Mikey wrote:Do you mean the Vitrian Dragoons, from the Gaunt's Ghosts series? I don't remember anything about their lasguns except that they defied Gaunt's order to lower power when low on ammo. They had that cool reflective crystalline armor, though, which brings up another point - the DM could function a hell of a lot more effectively if production worlds were made to conform to a standard. There was even a point in another Ghosts book at which the Ghosts couldn't even use the charge packs which the DM had issued them.
I don't recall the Vitrian's defying the order. Just that Gaunt had to give the order to spare their ammunition when shooting at unarmored enemies. However one of them set his weapon to full power, and shot through the chest plate of a Chaos Marine. Most lasguns have trouble killing a full grown Ork in a single shot without it being a head shot.
Mikey wrote:*EDIT* Naming conventions, too - the Vitrian Dragoons weren't dragoons by a long shot, I don't even remember one APC or IFV being mentioned among them.
They had APCs on the first world they fought along side the Ghosts, but were forced to abandon them in city. Over the next two books, I guess they just never got replaced.
Mikey wrote:Interestingly, I don't have much issue with the Navy except for cases of individual decisions. The overall problem which speaks to that, IMHO, is the system of naval dynasties. The only way to optimize command efficiency is to take officers from officer training, and then promote based on merit and ability ONLY.
I personally have a huge number of problems but I'll stick to my top three for now. First off, the more modern Imperial Cruisers were designed so that they could be easily refitted to battle cruiser standards. This was intended so that the ships could be produced and fielded quickly and yet when not on combat deployment, could be upgraded quickly. However, after four thousand years, only one in four of those cruisers receive refit.
Another problem is the way in which command is issued. Anyone who can get a Sector Lord's sig can take command of a ship. This includes clerks, doctors or just personal friends. Officers are often pushed aside for these issues.
Finally there's the problem of ship production. We know that, dispite the talk of the Ad-Mech, Imperial ships can be built just about anywhere. The Lord Daros was built over a primitive world using the wreck of an old ship to brace the hull of the new one. There's no reason that the IoM hasn't expanded ship production other then they don't want to offend the Ad-Mech. Every single world in the IoM should have some kind of ship production. Even more so since the Cobra can be built on a planet surface and simply lifted to orbit so smaller or less able worlds wouldn't even need shipyards to be built.