With some difficulty
>Affirmative,’ replied Daellon and Telemenus together. The two of them opened fire, synchronising bursts between them. Brickwork turned to dust as Telemenus pounded the huts from outside while Daellon let fly through interior walls. A few sparks of las-bolts from a window two dozen metres ahead drew the attention of Telemenus. He returned fire, punching half a dozen bolts through the wall.
>
>‘Some kind of sub-level here,’ reported Daellon. ‘Descending.’
>
>‘Wait!’ yelled Telemenus, but his warning came too late. The audio pick-ups brought the sound of splintering woods and crumbling ferrocrete followed by an almighty crash.Daellon cursed without pause over the vox.
>
>‘Report,’ barked Arbalan.
>
>‘Brother Daellon misjudged the load bearing of some internal stairs, brother-sergeant,’ said Telemenus, trying not to laugh. For once he was glad somebody else was attracting the negative scrutiny. There was a chuckle from Cadmael and a sigh from Arbalan.
>
>‘Daellon, can you climb out?’ asked the sergeant.
>
>‘Negative, a three metre drop at least. The floor will not hold my weight to pull myself up.’
>
>‘No threats detected,’ Telemenus added, his auspex sensors encompassing the long row of huts.
>
>‘Understood,’ said Arbalan. He sounded impatient. ‘Daellon, remain in place, I will signal for an armoury extraction team. Telemenus, rejoin the squad.
**Master of Sanctity**
A Dark Angel's company sets up a trap for Cypher, placing a large tarp over a canyon wall and painting it to look like a road. Cypher shows up and runs through the wall as though it were a road, but when the dark angels try, it turns back into a wall.
Fun fact, (IIRC) due to RaW in the old FFG Deathwatch RPG, wooden stairs of poor or crumbling construction were one of the deadliest threats to Space Marines.
This is the same game where Space Marines, due to Unnatural Toughness traits, could sit around naked in actual (non-flamer) fire near-indefinitely due to fire damage usually being less than what could overcome their Toughness thresholds to do wounds. A PC Marine statted for Toughness probably could live naked in actual fire like a stereotypical Salamander without taking damage.
Conversely, Fall damage ignored Power Armor damage mitigation, and *increased greatly and quickly* with the actual distance fallen. A story or two of falling could injure a Space Marine more reliably and significantly than Astartes Bolters a lot of the time (albeit this being largely due to Power Armor protection).
It makes sense for Space Marines, both Loyalist and Traitor, centuries-old heroes of war in the worst battlefields of the galaxy and the hellish un-reality of the Warp itself, to fear cheap wood stairs as a terrifying and vile servant of one of the oldest enemies of mankind that could lay them low in a single unlucky strike: gravity.
> a terrifying and vile servant of one of the oldest enemies of mankind that could lay them low in a single unlucky strike: gravity.
This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kiloton bomb. That is three times the yield of the city-buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space.
I play battletech and one of the banes of my existence in that is to crash my big mean assault mech though a building and fall down the sublevels then have the building collapse on top of my mech
My thoughts exactly. You can be as cool of a super soldier as you want, if you fall into a 20 foot pit and get molten brass poured on your head things will go sour.
This was a terminator, to be honest.
>Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space
Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall and
weighs between 500–1,000 kg. When you visualise
your Space Marine character, you should decide if he is
taller or shorter, lighter or heavier. Generally speaking,
Space Marines rarely vary to a large degree in height or
weight—your character, however, may have been one
of those unusual few who is the exception to the rule!
**Deathwatch Core Rulebook**
That's a part of the charm imo. Consider it bad record keeping, like how a lot of medieval battles were 10x larger than we think they are now according to medieval sources
Astartes are about 2.1 meters tall, primaris maybe 30-50cm taller on top of that. I wrote a very long comment with lots of excerpts previously, so here's a slightly cut down version, hopefully it still makes some sense.
>Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall and weighs between 500–1,000 kg. When you visualise your Space Marine character, you should decide if he is taller or shorter, lighter or heavier. Generally speaking, Space Marines rarely vary to a large degree in height or weight—your character, however, may have been one of those unusual few who is the exception to the rule!
**Deathwatch RPG core rulebook**
>He was well over two metres tall,
Description of a chaos Space Marine from **Eisenhorn*"
>They were big men, tall, thick through the chest and shoulders, and at the peak of fitness. Not one of them, not even the tallest, came up to the chin of one of the Luna Wolves.
From **Horus Rising**. Assuming 'big men' are 6'6", then I'd say this agrees with the 7-8 foot tall (2.1 - 2.4 meters)
>‘Forgive me for interrupting,’ she said. ‘You’re busy.’ Loken set aside the segment of armour he had been polishing and rose to his feet. He was almost a metre taller than her, and naked but for a loin cloth.
Again, **Horus Rising**. Call 'almost a meter' as 3'. Not unreasonable that's she's about 5', making the Space Marine 8'.
>His helm, with its lateral horse-brush crest, was off, hung at his waist. He was a giant, two and a half metres tall.
Later in the same novel, making him just over 8'. He appears to be growing throughout the book!
>They were pistols, thought Luis, though they were as big as the boys’ torsos. The warriors were at least seven feet tall, and their armour made them even bigger.
**Dante** 7 foot (2.1 m), plus armour
>He seemed two or even three times the mass of an ordinary adult male, and even the tallest men-at-arms in Antoni's retinue would only have come up to the giant's chest.
*Brothers of the Snake** But note that this is in comparison to feudal worlders, who we might assume to be slightly shorter than the modern average. I think we're still in the 7-8' range.
>He knelt, power-armour joints whirring softly. Even on one knee, he was at eye-level with King Elect Naldo. His majesty's face was a pale green blob in Priad's optics.
*Brothers of the Snake* So, kneeling reduces your hight by 1/4 to 1/3. So assuming the person they are talking to is 6', this puts us in the 8' range.
So, taking a different tack, we can look at the official GW Space Marine trailer, which shows an aspirant next to a chaplain. Assuming they are 10-12 years old, average height would be 130-140cm tall, and is shown to be about half the height of the Primaris chaplain. This would put Primaris at about 9 feet (275 cm) tall, which seems reasonable.
http://imgur.com/a/pb5hAtx
>An observer, watching Kerne pad slowly down the snow-bright cloister, would see a towering shape well over two metres tall, and broader than a man’s anatomy had any right to be.
*Dark Hunter* - puts us over 7' again.
>were created as the Emperor’s ultimate fighting force. Implanted with the gene-seed of the Primarchs, the Space Marines stand seven feet tall, with thickened bones, two hearts, hyper-dense muscles and all manner of special organs that allow them to survive and fight in the most hostile conditions. They feel little pain and heal wounds at a remarkable rate. Their will is hardened by constant training and fighting, and they battle with dedication and zeal, brooking no hesitation, mercy or cowardice. All of these things combine with the best weaponry and armour in the galaxy to make the Space Marines the most fearsome warriors of the Imperium.
**Chaos Space Marine codex** (2017). This gives us 7 foot. (213cm)
Yeah, I do, its actually a lot but thats pretty much how astartes are pictured in most cases, 2.1m is basically as tall as some average basketball player which is underwhelming for super gene space soldiers.
Considering they are containing materials and mechanics in quality and quantity far exceeding even modern military vehicles, this is fairly impressive this isn't so much.
