Editing Imperial Navy (section)

=== 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.