How 'realistic' is Imperial Guard artillery? | Astra Militarum lore | Warhammer 40,000 

Former artillery guy here and I have a few things. I spent a couple of years in a light towed unit of M119s, the US verison of the L118 and then went on to be a Fire Support Officer for a Cav squadron. Mortars aren't just man portable weapon systems. They are a weapon system that fires an explosive round in a high trajectory. Most modern artillery systems are classified as howitzers because they are capable for both direct and indirect fire. The Russians actually have the largest mortar in the world, the 2S4 Tyulpan which is 240mm. It also has the capability to fire nukes (not something I'd personnally like to fire because it only has a range of 6 miles). The Basilisk/Earthshaker according to the old Imperial Armour vol 1 fires a 152mm round. The way it is used is very Russian as it does both a direct fire role and an indirect fire role. Most Western artillery systems are primarly indirect fires. The Bombast also does the same role but smaller, similer to the Russian ZiS-3 or D-30 The Medusa is more similar to the German strumartillerie from early WW2. The idea was that you'd have a short range mobile artillery piece directly supporting infantry with direct fire when they came into contact with bunkers or other fortifactions. The Colossus also seems to do the same mission but more "bigger is better" attitude like the Germans did with with larger infantry guns. The Wyvern I have no clue what GW was on when they designed that thing other than rule of cool and we can use the same kit as the Manticore and Hydra. Personnelly I liked the Griffin better because it actually looks like a heavy mortar. Manticore seems to be a "do all the things" missile system because in previous rules they could also fire AA missiles. Praetor is a Crassius that puts missiles where the troops go, so I guess that's mostly just the AdMech not making logical changes to things because it might "upset the machine spirits" to remove the hull mount heavy bolters.

Thanks for that. I think WW1 artillery is all wheels on the ground, which is the Krieg aesthetic, so kind of makes sense. I am tempted to model spades on my basilisks now though, so that's so good inspiration

Good video brother! Always nice to see the perspective of real soldiers.

13:24 - I have a feeling that GW was thinking about WW2 Era Rocket Artillery when building the Manticore. I say that because historically stuff like the Nebelwerfers had far shorter engagement ranges than traditional howitzers at the time. When you factor in stuff like the Deathstrike, it makes more sense; the Manticore represents early Rocket Artillery while the Deathstrike represents ICBM tech that trickled down into modern missile artillery systems.

The Mordian Glory RU-vid channel sent me here. Thanks for the assessment of the Imperial Guard artillery!

A very cool video. I love how 40k changes between jup that could be a thing, to what even is that. As a chaos knight player i am obviously used to absolutely insane stuff. And my reaver titan is a mockery of sound military strategy in every way. Very fun video.

Love it mate! Great video!

Great video thanks for sharing 🫡👍🍻

100%. By the will of the Emperor.

It's crazy how you can really tell the era a sci-fi setting was written. Warhammer 40's models are often wild ideas about the future like the Bolter which uses rocket bullets, or sometimes, a real equipment from the cold war just shows up, like the M113. In a weird way, in 2024, we are in many ways already technologically more advanced than the Imperium except for space related things. Drones allow near perfect aim in Ukraine, to the scary point of hitting individual soldiers and vehicles and aircraft can launch bombs from tens of kilometers away unlike 40K where they straight up fly over the enemy.

My issue has always been the tendency to cram very large guns into very small tank turres. Just look at the Leman Russ demolisher; it's basically a Karl Mortar gun in a pz IV turret.

Good video

What is wrong with 40k artillery? Whoafully underpowered, imaccurate, and short-ranged. The US Army'a M109A7 Paladin Integrated Management (PIM) howitzer is accurate to 43 miles away (about 69 kilometers). To scale that to 40K you're talking about pinpoint accuracy from your model parked down the street. I mean even your old owed howitzers like the m115 had a range of ten miles. GW just makes it hard a humble guardsman to purge the xenos, demon, and heretic.

Interesting video. Re rocket artillery while you have some stuff like HIMARS or ATACMS you also have stuff like the TOS1 which has a relatively short range basically trading range for payload. It also took awhile to develop accurate long range rocket artillery while tube artillery was better understood in ballistics. 40k Guard artillery is basically WW2/early Cold War technology based with a WW1 theme with heavy siege mortars, manually loaded SPART etc. The gun with a loaders seat could reflect that a fair amount of WW2 artillery did end up being used over open sights in a direct fire role as dual purpose for example 88s or stuff like the Zis3. Not ideal for it but if the enemy artillery response time and their first shot accuracy is pretty low it gives a window.

Rockets being guided is not uncommon. The only difference between a rocket and missile anyways is the arc of the flight path.

On a different note, I never understood how, in the lore, Space Marines are often deployed as frontline troops, somehow not being murdered by a million vehicles, anti-tank weaponry and artillery. As soon as they would be spotted, which is instantly given their bright uniforms, all hell would fall upon them before they ever get into pistol range, let alone use their swords. Warhammer 40k is this weird setting where they tell you Space Marines are invincible can somehow take on a bazillion guardsmen at the same time, but guardsmen have all the gear they need to destroy tanks. So why not just fire that at those Chaos Space Marines, if it can blow up a tank, it sure as hell is going to penetrate Space Marine armor. Space marines should be close quarters, elite troops. Kinda like Navy Seals in a way, in the sense that they aren't frontline troops that just takes on the enemy army, that's the Guardsmen / Army's job. The Guardsmen really don't get the love they deserve in the lore, they often get treated as the guys that just wait until the Space Marines show up. With their massive numbers and the power of combined arms warfare, they would crush basically anything in their way.

It's like this video was tailor made for me

I believe the bombast has a liftable plate at the front that lifts the wheels off the ground

No disrespect but the claim artillery goes back "to the medieval era" is false. Artillery is an ancient invention, dating back in one form or another pretty much to the earliest forms of siege warfare in the Fertile Crescent.