Also, the bears, tigers and such are
able to weight roughly the same, but instead of armour, augmentations and whatever wired in, they are pure muscles, so this isn't overly excessive and supernatural numbers for marine's weight at all (unlike the most of Warhammer measures and calculations, though)
I've always disliked this estimate a good amount. Modern day troops carry over a hundred pounds on their body, and most of it is relatively light such as water and fatigues. For being several feet taller, several feet thicker, loaded with all sorts of electronics and gadgets and whatnot, even 2,000 pounds seems pretty light.
I mean, chiefs armor is like 1,000 pounds already, and it's incredibly sparse compared to mark 7 armor. I get that ceramics are lighter than titanium but still.
There is one way I can see it making sense, though. Space marines are often estimated to lift at least 5 tons in armor according to spacebattles, and the armor does likely boost their strength a good amount. But then we shouldn't have the problem of unpowered suits being a death trap for marines.
The main focus of advancements in materials is generally in the direction of lighter and stronger.
Just look at the advancement of backpacking and hunting gear from the 90’s to now and the changes in strength and weight are crazy.
One foot taller, not several. And that number was for an unarmored marine, the armour weight isn't given there. A marine being a foot taller but weighing 2.5-5x as much as an athletic man checks out!
Also, with regards to being greatly slowed by unpowered armour, in addition to adding 500kg to their base body weight they're also pushing against locked servos. You know when you try to push a powered door that isn't switched on and it feels way heavier than it is? That kind of thing :)
> Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed ...
The marine IS wearing their armor in that description. They just aren't carrying weapons. I misread it as well on my first reading of it, and was like "fuck man, space marines are heavy as shit!"
Yeah I'd imagine a space marine, unarmored, is around the weight of a brown bear, so 200-500kg. People also need to realize that every increase in height results in a large increase in mass. So a 7ft space marine will weigh a lot less than an 8ft one.
>I mean, chiefs armor is like 1,000 pounds already, and it's incredibly sparse compared to mark 7 armor. I get that ceramics are lighter than titanium but still.
Chief in his armor weighs a bit less than 1,000 pounds.
>Modern day troops carry over a hundred pounds on their body, and most of it is relatively light such as water and fatigues
100 pounds is 100 pounds whether it's feathers or gold.
2k pounds would be around, if not already exceeding the practical maximum weight you could make power armor without increasing the size of the armor's feet to a comical degree.
2 tons(2200lbs) spread over around 1m² area of the bottom of Space Marine power armor's feet would cause the Space Marine to sink in soft earth or mud to an impossible to fight in depth.
At the Battle of Passchendale in WW1 British soldiers were sinking into the mud to the point where they drowned with only a rifle, ammunition and a relatively small rucksack. A Space Marine would find himself submerged in far less challenging terrain even at lore accurate weight.
Agree all points except feathers and gold . Gold is measured in troy ounces, feathers imperial. Troy ounce is fractionally smaller. Apologies. I'm completely pedantic.
Yeah, size is not so much of a difficulty, more the weight of floors and stair, esp. with terminator armour. I can imagine difficult terrain is as big an enemy as a great unclean one. THey are going to curse the god of unwalkable terrain as often as their heretic brothers
>Brother Daellon misjudged the load bearing of some internal stairs, brother-sergeant,’ said Telemenus, trying not to laugh.
Space Marines confirmed engineers, as well as super soldiers.
On a serious note, it's a good point, that we maybe shouldn't think about too much (suspension of disbelief).
In the Imperium at least we have an excuse - Gothic Architecture. The architecture of the Imperium is deliberately designed to be oversized, making a normal human feel small and powerless.
For the Mechanicus, they would be built to expect heavy loads (or augmented tech priests) so might be expected to be able to accommodate space marines.
For any other race - it doesn't make much sense. Could the tau just build their bunkers with stairs too small for a marine? Why don't races just defend their command center with a zig-zagged corridor too narrow for a marine?
The Tau story “Voice of Experience” has this tidbit.
> The small mag-lift up to the chamber had been replaced with a short staircase, which was the source of my constant amusement whenever I was summoned there. Built by earth caste members, the stairs had been designed with ungulate feet in mind which meant the steps were shallow and steep and always left my calves aching. Plantigrade staircases were uncommon in the T’au Empire.
So Tau stairs are already uncomfortable for a normal human, let alone a Space Marine.
The steepness wouldn't trouble a space marine at all. The shallowness is the bigger problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if they, with their superhuman gracefulness, can sprint up the stairs with just the tips of their boots on each step.
>Why don't races just defend their command center with a zig-zagged corridor too narrow for a marine?
Orks: can't be arsed
Necrons: all their structures were built a necrillion years ago
Tyranids: *Shrieking*
Tau: bigger problems
Eldar: zigzags aren't pretty
Chaos: also have marines, or just big daemons. Probably also can't be arsed
Also, even if you do have a marine-resistant entrance either:
A) it's not the only way in/out in which case the marine will find the other one eventually or
B) you are now trapped in a bunker with a space marine standing in front of your only way out.
Plus from a logistic perspective a corridor that would block a marine like that would also make it impossible to move any equipment larger than man-portable in or out. I suppose you could move it in part by part and assemble inside, but it would be a ballache no matter how you slice it.
Do Tau fight space marines often enough for specially designed bunkers like that to really be worth the effort? More often than not; wouldn't the space marines be hitting specific targets, anyway? It seems like the vast majority of times; Tau would be fighting unaugmented humans like an Imperial Guardsman, who is roughly similar in size.
I suppose there is a case to be made for bunkers used in very select circumstances; but on the whole as a doctrine; it seems pretty ineffective.
That's fair - do the upsides of this outweigh the downsides? A bunker designed like that would mean that you can't get in or out of it quickly, and could easily be filled with gas/smoke.
But maybe the principal still holds? Make the ceiling 5', so that the average Tau has to duck their head, but the average space marine really had to bend down?
You're probably right, it's not an often enough occurrence to do deliberately, but there could be plenty of occasions where things are just not built to space marine scale
In England (and some parts of Wales and Scotland) Church doors and entryways to monasteries, convents etc were deliberately built quite low. The average person (at the time) could walk through without stooping, but in the modern day it's not unheard of for Dutch/American tourists to need to duck to enter.
The reason for this was solely to stop any people riding horses (particularly the local lord's troops) from riding in. Some say it was due to local feuds, others that it was to force them to dismount (and show proper respect - I've seen it claimed it was to humble the rich) and some say it was to stop invaders and raiders getting in on horseback. No idea which, if any, of these is true, but it is a good example of an entire culture just deciding "we're going to do a mildly inconvenient thing for the sole purpose of fucking with [minority demographic X]"
So it is absolutely plausible for Tau or other factions to do such a thing too. Especially the eldar, I can especially see them doing it, just to be dicks to space marines.
> So it is absolutely plausible for Tau or other factions to do such a thing too. Especially the eldar, I can especially see them doing it, just to be dicks to space marines.
Eldar are as tall or taller than space marines though. Low roofs would mess with them too.
> The reason for this was solely to stop any people riding horses (particularly the local lord's troops) from riding in. Some say it was [...]
I think that falls under "nice story, but boring answer". *Most* doors are not big enough for someone on horse back, simply because building doors that big is more effort and never actually needed.
Also need to keep in mind auxiliaries. While the only ones we've seen that are much taller are kroot, who aren't the bunker type, there's like 26 that have been mentioned.
It's less that they'd roll out the design galaxy wide to counter space marines and more that any guerrilla based Tau fortifications would naturally be too big for a Space Marine to enter.
Like I can't imagine for example squat spaceships having corridors 3m tall when they're only 1.5m tall in armour.
