Battle Barge
The Battle Barge is the largest Space Marine warship and is configured for close support of planetary landings. Battle Barges were originally a simple designation during the Great Crusade to refer to Battleships under Legiones Astartes control. Commonly though any capital class vessel used exclusively by the legion’s was often referred to as a Battle Barge regardless of the technical truth of the matter.[4a] Today, most Chapters control two or three Battle Barges designed to deploy a fighting force to planets in a rapid fashion.[1] Battle Barges are also operated by the Deathwatch, the fleet stationed at a single Watch Fortress having two.[28a]
Contents
Overview
Battle Barges are between five[28a] and seven and a half miles long.[23] Each Battle Barge is capable of deploying three Space Marine Companies plus supplies and support.[6] Large amounts of space are designed to hold launch bays for inter-system craft and drop pods allowing up to three Companies to deploy simultaneously.[1] The vessel is extremely heavily armoured and well-shielded for breaching planetary defences while also protecting its cargo. It is also a dangerous enemy, especially with boarding actions but also contains enough firepower to destroy all but the most powerful of warships. Battle Barges are some of the most powerful ships the Imperium has at its disposal, due to both the power of the ships and their contents.[1]
Battle Barges are highly prized by their operating Chapters and serve as command-and-control nexus during the campaigns they are deployed in. For this reason every Battle Barge features a hololith-equipped strategium with a seating capacity for nearly a hundred generals, admirals and commanders to better allow for coordination between the various arms of the Imperial military during the prosecution of a military operation.[28b]
Defences
Constructed with its unique role of low-orbit planetary assault in mind, the Battle Barges' skeletons were forged from an ultra-dense alloy. The rare base mineral can only be mined from the sites of recent volcanic eruptions, and is further hardened by ballast compression tanks situated on high-gravity moons. The pressurized environment hardens the alloy, ensuring the superstructure is as solid as the doors protecting the Emperor’s throne room itself. These inner frameworks were then girded in kilometres of hardened plasteel and adamantium, and edged with thick ferrocrete buttresses that surround the main hull like a reinforced rib-cage. Finally, a second and ablative layer of armour was added to each vessel's prow, forging an impenetrable figurehead for the indomitable fury of a Battle Barge.[3]
Protected in the Warp by Gellar Fields, in the Materium Battle Barges are protected by a group of layered void shields. The shields protecting a Battle Barge are among the most sophisticated that the Emperor’s armies have at their disposal. Segmented into a series of zones, it is possible for an area of shield to fail without leaving the ship entirely exposed. Further to this, energy can be siphoned from one zone to another, and redirected to where there is the most need of protection. In dire circumstances the shields' energy can be driven up past their normal maximum. This temporarily provides the Battle Barge with greater protection but soon burns out the generators, and renders the shields inert.[3]
The Battle Barge carries a compliment of three squadrons of Thunderhawks designed to act as either Attack Craft or orbit-to-surface transports.[1]
Weaponry
The primary weapons of any Battle Barge are their dorsal-mounted bombardment cannons. Each cannon comprises a series of heavyweight batteries, huge turret-mounted linear accelerators that launch salvos of heavy magma bomb warheads. As the name suggests, bombardment cannons were primarily developed to bombard planets from high orbit, a task at which they excel. A Battle Barge will begin firing as soon as it reaches orbit and will continue to rain destruction down on a planet even as its complement of Space Marines is hurled downwards in their assault craft, clearing a path for their deployment on the ground. Capable of obliterating almost any manner of planetary defences, bombardment cannons will first be directed against missile silos and laser towers, ensuring that the Space Marine attack force can proceed unmolested, before being used to take out command bunkers and shield generators, aiding their swift domination of the planet. On more than one occasion, a single salvo fired into a dense population centre has ended the conflict before it has gathered any real momentum, shocking a world's leaders into seeing the error of their ways and quickly swearing fealty to the Emperor once more.[3]
