A rehash of a post I made earlier today, I had misread the size of Clone units and accidentally put them in an impossible scenario. This version will feature adjusted unit sizes for the Republic, some explanations on how I think a few technologies would interact on both sides, and a more in-depth explanation of their defenses.
Attacker: XIIIth Legion (Ultramarines) mid-to-late Great Crusade with limited Titan support (1x Warlord, 2x Reavers, 4 Warhounds). Led by Guilliman.
Defender: 501st and 212th with Phase II clone trooper equipment and all commanders present (Cody, Obi-wan, Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex, Fives, etc). For this operation, 8 squads of Clone Commandos will be present, including Delta Squad. They have also been reinforced by an additional batches of newer clone troopers and Christophsis militia, swelling their ranks to around 150,000. They are bolstered further by an extra artillery detachment and scavenged Separatist rayshield generators.
Combat Conditions: A few assumptions are being made in this hypothetical conflict:
•Each side only has a partial understanding of each other’s capabilities due to previous skirmishes.
•Fleet combat in the Christophsis system is deadlocked.
•Both sides have limited/slow logistical support due to the wider Galactic Republic/Separatist/Imperium conflict, but due to home field advantage, Republic forces have slightly more.
•Both sides are coming into this conflict relatively fresh in terms of strategic and tactical assets such as vehicles and air support. Due to their slight logistical advantage, the Republic does have slightly more.
Battlefield: Christophsis, specifically, the capital city of Chaleydonia. A city of crystalline spires with a mix of wide thoroughfares, multi-story skyscrapers, bridges, and cramped alleys.
Objectives: Ultramarines: Secure the planet’s space port and manufacturing capabilities to consolidate the Imperium’s foothold in the Galaxy. To do this, they must capture the capital and eradicate Republic forces without major collateral damage.
Objectives: Republic: Either drive the Ultramarine forces out of the city and hold it or survive for long enough for reinforcements to arrive in approximately two weeks.
Technological interactions (justifications for how they work in my mind):
From what I have read in 40k and the Horus Heresy, Space Marine armor and Imperial equipment are vulnerable to weapons like Ion Weaponry (droid poppers, electro proton bombs, ion torpedoes etc). The best example of this (to me) comes from the Battle of Sotha where the Nightlords use haywire grenades (30k equivalent of droid poppers) to disable the armor of Ultramarines. This makes it so movement is very difficult. Mechanicum forces such as Thallax are also armed with weapons that use electrical components to short out enemy electronics. So that’s my justification for saying that ion weapons would be effective against SM equipment and even Titans with the right weapons.
With the Rayshields, we are going to assume they are equivalent to void shields and will stop drop pod and teleportation assaults. Drop pods due to their high velocity and teleportation due to preventing a signal lock.
As far as blaster power levels are concerned. It’s still, from my knowledge, canon that on its maximum power setting a DC-15 rifle can penetrate armored concrete (ferrocrete) from 10 kilometers away. So they are at least more powerful than regular lasguns and probably more akin to hellguns or tau pulse weapons. Of course that’s just for the rifle, blaster carbines would be less powerful. But I am going to say blasters would have an easier time penetrating power armor, potentially penetrating the helmet or backpack in one shot. Chest plates would definitely take between 5-10 shots due to them having to blow out the thicker ceramite. I describe it as “blow out” because when we see blaster bolts not penetrating armor in canon (at least non-special armor) it tends to make a large crater in the armor. Blasters like an E-WEB or the cannon we see on AT-RTs can hole regular power armor in one shot virtually everywhere.
Defensive Tactics:
We’re assuming the Republic forces have had enough time to dig in throughout the city. Hidden gun positions, pillboxes, tank traps, mines, fallback points, artillery positions, overlapping fields of fire, etc. as the defenders, they do have home field advantage.
Offensive Tactics:
The Ultramarines objective is to capture the city as intact as possible, so they’re not going to raise it wholesale. They want to capture the Space Port and its industrial capacity. This means that they’re probably not just going to be obliterating everything, they’ll have to section and clear the city and keep it as intact as possible. This also means no orbital strikes (from my perspective) not just because their fleet is deadlocked with the Republic’s, but because orbital strikes are too destructive.
Hopefully this clears up what I missed the first time. If there are any more questions about other factors I’ll answer as best I can. How do y’all think this’ll pan out?
Personally, with this version being more accurate to what I had in mind, I again think it’s a toss up that slightly favors the defenders.