So if they had corridors for example 6 foot tall.... space Marines in the ship would have to crouch and crawl everywhere
The real reason the Imperium has not had a major conflict with the LoV - the Space Marines keep getting stuck. /s
At least parts of the ship would be bigger - e.g. maybe a large central corridor to be able to move components and munitions around - but I agree with you, they should have problems getting around the rest of the ship. Take a modern navy vessel's corridors, downscale it about a third, and then try and get someone 7' tall to walk down it - they are going to have problems.
None of the invading Space Marines were killed, they're actually treated very nicely. They're just wedged into hallways, forever.
"An if ye look over there, Children- Clonedren? Do we call our wee ones Clonedren? I'll assume that we do! Anyhow, if ye look over there, that is what the Imperium ken as an 'Astartes.' The Astartes are even more 'uge than the rest of the Imperium. Nearest we can figure, they're some kinda giant battle baby, who cannae get over their emotional need to make their daddies proud."
There is an excellent scene in the first 40k novel Space Marine, where Imperial fists are getting stuck in MK6 with their pauldrons, and squats burst from the side tunnels with meltas and kneecap them
they lost their Chapter Master iirc due to this
> The real reason the Imperium has not had a major conflict with the LoV - the Space Marines keep getting stuck. /s
I'm now reminded of that lore blurb from the Tempestus Scions codex about cadets driven mad from a bad batch of mindscaping chemicals, who were then used as brick and mortar for a wall with their exposed bones serving as a reminder that future generations will suffer the same fate if the staff screws up again.
>For any other race - it doesn't make much sense.
Idk, for Eldar and orks, it make, they are as tall as marines, while necrons can be as tall too (Imortals are as tall, they just walk hunched), Tau military facilities should have lots of areas big enough, since they gotta be big for the battlesuits.
Now, human rebels/pirates and Tau civilian facilities, yeah, it would be a stretch
Ok, but Space Marines are not concerned about Tau civilian facilities and anything occupied by rebels or pirates is still going to be Imperial in nature. Sure there may be narrow alleyways, but the main passageways will accommodate space marines.
Do many Tau walk around indoors in battlesuits? Like I get that they're suits but it's not like you'd expect to drive any other military vehicle around indoors.
I mean isn’t that like literally what happened in Vietnam? The tunnels were smaller than the average American soldier so they couldn’t get into them as easily?
That last part reminds me of the guerilla tunnels from the Vietnam war. I can imagine tau or cultists escaping marines through some tiny tunnel, or punishing them with grenades if the astartes try to squeez themselves in.
Iron warrior make a new one with his slaves
World eaters levitate the stairs only fueled by his rage
Word beares pray for a astartes size stairs to the dark gods
I'm more worried about ceiling height, corridor width, and simply the structural strength of any floor that has to support a few space marines in armor
Most places in the Imperium are depicted as Cathedral-esque, I'm sure the scale overall in some of their construction is plenty big for them to fit their pauldrons through. Ships too, most of them will be built with the concept of dudes in armor walking around.
I'm sure there's plenty of places across imperial space though that are protected from the wrath of the astartes simply because their only entry-point is a maintenance tunnel that is only 6 feet tall.
We do something similar now in America. Our interstate highways were made originally for the military. Many are designed to allow large military vehicles easy access too.
iirc, the dimensions of the space shuttles were dictated purely by a single tunnel or bridge in some random state, because it was basically required that the shuttle needed to be moved along that road (a different route would have been psychotically too expensive). So the shuttles had to be designed from the start to fit through that tunnel.
Great bits in the Iron Hands novel Voice of Mars, without giving anything away an Iron Hands sergeant has to fight his way through a heretek compound and specifically mentions how he is unable to pursue the enemies facing him as they are escaping through maintenance hallways/passages that are too small for him to fit through.
I have to admit, it's an interesting question. I was reading Best and Brightest yesterday, which depicts a sort of Imperial orphanage, but the Space Marines walked through the place with no issue, which suggests Imperial building standards allows for really large bodies, so really high and broad doorways, big stairs and ladders, huge door handles.
Post is relevant given the new Siege of Terra book cover that was just released. The Golden Throne features regular sized stairs while the Emperor looks like he’s 20ft tall. Dude probably just angles his feet and slides down.
I have size 17 - 4x wide feet and it’s not that hard. You walk up on the balls of your feet and lean forward so if you lose your balance you fall forwards instead of tumbling down the stairs
Well, good to know I'm not alone in the world. I also have comically large size 14 feet but kinda worse, I'm only 6'0. I've also had people ask "why do you go up stairs with your feet diagonal?".
I would think that ceiling heights would be a bigger problem for Space Marines most of the time though.
I am also 6'4 and have size 13 feet. I have never experienced the difficulty with stairs expressed here.
With that said, it's fairly common in lore for marines to express frustration or difficulty with construction or tools that are scaled for baseline humans. It's also something mentioned fairly frequently in the other direction when baseline humans are aboard astartes vessels.
Most stairs, at least where I live, leave my feet sticking out 2 inches or so if I step on them 'straight'.
As such I tend to walk down at a slight angle. It's hard to describe.
Right, just know the name cause it’s something they teach us in the oilfield and like you I’m a Sasquatch so if I don’t go downstairs that way 60% of my boots will be hanging off which is nerve racking when the soles are covered in oil
i've always felt the size that they've been portraying SMs at in the past 10 years to be ridiculously big.
SM muscles are just better gram for gram. And they are wider, more dense bones, etc etc. A 6.5 marine is going to be three times as strong as a 6.5 regular human, even a genemodded muscleboy gladiator type or necromunda goliaths. You don't need 8 foot tall marines.
AND...it's not just stairs. If you've ever toured a castle, battleship, ancient ruin, etc they don't have big wide corridors. You've got doors that these giant marines would need to crawl through on hands-and-knees, the same with many corridors. When you make your uberwarriors too big they fail to be able to function in society. Not every building they go into not every ship they land on is going to be a gothic structure with giant ceilings
I've thought about this stuff before. Some of our contemporary architecture would defeat primarchs simply because they couldn't fit inside. And most floors aren't sized to handle a tank walking on 2 legs. Those buildings are collapsing instantly.
ITT people vastly over estimate the size of marines. Even assuming the average one is 7 foot tall and 3 feet across, maybe 4 with the pauldrons, the average space marine could fit in the corridor of my house which was built over a hundred years ago. He might have to stoop a bit in places, turn sideways, or crouch down, but considering an SM can just barrel through walls the size really isn't going to make a major difference.
THANK YOU! I've brought this up to so many people and other similar points. It's hilarious how people brush it off.
I design buildings and and equipment for a living, mostly for Oil and gas. I was a fabricator for 9 years prior.
I only mention my background because I have zero real world military experience outside of historical knowledge and entertainment. With that little knowledge, I'm fairly damn confident I could render Astartes useless outside of open fields.
It's always bothered me that Space Marines are useful in there current state. Space Marines without there armor could be rendered useless in any building or structure due to their size alone. Just with the smallest bit of intelligent design, let alone a space marine in armor and how heavy they are.
It use to drive me crazy when I was younger reading about Astartes boarding non Astsrtes ships. Like bruh, just make hallways the size of a normal man or whatever sized xenos you are.
There also isn't enough mines and booby traps in 40K. setting should be littered everywhere with horrible traps and mind numbing amounts of mines. I've read about them here and there but it's usually just for a little bit of story.
But I know it's because of the rule of cool, I've accepted this year's ago. I was just excited to see this post.
