on the (WW2 era) Chruchill ARVE. The maximum range on the mortar was very short, maybe 250 meters? After the war, it was replaced by the much more satisfactory 165mm demolition gun (range ~2400 meters).

1) The battlecannon was intended to kill heavy infantry, monsters and light vehicles. Tanks are secondary targets - as noted, that's what the dedicated antitank gun (the lascannon) is for.

2) The Demolisher Siege Tank wasn't initially for assaulting fortifications. The tank, in it's original Imperial Guard Codex description, was an urban combat tank, for fighting in ruins, hives, etc. In cityfights, side, rear and top armour, and an up-gunned but shorter range cannon, was ideal for the inevitable short lines of sight and no clear 'front lines'. Essentially, it was a tank designed for Stalingrad.

There was an accompanying box-out quote, something along the lines of "Range is of no importance in urban combat. Widespread devastation and the complete destruction of enemies in the target zone is all that need concern you."

2. The demolisher cannon is probably based on the 290mm Spigot mortar found on the (WW2 era) Chruchill ARVE. The maximum range on the mortar was very short, maybe 250 meters? After the war, it was replaced by the much more satisfactory 165mm demolition gun (range ~2400 meters).

The AVRE was my first thought as well when the demolisher was mentioned. A quick google search seems to indicate that the range was in fact considerably shorter, around 80 yards.