Editing Imperial Navy (section)

== Important Details ==

=== Crews ===

''Navy crews are made up of officers, techpriests, astropaths, navigators, servants, slave drivers, and slaves.'' 

A bit of an over-simplification, but broadly true. Due to the Imperium's aversion to AI and Automation each ship needs at least thousands of people to man it. Whenever the crew count gets low, the Imperial Navy sets up fake strip clubs on a planet claiming "Free Hookers" to lure in unsuspecting men (and the occasional woman). Once a future crewman steps in, he's knocked out, bound, gagged, and taken to the ship, [[grimdark|where they'll slave away the rest of their soon-to-be-short existence]] doing everything needed to make flying through space and fighting in the void possible.

This includes dragging shells the size of houses into cannons while being whipped. Still, at least for the crew sex is allowed, in fact encouraged, if for no other reason than maintaining the crew complement. Seriously, whole fucking cities and civilizations arise from the more massive ships, every bit as intricate as a long lived Hive City. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax7wcShvrus Here is an idea of how it works, right up to the Roman armor, whips and beatings.] Oh and apparently besides whole civilizations, there are whole civilizations of mutants around too. They can more or less settle new worlds for da [[Emprah]] by simply disgorging their excess population, which the crew is probably all too happy to do.

High ranking officers may also bring their own people on board. These include, but are not limited to, concubines, bodyguards, servants, slaves, etc.. Makes you wonder just what regulations are actually enforced if any exist at all.

One area where fluff [[Black Library|hasn't been consistent]] is in the uniform worn by Imperial Navy crewmen. Some sources suggest that uniforms are divided by segmentum of the Imperium, while others suggest that it is a sector-by-sector fashion choice. Given the scale of the Imperium and the fact that Navy fleets are already identified by hull color, it's probably on a segmentum basis, but [[Games Workshop]] doesn't care enough to make a decision about it (and no matter what they'll inevitably be blinged out in skulls and eagles). For the ranks of the aforementioned shell draggers at the bottom of the naval hierarchy they'd wear a motley collection of their old civilian clothes and whatever they could scrounge up and sew together. Continuing the Age of Sail metaphor.

=== Travel ===

The ships of the [[Imperium]] travel through the [[Warp]] using what's called a [[FTL (Warhammer 40,000)#Warp Drive|warp drive]] to get to where they're going. However, this isn't your happy, fancy tunnel-of-light like in Star Wars, or everything-moves-fast Star Trek, it is an alternate dimension full of [[Chaos]]. In order to avoid being turned inside-out (think Event Horizon) and getting hentai-raped by every daemon in the warp, the ships rely on what is called a [[Gellar Field]] to keep the [[furries]], undesirables, and various other evil beings out of their ship when traveling through. The Baroque decorations are also implied in helping to ward off said daemons. When traveling through literal Hell itself, turning an actual cathedral into an actual voidship is actually a pretty good actual idea. They rely on a [[Navigator]] that uses the [[Empra]] as a beacon to safely navigate the Warp, hence the title "Navigator".

=== Ordnance ===

* '''Macrocannons:''' Guns. Lots of guns. Macrocannons are gargantuan cannons firing equally gargantuan shells. On escort ships these are often mounted in turrets, while capital ships often feature broadside batteries manned by crews of tens of thousands. Generally used to saturate void shields with overwhelming volume of fire. Alternatively, its also used by capital ships to provide planet-side fire support (although due to it's size, its the equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb on someone) or used en-masse against the planet's surface to [[Exterminatus|bombard it into oblivion]].
* '''Lasers:''' Smaller than true lances, lasers are common on escorts such as the Sword. Accurate but not overly powerful, their main virtue is that they don't require ammunition and are usually in turrets. They only need lens refocusing or repairing the actual gun itself, as by the time their "ammo" supply (the reactor) is compromised the ship has worse problems than going dry.
* '''Plasma Cannons:''' Powerful, but power hungry and finicky. Not every forge world can build them, but generally the Imperium is better at building ship sized plasma guns than they are at building handheld ones. Imperial ships with plasma tend to be all plasma like the tyrant instead of the normal lance and macro mix of the lunar.
* '''Lance Batteries:''' Lances are enormous particle/laser weapons designed to penetrate armor and inflict deep structural damage. Accurate and powerful but they don't recharge fast enough to defeat void shields unassisted. Their sheer size and power requirements typically limit them to capital ships; lance armed escorts are purpose built vessels like the Firestorm. The necessity to defeat void shields means that the preferred Imperial loadout for capital ships is macrocannons paired with lances. Lances do extreme damage, period, but recharge so slowly that the enemy shields will have mostly recharged by the time you shoot again, hence preference for pairing with macrocannon. Macrocannons either prevent recharge in small numbers or do that and take chunks out of void shields between lance shots.
* '''Torpedos:''' The standard Imperial torpedo consists of a unstable plasma reactor with an engine and a guidance cogitator. On impact, the reactor and its remaining fuel detonates with roughly the force of an escort ship's main drive exploding, but directed straight to the target like a shaped charge. A well placed torpedo allows even a lowly destroyer to threaten a battleship, although they are as often used by capital ships to force an enemy to turn to avoid a torpedo salvo.
** '''Melta Torpedos:''' What causes more damage than a reactor blowing up in a shaped charge? Said reactor blowing up inside the target after a melta charge has burrowed it's way through and more melta warheads exploding alongside, consuming the impact area in nuclear fire. That said, if the torpedo launcher receives a penetrating hit while they are loaded, there is a good chance they will detonate and take the ship with them.
** '''Boarding Torpedo:''' Essentially a torpedo version of an assault ship, boarding torpedoes are more often used by the Astartes due to the acceleration forces involved on both ends of the trip.