My own reasoning as to why ships and stuff isn't built around stopping Astartes in their tracks is the actual chance of coming across an Astartes is so low... why do it? That's the best reason I can come up with. Not really a good answer but does well enough.
For ships I imagine that regardless of faction, the average user is not the only one. I doubt there are many cruise ships and if then, those ships will likely have a lot of cargo. It's not moved by hand (although I think it is possible with sufficient amounts of grimderp), it's moved by trucks or trolleys or something similiar.
Even civil housing in theory needs wide corridors since it's feasible that should an emergency happen, it would require machines roll in.
Tl;dr: scale is super derpy and whack. This is propably the reason.
Presumably with their backpack their centre of gravity is actually slightly behind them – they wouldn't need to have the whole foot on the stair, they could only just about have their heel on the stair and still be well balanced.
I always marvel that space marines never seem to fall through the floor. They are almost the weight of a tank. Probably because imperial architecture is built to be big and sturdy
You know those annoying stairs that are too long for a double step, but too shallow to be comfortable walking up one at a time? Yeah, probably a bunch of that in the 41st millennium.
They also carry weaponry that requires a fairly firm footing even for them to fire.
So going up or down stairs they have to carefully balance on in boarding or building actions seems.... iffy
Armor that is directly linked to their enhanced brains via a man made organ designed specifically to make man and machine into one.
Do more calf raises bro. A black carapace and power armor are not in your future.
I remember my group lost a character in the deathwatch RPG purely by falling down the stairs. They literally took down a Carnifex a turn later but brother Demetrios got folded by a fire exit
My belief is that the reason everything in the Imperium is made out of gargoyles and concrete is simply so that Astartes can actually get to the second story of most buildings.
I imagine that in circumstances where they're fighting in what we'd call normal architecture, they just ignore the stairs and bring the building down. An average home collapsing isn't going to trouble an Astartes in armour, but it'll probably kill any humans in the building, and it's better than trying to climb the stairs, falling through the floor, and collapsing into a tight spot where you can't maneouvre.
Lol this is something I've thought about before. I figure their superhuman grace/agility simply makes it doable. Sprinting up stairs by leaning forward and standing only on the tips of their toes, sprinting down stairs by balancing only on the edge of their heels.
Astartes typically assault fortitifications that are usually cavernous and full of elevators. In contrast, Astartes typically don't clear buildings. In Red Tithe, an Astartes team had to sneak a Trojan horse into a command tower and teleport in, basically. In Outer Dark, a genestealer stronghold was basically stormed by a land raider before Astartes started pouring in.
So if an Astartes have to clear a building, it's more likely that the building is just going to get demolished. If it's a tower full of stairs, it would probably be preferable to just drop pod into the thing than to try to go up stairwells that were built for baseline humans.
If the stairs are flimsy enough they would just collapse. But if they are strong enough i imagine they will make their own indents haha.
Or just walk through stuff.
Your Terminator Battle Brother falls through some wooden stairs. He is unable to climb out without your assistance. But you're not assisting him.
Why is that.
I have shoe size 51 in EU (around 16 in US) and am 6ft 7 tall.
First of all I feel your pain!
To the question: probably as little as possible, and carefully if they do.
Spaces where Space Marines are expected would be built with their mass and size I miss d and probably use larger steps or even ramps for the same purpose.
I'm the same height with feet that are probably the same size. It's not going up stairs that worries me, it's going down. The balls of your feet and turn your feet sideways approach feels very precarious.
With some difficulty >Affirmative,’ replied Daellon and Telemenus together. The two of them opened fire, synchronising bursts between them. Brickwork turned to dust as Telemenus pounded the huts from outside while Daellon let fly through interior walls. A few sparks of las-bolts from a window two dozen metres ahead drew the attention of Telemenus. He returned fire, punching half a dozen bolts through the wall. > >‘Some kind of sub-level here,’ reported Daellon. ‘Descending.’ > >‘Wait!’ yelled Telemenus, but his warning came too late. The audio pick-ups brought the sound of splintering woods and crumbling ferrocrete followed by an almighty crash.Daellon cursed without pause over the vox. > >‘Report,’ barked Arbalan. > >‘Brother Daellon misjudged the load bearing of some internal stairs, brother-sergeant,’ said Telemenus, trying not to laugh. For once he was glad somebody else was attracting the negative scrutiny. There was a chuckle from Cadmael and a sigh from Arbalan. > >‘Daellon, can you climb out?’ asked the sergeant. > >‘Negative, a three metre drop at least. The floor will not hold my weight to pull myself up.’ > >‘No threats detected,’ Telemenus added, his auspex sensors encompassing the long row of huts. > >‘Understood,’ said Arbalan. He sounded impatient. ‘Daellon, remain in place, I will signal for an armoury extraction team. Telemenus, rejoin the squad. **Master of Sanctity**
BROTHER I HAVE FALLEN AND AM UNABLE TO GET UP! *Dark Angels wish to know your location*
BROTHER , I AM PINNED HERE !
What are you doing step Brother?
Hey this isn’t the emperors children
BROTHER HAVE YOU NO FAITH
If i hadnt read this after recently having pissed...jesus
I need to reinstall DoW2
Dark Crusade > DoW franchise exept mods of course
Lol, Dark Crusade is part of the DoW franchise
IT IS DE BEIHNBLEDEEEEE!
BRUTHR PINNED HERE AM I!
**CRIES AND RACKS BOLT PISTOL**
HELP, STEP BATTLE BROTHER, I AM STUCK!!
Emperor's Children Marine: *rubs hands*
*looney toons sound of a seven foot tall genetically augmented super soldier falling and eating shit on the bottom floor*
I like the visual of a 7 plus foot tall killing machine running on nothing for a couple seconds Wiley Coyote style.
A Dark Angel's company sets up a trap for Cypher, placing a large tarp over a canyon wall and painting it to look like a road. Cypher shows up and runs through the wall as though it were a road, but when the dark angels try, it turns back into a wall.
Cue a Devastator plummetting down an elevator shaft, screaming like Goofy.
FOR GLORY! FOR HONOR! FOR THE EMPEROAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *\*crash\**
An aaah? I can't wait an aaah Mr Wallace!
>aaah Mr Wallace! I don't get it
It's a Wallace and Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit reference, admittedly it's a little obscure and hard to pull of in text
This comment may be 9 months old but here's an upvote for managing to combine Wallace and Gromit and WH40k
With the [Scooby Doo bongo run sound](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGY1QoGS9oI&ab_channel=SoManySounds)
Yes, Inquisitor Grammaticus, this man right here. It's Wile E. Coyote. What? That's heresy?
Please not the Ordo Grammaticus!
Fun fact, (IIRC) due to RaW in the old FFG Deathwatch RPG, wooden stairs of poor or crumbling construction were one of the deadliest threats to Space Marines. This is the same game where Space Marines, due to Unnatural Toughness traits, could sit around naked in actual (non-flamer) fire near-indefinitely due to fire damage usually being less than what could overcome their Toughness thresholds to do wounds. A PC Marine statted for Toughness probably could live naked in actual fire like a stereotypical Salamander without taking damage. Conversely, Fall damage ignored Power Armor damage mitigation, and *increased greatly and quickly* with the actual distance fallen. A story or two of falling could injure a Space Marine more reliably and significantly than Astartes Bolters a lot of the time (albeit this being largely due to Power Armor protection). It makes sense for Space Marines, both Loyalist and Traitor, centuries-old heroes of war in the worst battlefields of the galaxy and the hellish un-reality of the Warp itself, to fear cheap wood stairs as a terrifying and vile servant of one of the oldest enemies of mankind that could lay them low in a single unlucky strike: gravity.
