Imperial Navy
The Imperial Navy is one of the main branches of the Imperial military in Warhammer 40,000 (although very little of the Navy actually appears in the tabletop game). They are also one of the main factions in the beloved spin-off game Battlefleet Gothic.
Unlike the Imperial Guard, who get killed in the thousands millions billions every day, the Imperial Navy rarely suffers that many casualties. This is because, unlike the flashlight used by Guardsmen, the main weapon of the Navy is a giant, heavily-armed, heavily-armored battleship that puts other races' spaceships to shame (well, except Necrons). These ships are also massive, flying, Baroque cathedrals.
Depending on how you look at it, the officers of the Navy are either wealthy cowards or badass gentlemen. In either case, their ships have crews numbering the hundreds of thousands or even millions (we're not kidding when we say that each ship has its own language(s) and culture(s)), since the Imperium doesn't understand how the auto-loaders work, so they have thousands of slaves running on human-sized treadmills to load and fire the weapons. Of course, this might be the fault of a certain other branch of the Imperium, who, coincidentally, do have working auto-loaders on their ships. Still, for an officer, most days simply require him to press a button and blow something up, then go back to drinking his tea. Oh, and maybe scramble the ground-support flyers, if he's feeling charitable that day.
Note that, back in the Great Crusade, the Imperial Guard and Imperial Navy were one and the same, operating under the far-less-badass name of "Imperial Army." However, thanks to the Horus Heresy, the two got split up, so that a single military commander couldn't control too many forces; a Guard commander isn't able to get off any given planet without the Navy, and the Navy isn't able to conduct wars (and, you know, occupy territory) without the Guard. Despite how much they need each other, the two bicker constantly, which, in fact, may be the reason for all the Grimdark the 40k universe is saddled with.
/tg/ has a hard-on for female Admirals, but come on, wouldn't you?
Types of Ships
The Imperial Navy has four types of ships they hide their cowardly asses in. The main ships are battleships, cruisers, escorts, and fighters
Battleship
Supposedly rare, but every Grand Marshal and High Admiral has one to hide in.
- Retribution- Packing all gun batteries, the ship can destroy an entire continent in one broadside, but for some reason cannot destroy a hive city or fort with void shields...
- Emperor- The
super-carrier"standard" battleship of the 40k 'verse, the ship has multiple fighter decks and weapons batteries. Unfortunately, most commanders like to use this ship as a hideout, causing the lack of sufficient air support in the ground wars.
- Apocalypse- This ship packs lances and a Nova Cannon.
- Oberon- The mixed-breed bastard of the Imperial Navy. It has lances, fighter bays, and weapon batteries. Its a powerful ship...
when fighting foes half its size"newer" fluff says the Oberon is rare, but a complete success in making a ship capable of killing anything it comes across, alone. Unfortunately, fluff also says a ridiculously low number of these (apparently) powerful ships were made (like, 3 or so).
- Nemesis- The super-carrier of the Imperial Navy. It has SIX flight decks, more than any other ship in the galaxy. But because of Rule of Cool, it is incredibly rare since the Navy captains prefer to get up close broadside their enemies (despite fluff analysts telling commanders that fighters have been getting the vast majority of kills).
Grand Cruiser
Backwater and frontier commanders use these when battleships aren't available. Basically an older type of cruiser that has more armour, but consequently lower speed (and can nearly match a battleship in firepower). It is basically meant to be to advance screening what battleships are to full fleets, and it does this job well (though the lack of dakka means Imperial commanders tend to mothball it).
- Vengeance, Exorcist, Avenger
Cruiser
Comes in three sizes and many different classes. Officers that wish to climb the chain of command start here, probably starting with an caseload of brown-nosing, followed by even more of it.
- Mars class
- Overlord, Gothic, Dictator, Dominator, Tyrant, Lunar, Dauntless Light Cruiser, Endurance Light Cruiser, Endeavor Light Cruiser, Defiant Light Cruiser
Ironclad
8 kilometer long battering rams
Escort
Used by the Lords of Terra to take their daughters to parties, balls, and any sort of social engagement. They are known to leave really large messes.
- Sword class
- Firestorm Frigate, Sword Frigate, Cobra Destroyer, Falchion Escort
Fighter
Reusable torpedoes
Armed Freighter (in the Battlefleet)
Ships bought, borrowed or stolen and then armed in the misguided attempt to boost the strength of a fleet in desperate need of ships (instead of simply using the legio cybernetica to make robots to do the monotonous manual labor so 90% of the hundred thousand crew members can be spread out amongst a hundred more warships)
Important Details
Crews
Consists of either bridge officers or slaves. Each ship needs hundreds if not thousands of men to man the ship. 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/she's knocked out, bound, gagged, and taken to the ship, 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. Still, at least for the crew Sex is allowed, if for no other reason than the fact that ships will often be in space for long enough periods that natural means is a viable way of getting replacements. Here is an idea of how it works, right up to the roman armour, whips and beatings.
Travel
The ships of the Imperium travel through the Warp using what's called a 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 the 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. They rely on a Navigator that uses the Empra as a beacon to safely navigate the Warp, hence the title "Navigator".
Notable Problems
These are problems some have with the Imperial Navy and their fluff....
General Logistical Problems
The big problem that the Imperial Navy has is that its the only organised navy in the galaxy thats trying to defend its massive amounts of space. To do this takes vast numbers of ships but rather thinly spread out. Given the problems of warp travel its also extremely hard to reinforce friendly fleets under attack. The foes of the navy come essentially in two flavours; raiders who might just manage to scrape together a few converted transports (building even escort sized ships is a huge undertaking. Imagine trying to build an aircraft carrier from iron ore) which take an escort squadron to murder, and huge organized invasion fleets that takes a whole fleet to fight. These combine together to mean that outside of fleet bases and important strategic worlds there is no where in the imperium that is actually well defended. At best a fleet has to be formed and sent out and they could arrive months later. Warships genuinely are vast things and obscenely expensive. Each cruiser is larger and more complex than a fully kitten titan legion. These things are MASSIVE. In the BFG book there's a fluff story of a cruiser being built at a ship yard orbiting a primative world. The entire population of the planet were given over to mining the resources needed to build one single cruiser. It took them a hundred and fifty years to mine the ore. Sure thats a primative world, but if you think about it that makes carving out the rocks for it the largest single project ever engaged upon without mechanisation. If you add together all seven wonders of the world you arent even close to the pile of rock were talking about. So these things are a big fucking investment and the high lords really dont like risking them without a really good reason. So if you ever wondered why the navy doesnt get more action, now you know. By the time the big, awesome ships get on the scene the invasion already probably finished and the bad guys moved on. Then you nuke the shit out of them from orbit or drop millions of poor bastards into the meat grinder. Far better idea all round. Thus the rumour that the navy has no balls. But who needs balls when you have a nova cannon sized dick and eighteen dice worth of fire power
Ship Size
No one is quite sure how big the ships really are. One story claims the Retribution-Class is a mere 3 kilometers long, while another says it is 9 kilometers and up to 20 kilometers.
Weapon Effects
If the weapons can annihilate a continent, why can't it destroy a mere hive?
Lack of Balls
It is well-known that most Imperial Navy Officers don't have em.
An Imperial Navy fleet is most effective when Inquisitors take it over. See Here.
Gallery
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The Lord Admiral's Love Shack
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The Grand Marshal's Summer Palace of PWNAGE
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Imagine how quick land battles would be if these things actually helped
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The Bullet-Catchers of the Navy
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Another demonstration of too much spare time
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