Editing Imperial Navy (section)

===Weapon Effects===

The calcs for Imperial Navy warships are one of the [[FAIL|<u>''worst''</u>]] things in GeeDubs' illustrious history. From Macrocannons [[Wat|outputting fewer joules than a punch from an 8-year-old child]] to [[Exterminatus|broadsides breaking continents]] [[Derp|making the existence of Cyclonic Torpedoes feel impotent.]] Calculating the strength of naval weapons have been one of the biggest pain in the ass for /tg/, not helping with the fact that many BL authors have no sense of fucking scale, let alone consistency.

Nevertheless, even if naval vessels shot out megatons per broadside, many newer folks around here may wonder, "Why can't the Imperial Navy do an orbital bombardment of a heavily defended position on land?". The answer is simple. Collateral damage. Yes, even the most incompetent of Imperial commanders recognize that too much collateral damage is a bad thing and would really affect the health of a good Crusade. After all, life is the Emperor's currency. '''SPEND IT WELL'''. This is not helped by the fact that the naval weapons of the Imperial Navy aren't the most accurate of the lot. Sure, fluff dictates that Macrocannons have an effective range in excess of tens of thousands of kilometres. But there is a <u>BIG DIFFERENCE</u> in providing suppressive fire against multi-kilometre spaceships and trying to hit a well-defended bunker that is only ten meters across. The only weapons that could be counted as 'accurate' are Lances and Nova Cannons. But firing them is overkill and the resulting shockwave will fuck up anyone indiscriminately, including ''Titan legions''. This is not counting into the basis of Void Shields and anti-orbital weapons like [[Defense Laser]]s for example.

As such, whilst it is theoretically possible to do orbital bombardment, in reality, most of the time it is just far more efficient to direct your naval assets to spar against ''other'' enemy naval ships, rather than risk a fleet that a) may or may not hit the target or worse, their allies due to inaccuracies, b) must come dangerously close to Defense Laser range or any other anti-orbital weapons and c) when they ''ARE'' given the chance to perform the role, the enemy has either become too insignificant to order a bombardment or have already captured and took hold of the entire planet plus its defences. Ergo, whilst it is tempting, orbital bombardment isn't really popular and just risks splitting your forces where it could have been better suited to, you know, deny the enemy of any potential orbital superiority in the first place.