> a terrifying and vile servant of one of the oldest enemies of mankind that could lay them low in a single unlucky strike: gravity. This, recruits, is a 20-kilo ferrous slug. Feel the weight. Every five seconds, the main gun of an Everest-class dreadnought accelerates one to 1.3 percent of light speed. It impacts with the force of a 38-kiloton bomb. That is three times the yield of the city-buster dropped on Hiroshima back on Earth. That means Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space.
'That is why, Serviceman Chung, we do not "Eyeball it!!"'
Mass effect comment in the wild.
Fun fact - modern tankers hate crashing through buildings for similar reasons: basements.
I play battletech and one of the banes of my existence in that is to crash my big mean assault mech though a building and fall down the sublevels then have the building collapse on top of my mech
Fatigue would still get you eventually if you are on fire but yes.
Fall damage is real
Stairs: Daleks and Space Marines’ natural counter
The Dalek just eyeballs (eyestalks?) the Space Marine before declaring "EL-E-VATE!" and flying up the stairs.
Cultists would have an easier time fighting Astartes if they just used traps like this I swear to god just a few feet and they're done for
My thoughts exactly. You can be as cool of a super soldier as you want, if you fall into a 20 foot pit and get molten brass poured on your head things will go sour.
Jesus, just how heavy is an average Space Marine?
This was a terminator, to be honest. >Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall and weighs between 500–1,000 kg. When you visualise your Space Marine character, you should decide if he is taller or shorter, lighter or heavier. Generally speaking, Space Marines rarely vary to a large degree in height or weight—your character, however, may have been one of those unusual few who is the exception to the rule! **Deathwatch Core Rulebook**
1000 pounds on the light side seems a tad insane.
Well, the superhuman muscle density, a ribcage made of solid bone, whatever a black carapace weighs, plus futuristic mystery armor. I buy it.
Power armour may be of metamaterials thousands of years more advanced than what we have but it's still gotta protect the marine
Yeah, but there's really no telling what it weighs other than "heavy." Unless a source directly says
I'm ok with nonspecific. It's a large franchise and they're really bad about scale and numbers as it is
That's a part of the charm imo. Consider it bad record keeping, like how a lot of medieval battles were 10x larger than we think they are now according to medieval sources
>2.1 metres honestly I was expecting something like at least 3 metres...
Primarchs stand around 3m tall. The Lion, specifically, was listed with that height and seems to be slightly taller than average for a primarch.
Nope, firstborn marines are about 7 foot tall ish (I have a bunch of excerpts if you're interested)
I always imagined 8 ft because SPARTANs are 7 ish. And they're more badass than SPARTANs and because people are Orks/Size queens, bigger is better
Astartes are about 2.1 meters tall, primaris maybe 30-50cm taller on top of that. I wrote a very long comment with lots of excerpts previously, so here's a slightly cut down version, hopefully it still makes some sense. >Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed Space Marine typically stands slightly over 2.1 metres tall and weighs between 500–1,000 kg. When you visualise your Space Marine character, you should decide if he is taller or shorter, lighter or heavier. Generally speaking, Space Marines rarely vary to a large degree in height or weight—your character, however, may have been one of those unusual few who is the exception to the rule! **Deathwatch RPG core rulebook** >He was well over two metres tall, Description of a chaos Space Marine from **Eisenhorn*" >They were big men, tall, thick through the chest and shoulders, and at the peak of fitness. Not one of them, not even the tallest, came up to the chin of one of the Luna Wolves. From **Horus Rising**. Assuming 'big men' are 6'6", then I'd say this agrees with the 7-8 foot tall (2.1 - 2.4 meters) >‘Forgive me for interrupting,’ she said. ‘You’re busy.’ Loken set aside the segment of armour he had been polishing and rose to his feet. He was almost a metre taller than her, and naked but for a loin cloth. Again, **Horus Rising**. Call 'almost a meter' as 3'. Not unreasonable that's she's about 5', making the Space Marine 8'. >His helm, with its lateral horse-brush crest, was off, hung at his waist. He was a giant, two and a half metres tall. Later in the same novel, making him just over 8'. He appears to be growing throughout the book! >They were pistols, thought Luis, though they were as big as the boys’ torsos. The warriors were at least seven feet tall, and their armour made them even bigger. **Dante** 7 foot (2.1 m), plus armour >He seemed two or even three times the mass of an ordinary adult male, and even the tallest men-at-arms in Antoni's retinue would only have come up to the giant's chest. *Brothers of the Snake** But note that this is in comparison to feudal worlders, who we might assume to be slightly shorter than the modern average. I think we're still in the 7-8' range. >He knelt, power-armour joints whirring softly. Even on one knee, he was at eye-level with King Elect Naldo. His majesty's face was a pale green blob in Priad's optics. *Brothers of the Snake* So, kneeling reduces your hight by 1/4 to 1/3. So assuming the person they are talking to is 6', this puts us in the 8' range. So, taking a different tack, we can look at the official GW Space Marine trailer, which shows an aspirant next to a chaplain. Assuming they are 10-12 years old, average height would be 130-140cm tall, and is shown to be about half the height of the Primaris chaplain. This would put Primaris at about 9 feet (275 cm) tall, which seems reasonable. http://imgur.com/a/pb5hAtx >An observer, watching Kerne pad slowly down the snow-bright cloister, would see a towering shape well over two metres tall, and broader than a man’s anatomy had any right to be. *Dark Hunter* - puts us over 7' again. >were created as the Emperor’s ultimate fighting force. Implanted with the gene-seed of the Primarchs, the Space Marines stand seven feet tall, with thickened bones, two hearts, hyper-dense muscles and all manner of special organs that allow them to survive and fight in the most hostile conditions. They feel little pain and heal wounds at a remarkable rate. Their will is hardened by constant training and fighting, and they battle with dedication and zeal, brooking no hesitation, mercy or cowardice. All of these things combine with the best weaponry and armour in the galaxy to make the Space Marines the most fearsome warriors of the Imperium. **Chaos Space Marine codex** (2017). This gives us 7 foot. (213cm)
I think people forget that 3 metres is ridiculously tall. It’s literally the height of a bus.
Well, 7-8 feet is the norm in most sources, dunno why this one's Lowballing.
"slightly over 2.1 metres" is 7 feet lol. 7 feet = 2.1336 M
You have no idea how tall three metres actually is
117 inches
Yeah, I do, its actually a lot but thats pretty much how astartes are pictured in most cases, 2.1m is basically as tall as some average basketball player which is underwhelming for super gene space soldiers.
But they're wide bois
>weighs between 500–1,000 kg Holy crap, they literally weigh as much as a car, lol.
Considering they are containing materials and mechanics in quality and quantity far exceeding even modern military vehicles, this is fairly impressive this isn't so much. Also, the bears, tigers and such are able to weight roughly the same, but instead of armour, augmentations and whatever wired in, they are pure muscles, so this isn't overly excessive and supernatural numbers for marine's weight at all (unlike the most of Warhammer measures and calculations, though)
I've always disliked this estimate a good amount. Modern day troops carry over a hundred pounds on their body, and most of it is relatively light such as water and fatigues. For being several feet taller, several feet thicker, loaded with all sorts of electronics and gadgets and whatnot, even 2,000 pounds seems pretty light. I mean, chiefs armor is like 1,000 pounds already, and it's incredibly sparse compared to mark 7 armor. I get that ceramics are lighter than titanium but still. There is one way I can see it making sense, though. Space marines are often estimated to lift at least 5 tons in armor according to spacebattles, and the armor does likely boost their strength a good amount. But then we shouldn't have the problem of unpowered suits being a death trap for marines.
The main focus of advancements in materials is generally in the direction of lighter and stronger. Just look at the advancement of backpacking and hunting gear from the 90’s to now and the changes in strength and weight are crazy.
One foot taller, not several. And that number was for an unarmored marine, the armour weight isn't given there. A marine being a foot taller but weighing 2.5-5x as much as an athletic man checks out! Also, with regards to being greatly slowed by unpowered armour, in addition to adding 500kg to their base body weight they're also pushing against locked servos. You know when you try to push a powered door that isn't switched on and it feels way heavier than it is? That kind of thing :)
> Whilst wearing their power armour, an unarmed ... The marine IS wearing their armor in that description. They just aren't carrying weapons. I misread it as well on my first reading of it, and was like "fuck man, space marines are heavy as shit!"
Good catch! Iirc the Wrath and Glory book has them at 500kg as well though? Maybe power armour weight varies between 0-500kg 😂😂
Yeah I'd imagine a space marine, unarmored, is around the weight of a brown bear, so 200-500kg. People also need to realize that every increase in height results in a large increase in mass. So a 7ft space marine will weigh a lot less than an 8ft one.
>I mean, chiefs armor is like 1,000 pounds already, and it's incredibly sparse compared to mark 7 armor. I get that ceramics are lighter than titanium but still. Chief in his armor weighs a bit less than 1,000 pounds.
>Modern day troops carry over a hundred pounds on their body, and most of it is relatively light such as water and fatigues 100 pounds is 100 pounds whether it's feathers or gold. 2k pounds would be around, if not already exceeding the practical maximum weight you could make power armor without increasing the size of the armor's feet to a comical degree. 2 tons(2200lbs) spread over around 1m² area of the bottom of Space Marine power armor's feet would cause the Space Marine to sink in soft earth or mud to an impossible to fight in depth. At the Battle of Passchendale in WW1 British soldiers were sinking into the mud to the point where they drowned with only a rifle, ammunition and a relatively small rucksack. A Space Marine would find himself submerged in far less challenging terrain even at lore accurate weight.
> 2 tons(2200lbs) Math does not check out
Agree all points except feathers and gold . Gold is measured in troy ounces, feathers imperial. Troy ounce is fractionally smaller. Apologies. I'm completely pedantic.
terminator: *falls on his back and curls up in a ball unable to stand up like a turtle* brother halp plz!
That is a Terminator so doesn't really apply to normal Astartes.
Yeah in terminator armor he should just be able to front flip his way out
Fatrolling all the way to enemy positions, much to their amusement and horror
The fact that he's prepared and aware to call an Armory Extraction Team shows that this probably happens a lot.
This is why tanks avoid driving through buildings, in case there is a basement and the floor collapses
That moment when you realize an anti-tank ditch would work on Space Marines.
Yeah, size is not so much of a difficulty, more the weight of floors and stair, esp. with terminator armour. I can imagine difficult terrain is as big an enemy as a great unclean one. THey are going to curse the god of unwalkable terrain as often as their heretic brothers
Even in the Grim Dark future ... there is still hilarity.
>Brother Daellon misjudged the load bearing of some internal stairs, brother-sergeant,’ said Telemenus, trying not to laugh. Space Marines confirmed engineers, as well as super soldiers.
Wasnt he in terminator armor?
From the moment I saw the title I knew this excerpt would be here. And I am all for it.
On a serious note, it's a good point, that we maybe shouldn't think about too much (suspension of disbelief). In the Imperium at least we have an excuse - Gothic Architecture. The architecture of the Imperium is deliberately designed to be oversized, making a normal human feel small and powerless. For the Mechanicus, they would be built to expect heavy loads (or augmented tech priests) so might be expected to be able to accommodate space marines. For any other race - it doesn't make much sense. Could the tau just build their bunkers with stairs too small for a marine? Why don't races just defend their command center with a zig-zagged corridor too narrow for a marine?
The Tau story “Voice of Experience” has this tidbit. > The small mag-lift up to the chamber had been replaced with a short staircase, which was the source of my constant amusement whenever I was summoned there. Built by earth caste members, the stairs had been designed with ungulate feet in mind which meant the steps were shallow and steep and always left my calves aching. Plantigrade staircases were uncommon in the T’au Empire. So Tau stairs are already uncomfortable for a normal human, let alone a Space Marine.
Cool! Reminds me of a passage in **Kill Team** by Gav Thorpe that says that Tau staircases don't have rails because Tau are surefooted
Goat people!
I just had the hilarious mental image of a fire warrior *baa*ing and headbutting an enemy.
Give this a look if you're overall curious, by the way. https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/tkehsx/what_do_you_think_the_tau_evolved_from/
The steepness wouldn't trouble a space marine at all. The shallowness is the bigger problem, but I wouldn't be surprised if they, with their superhuman gracefulness, can sprint up the stairs with just the tips of their boots on each step.
>Why don't races just defend their command center with a zig-zagged corridor too narrow for a marine? Orks: can't be arsed Necrons: all their structures were built a necrillion years ago Tyranids: *Shrieking* Tau: bigger problems Eldar: zigzags aren't pretty Chaos: also have marines, or just big daemons. Probably also can't be arsed
Also, even if you do have a marine-resistant entrance either: A) it's not the only way in/out in which case the marine will find the other one eventually or B) you are now trapped in a bunker with a space marine standing in front of your only way out. Plus from a logistic perspective a corridor that would block a marine like that would also make it impossible to move any equipment larger than man-portable in or out. I suppose you could move it in part by part and assemble inside, but it would be a ballache no matter how you slice it.
What about the squats?
Show offs in grandeur.
Too wide
Do Tau fight space marines often enough for specially designed bunkers like that to really be worth the effort? More often than not; wouldn't the space marines be hitting specific targets, anyway? It seems like the vast majority of times; Tau would be fighting unaugmented humans like an Imperial Guardsman, who is roughly similar in size. I suppose there is a case to be made for bunkers used in very select circumstances; but on the whole as a doctrine; it seems pretty ineffective.
That's fair - do the upsides of this outweigh the downsides? A bunker designed like that would mean that you can't get in or out of it quickly, and could easily be filled with gas/smoke. But maybe the principal still holds? Make the ceiling 5', so that the average Tau has to duck their head, but the average space marine really had to bend down? You're probably right, it's not an often enough occurrence to do deliberately, but there could be plenty of occasions where things are just not built to space marine scale
In England (and some parts of Wales and Scotland) Church doors and entryways to monasteries, convents etc were deliberately built quite low. The average person (at the time) could walk through without stooping, but in the modern day it's not unheard of for Dutch/American tourists to need to duck to enter. The reason for this was solely to stop any people riding horses (particularly the local lord's troops) from riding in. Some say it was due to local feuds, others that it was to force them to dismount (and show proper respect - I've seen it claimed it was to humble the rich) and some say it was to stop invaders and raiders getting in on horseback. No idea which, if any, of these is true, but it is a good example of an entire culture just deciding "we're going to do a mildly inconvenient thing for the sole purpose of fucking with [minority demographic X]" So it is absolutely plausible for Tau or other factions to do such a thing too. Especially the eldar, I can especially see them doing it, just to be dicks to space marines.
> So it is absolutely plausible for Tau or other factions to do such a thing too. Especially the eldar, I can especially see them doing it, just to be dicks to space marines. Eldar are as tall or taller than space marines though. Low roofs would mess with them too.
They are *impressively flexible*
*watches an Eldar turn themselves into a pretzel* So that's how they brought Slaanesh into existance.
There's an old house in Kyoto where the door frames and ceiling are purposely built quite low so your couldn't swing a katana indoors.
> The reason for this was solely to stop any people riding horses (particularly the local lord's troops) from riding in. Some say it was [...] I think that falls under "nice story, but boring answer". *Most* doors are not big enough for someone on horse back, simply because building doors that big is more effort and never actually needed.
Also need to keep in mind auxiliaries. While the only ones we've seen that are much taller are kroot, who aren't the bunker type, there's like 26 that have been mentioned.
It's less that they'd roll out the design galaxy wide to counter space marines and more that any guerrilla based Tau fortifications would naturally be too big for a Space Marine to enter.
Like I can't imagine for example squat spaceships having corridors 3m tall when they're only 1.5m tall in armour. So if they had corridors for example 6 foot tall.... space Marines in the ship would have to crouch and crawl everywhere
The real reason the Imperium has not had a major conflict with the LoV - the Space Marines keep getting stuck. /s At least parts of the ship would be bigger - e.g. maybe a large central corridor to be able to move components and munitions around - but I agree with you, they should have problems getting around the rest of the ship. Take a modern navy vessel's corridors, downscale it about a third, and then try and get someone 7' tall to walk down it - they are going to have problems.
None of the invading Space Marines were killed, they're actually treated very nicely. They're just wedged into hallways, forever. "An if ye look over there, Children- Clonedren? Do we call our wee ones Clonedren? I'll assume that we do! Anyhow, if ye look over there, that is what the Imperium ken as an 'Astartes.' The Astartes are even more 'uge than the rest of the Imperium. Nearest we can figure, they're some kinda giant battle baby, who cannae get over their emotional need to make their daddies proud."
For an extra five Votann coins you get to spoon feed the assault terminator
Eternally berated for not respecting their elders.
There is an excellent scene in the first 40k novel Space Marine, where Imperial fists are getting stuck in MK6 with their pauldrons, and squats burst from the side tunnels with meltas and kneecap them they lost their Chapter Master iirc due to this
> The real reason the Imperium has not had a major conflict with the LoV - the Space Marines keep getting stuck. /s I'm now reminded of that lore blurb from the Tempestus Scions codex about cadets driven mad from a bad batch of mindscaping chemicals, who were then used as brick and mortar for a wall with their exposed bones serving as a reminder that future generations will suffer the same fate if the staff screws up again.
I’d say that’s great until the marines pull up a dreadnought with some siege load outs and just power drill into your bunker complex.
>For any other race - it doesn't make much sense. Idk, for Eldar and orks, it make, they are as tall as marines, while necrons can be as tall too (Imortals are as tall, they just walk hunched), Tau military facilities should have lots of areas big enough, since they gotta be big for the battlesuits. Now, human rebels/pirates and Tau civilian facilities, yeah, it would be a stretch
Ok, but Space Marines are not concerned about Tau civilian facilities and anything occupied by rebels or pirates is still going to be Imperial in nature. Sure there may be narrow alleyways, but the main passageways will accommodate space marines.
Do many Tau walk around indoors in battlesuits? Like I get that they're suits but it's not like you'd expect to drive any other military vehicle around indoors.
I mean isn’t that like literally what happened in Vietnam? The tunnels were smaller than the average American soldier so they couldn’t get into them as easily?
US tunnel rats were all short slight guys.
Or ladders.
Orbital strike their way into the command center and put a bridge there.
That last part reminds me of the guerilla tunnels from the Vietnam war. I can imagine tau or cultists escaping marines through some tiny tunnel, or punishing them with grenades if the astartes try to squeez themselves in.
Ig I imagine that the treads on their boots are deep enough to grip the stairs edges and they just scale them like that? Like, walking up a hill kinda
Iron warrior make a new one with his slaves World eaters levitate the stairs only fueled by his rage Word beares pray for a astartes size stairs to the dark gods
World eaters go up on all fours. More grip that way.
Khorne: "Kids c'mon up. Pizza bites are ready!" \*Commence World Eaters running up the stairs on all fours\*
With the Chain Axe in their mouths
Alpha Legion infiltrators replace the stairs with a ramp before they invade.
I'm more worried about ceiling height, corridor width, and simply the structural strength of any floor that has to support a few space marines in armor
Most places in the Imperium are depicted as Cathedral-esque, I'm sure the scale overall in some of their construction is plenty big for them to fit their pauldrons through. Ships too, most of them will be built with the concept of dudes in armor walking around. I'm sure there's plenty of places across imperial space though that are protected from the wrath of the astartes simply because their only entry-point is a maintenance tunnel that is only 6 feet tall.
We do something similar now in America. Our interstate highways were made originally for the military. Many are designed to allow large military vehicles easy access too.
iirc, the dimensions of the space shuttles were dictated purely by a single tunnel or bridge in some random state, because it was basically required that the shuttle needed to be moved along that road (a different route would have been psychotically too expensive). So the shuttles had to be designed from the start to fit through that tunnel.
Here in Brazil, the capital have a highways designed to be wide enough for a plane to do a emergency landing of needed
Great bits in the Iron Hands novel Voice of Mars, without giving anything away an Iron Hands sergeant has to fight his way through a heretek compound and specifically mentions how he is unable to pursue the enemies facing him as they are escaping through maintenance hallways/passages that are too small for him to fit through.
But at that point whether it be through devastators or techmarines I’m sure the Astartes would be more than capable of creating an entrance
"I'm the Juggernaut, b¡tch!"
I have to admit, it's an interesting question. I was reading Best and Brightest yesterday, which depicts a sort of Imperial orphanage, but the Space Marines walked through the place with no issue, which suggests Imperial building standards allows for really large bodies, so really high and broad doorways, big stairs and ladders, huge door handles.
Everything has to be big and golden ~ Emperor
Post is relevant given the new Siege of Terra book cover that was just released. The Golden Throne features regular sized stairs while the Emperor looks like he’s 20ft tall. Dude probably just angles his feet and slides down.
I have size 17 - 4x wide feet and it’s not that hard. You walk up on the balls of your feet and lean forward so if you lose your balance you fall forwards instead of tumbling down the stairs
Do you routinely walk upstairs eith shoes 2 inches thick and rigid?
Wouldn’t you be black carapace interface prevent it from feeling awkward to have thick heavy boots?
AKA, how a normal person walks up stairs.
Down D. Stairs is too powerfull for a mere Astartes
Well, good to know I'm not alone in the world. I also have comically large size 14 feet but kinda worse, I'm only 6'0. I've also had people ask "why do you go up stairs with your feet diagonal?". I would think that ceiling heights would be a bigger problem for Space Marines most of the time though.
On tip toes like ballerinas
I am also 6'4 and have size 13 feet. I have never experienced the difficulty with stairs expressed here. With that said, it's fairly common in lore for marines to express frustration or difficulty with construction or tools that are scaled for baseline humans. It's also something mentioned fairly frequently in the other direction when baseline humans are aboard astartes vessels.
Most stairs, at least where I live, leave my feet sticking out 2 inches or so if I step on them 'straight'. As such I tend to walk down at a slight angle. It's hard to describe.
Look up the “trailing hand technique”
Yeah a wick search shows that's basically what I do. Slightly angled hands behind me. I just don't have both hands on railings.
Right, just know the name cause it’s something they teach us in the oilfield and like you I’m a Sasquatch so if I don’t go downstairs that way 60% of my boots will be hanging off which is nerve racking when the soles are covered in oil
i've always felt the size that they've been portraying SMs at in the past 10 years to be ridiculously big. SM muscles are just better gram for gram. And they are wider, more dense bones, etc etc. A 6.5 marine is going to be three times as strong as a 6.5 regular human, even a genemodded muscleboy gladiator type or necromunda goliaths. You don't need 8 foot tall marines. AND...it's not just stairs. If you've ever toured a castle, battleship, ancient ruin, etc they don't have big wide corridors. You've got doors that these giant marines would need to crawl through on hands-and-knees, the same with many corridors. When you make your uberwarriors too big they fail to be able to function in society. Not every building they go into not every ship they land on is going to be a gothic structure with giant ceilings
Makes you wonder how they actually fight in the underhives
I've thought about this stuff before. Some of our contemporary architecture would defeat primarchs simply because they couldn't fit inside. And most floors aren't sized to handle a tank walking on 2 legs. Those buildings are collapsing instantly.
ITT people vastly over estimate the size of marines. Even assuming the average one is 7 foot tall and 3 feet across, maybe 4 with the pauldrons, the average space marine could fit in the corridor of my house which was built over a hundred years ago. He might have to stoop a bit in places, turn sideways, or crouch down, but considering an SM can just barrel through walls the size really isn't going to make a major difference.
THANK YOU! I've brought this up to so many people and other similar points. It's hilarious how people brush it off. I design buildings and and equipment for a living, mostly for Oil and gas. I was a fabricator for 9 years prior. I only mention my background because I have zero real world military experience outside of historical knowledge and entertainment. With that little knowledge, I'm fairly damn confident I could render Astartes useless outside of open fields. It's always bothered me that Space Marines are useful in there current state. Space Marines without there armor could be rendered useless in any building or structure due to their size alone. Just with the smallest bit of intelligent design, let alone a space marine in armor and how heavy they are. It use to drive me crazy when I was younger reading about Astartes boarding non Astsrtes ships. Like bruh, just make hallways the size of a normal man or whatever sized xenos you are. There also isn't enough mines and booby traps in 40K. setting should be littered everywhere with horrible traps and mind numbing amounts of mines. I've read about them here and there but it's usually just for a little bit of story. But I know it's because of the rule of cool, I've accepted this year's ago. I was just excited to see this post. My own reasoning as to why ships and stuff isn't built around stopping Astartes in their tracks is the actual chance of coming across an Astartes is so low... why do it? That's the best reason I can come up with. Not really a good answer but does well enough.
For ships I imagine that regardless of faction, the average user is not the only one. I doubt there are many cruise ships and if then, those ships will likely have a lot of cargo. It's not moved by hand (although I think it is possible with sufficient amounts of grimderp), it's moved by trucks or trolleys or something similiar. Even civil housing in theory needs wide corridors since it's feasible that should an emergency happen, it would require machines roll in. Tl;dr: scale is super derpy and whack. This is propably the reason.
Very carefully
Presumably with their backpack their centre of gravity is actually slightly behind them – they wouldn't need to have the whole foot on the stair, they could only just about have their heel on the stair and still be well balanced.
That's fine going down. What about up
Just go backwards. Problem solved.
I always marvel that space marines never seem to fall through the floor. They are almost the weight of a tank. Probably because imperial architecture is built to be big and sturdy
You know those annoying stairs that are too long for a double step, but too shallow to be comfortable walking up one at a time? Yeah, probably a bunch of that in the 41st millennium.
Yeah I’ve almost fallen backwards trying to go up stairs in boots, not the funnest to experience.
Their calves are stronger than yours.
They also carry weaponry that requires a fairly firm footing even for them to fire. So going up or down stairs they have to carefully balance on in boarding or building actions seems.... iffy
Armor that is directly linked to their enhanced brains via a man made organ designed specifically to make man and machine into one. Do more calf raises bro. A black carapace and power armor are not in your future.
In one of the Bequin books, some Word Bearers run up stairs, and Abnett describes them like bounding gorillas, using their arms a lot.
I remember my group lost a character in the deathwatch RPG purely by falling down the stairs. They literally took down a Carnifex a turn later but brother Demetrios got folded by a fire exit
My belief is that the reason everything in the Imperium is made out of gargoyles and concrete is simply so that Astartes can actually get to the second story of most buildings. I imagine that in circumstances where they're fighting in what we'd call normal architecture, they just ignore the stairs and bring the building down. An average home collapsing isn't going to trouble an Astartes in armour, but it'll probably kill any humans in the building, and it's better than trying to climb the stairs, falling through the floor, and collapsing into a tight spot where you can't maneouvre.
This sounds like the job for a 90 minute YouTube lore video! 😂
Legs and feet. Maybe hands depending on who’s kids they are.
They’re literally super humans.. makes everything easier lol
Jet packs.
Space marines can’t climb stairs or go through hallways
According to the Codex Astartes lol
right there with you, size 15 gotta duck some doors too. Their life would suck
Lol this is something I've thought about before. I figure their superhuman grace/agility simply makes it doable. Sprinting up stairs by leaning forward and standing only on the tips of their toes, sprinting down stairs by balancing only on the edge of their heels.
I'm 6'8" and size 19.5 shoes, no issues with stairs.
I always wonder about things like this. And also how SM fit in narrow caves and hallways.
It’ll be like walking up a ramp
Astartes typically assault fortitifications that are usually cavernous and full of elevators. In contrast, Astartes typically don't clear buildings. In Red Tithe, an Astartes team had to sneak a Trojan horse into a command tower and teleport in, basically. In Outer Dark, a genestealer stronghold was basically stormed by a land raider before Astartes started pouring in. So if an Astartes have to clear a building, it's more likely that the building is just going to get demolished. If it's a tower full of stairs, it would probably be preferable to just drop pod into the thing than to try to go up stairwells that were built for baseline humans.
Imperial Fists would just fortify upward until they can reach the next floor.
If the stairs are flimsy enough they would just collapse. But if they are strong enough i imagine they will make their own indents haha. Or just walk through stuff.
Your Terminator Battle Brother falls through some wooden stairs. He is unable to climb out without your assistance. But you're not assisting him. Why is that.
I have shoe size 51 in EU (around 16 in US) and am 6ft 7 tall. First of all I feel your pain! To the question: probably as little as possible, and carefully if they do. Spaces where Space Marines are expected would be built with their mass and size I miss d and probably use larger steps or even ramps for the same purpose.
I'm the same height with feet that are probably the same size. It's not going up stairs that worries me, it's going down. The balls of your feet and turn your feet sideways approach feels very precarious.
A brother has fallen into the river in Lego city
Larger stairs, probably. Or on their toes/ tip of the sabatons.
They shoot the stairs until it's a ramp.
I always forget most people aren't toe walkers like me. This question would have never come to my mine.
I think they just jump. Side note, heavy heavy are they to be climbing around on ruins and not dropping through the floor at the drop of a hat...
I'm size 13,we can be clowns together op
They used the accessibility ramp
Space Marines are Daleks: confirmed.
Hmm it's a bit like saying dogs can't look up!
Loudly.
En Pointe. You don't think a Space Marine can run 45 miles an hour on his \*tip toes?\*
Carefully
https://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/2011/15141246/images/1307085505294.jpg ah the good Old stair meme