In ship-to-ship combat, Battle Barges rely primarily on Space Marine boarding actions. The class maintains a hefty compliment of macro-cannons, plasma projectors, fusion beamers, and missile launchers designed to overwhelm enemy defences and shields, allowing for boarding to take place. In addition, if all else fails the Battle Barge may use its Bombardment Cannons against enemy vessels. Though they lack the range of a Lance, they make up for it in raw killing power.[3][Conflicting sources 1]
Battle Barges in service with the Deathwatch are armed with weapon batteries, turreted bombardment cannons in dorsal mounts[28a] and even nova cannons.[28c]
Battle Barges are frequently used to enact Exterminatus. As such, they usually also carry a lethal cargo of world-killing weaponry such as Cyclonic Torpedos and Virus Bombs.[3]
Subclasses
- Battle Barge Mk.I - Base planetary invasion version equipped with 3 Bombardment Cannons, 6 Torpedo launchers, 2 heavy macrocannon batteries, and launch bays for Attack Craft and gunships.[8]
- Battle Barge Mk.II - Fleet combat version equipped with 2 Heavy Lance batteries, 3 standard Lance batteries, 2 Plasma Projector[3] batteries, and launch bays for Attack Craft and gunships.[8]
- Gloriana Class Battleship - A massive type of command Battle Barge used by the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade. Some are still in service to this day.[9]
- Warspite Class Battleship - A sub-type of Battle Barge which was used by the Legiones Astartes during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy.[4a]
- Basileus Class[4c]
- Dominus Class[26]
- Legatus Class[4b]
- Ryza Class[27]
Famous Active Battle Barges
- Loyalist
- Macragge's Honour - Gloriana Class Battleship in Ultramarines service and current command vessel of Lord Commander Roboute Guilliman.[9]
- Laurels of Victory - Current flagship of Ultramarines Chapter Master Marneus Calgar.[17]
- Resilient - Ultramarines Battle Barge.[18]
- Aeternus - Most venerated Ultramarines Battle Barge.[19]
- Invincible Reason - Gloriana Class Battleship and currently still in service with the Dark Angels.[12]
- Eternal Crusader - Gloriana Class Battleship and current Fortress-Monastery of the Black Templars.[14]
- Allfather's Honour - Current flagship of the Space Wolves.[16]
- Baal's Fury - Flagship of Blood Angels Chapter Master Dante.[15]
- Flamewrought - Famous Salamanders Battle Barge.[13]
- Victus - Flagship of the Flesh Tearers.[22]
- Nicor - Flagship of the Carcharodons.[21]
- Omnis Arcanum - Fortress-Monastery of the Blood Ravens.[25]
- Traitor
- Vengeful Spirit - Gloriana Class Battleship and currently the flagship of Abaddon the Despoiler.[10]
- Conqueror - Gloriana Class Battleship and currently under the control of World Eaters Chaos Lord Kossolax the Foresworn. Still utilized by the Primarch Angron.[11]
- Endurance - Gloriana Class Battleship and currently the flagship of Death Guard Primarch Mortarion.[9]
- Wage of Sin - Under the control of Eidolon and leads one of the largest Emperor's Children warbands.[20]
- Infidus Imperator - Flagship of Word Bearers First Captain Kor Phaeron.[24]
- Spectre of Ruin - Current flagship of the Red Corsairs.[23]
Images
A model of a Space Marine Battle Barge for Battlefleet Gothic
Battle Barge Mk.I Subclass[8]
Battle Barge Mk.II Subclass[8]
Trivia
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Conflicting sources
- Conflicting sources 1: Sources given in the Battlefleet Gothic rulebook state that Battle Barges are not equipped with Lance weaponry.[3] However, the video game Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II depicts a Battle Barge (the Mk.II) as wielding Lances.[8]
Sources
 |
- 1: Battlefleet Gothic Resources: Imperial Fleets, pg. 22 (last accessed 28 November 2010)
- 2: Battlefleet Gothic Resources: Powers of Chaos, pg. 10 (last accessed 24 October 2011)
- 3: Index Astartes: Battle Barges
[Help] - 4: The Horus Heresy Book Three - Extermination:
- 5: Battlefleet Gothic: Armada (Video Game)
- 6: Imperial Armour Volume Two - Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, pg. 10
- 7: Helsreach (Novel) - Armageddon (Anthology), Chapter I
- 8: Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II - Space Marine Fleet Customization
- 9: Dark Imperium (Novel), Chapter 19
- 10: Soul Hunter (Novel), Chapter 4
- 11: Angron: The Red Angel (Novel), Chapter 4
- 12: Fate Unbound (Short Story)
- 13: Nocturne (Novel), Chapter 12
- 14: Black Legion (Novel), Chapter XXII
- 15: Dante: Darkness of the Blood (Novel), Chapter 15
- 16: The Emperor's Gift (Novel), Twenty-One
- 17: Imperium Nihilus: Vigilus Ablaze, pg. 8
- 18: Space Marine II - Mission 1, Skyfire
- 19: White Dwarf 284 (UK), pg. 56
- 20: Battlefleet Gothic Compendium, pg. 108
- 21: Imperial Armour Volume Ten - The Badab War - Part Two, pg. 178
- 22: The Assassination of Gabriel Seth (Audio Drama)
- 23: Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom (Novel), Chapter 2
- 24: Dark Creed (Novel), Chapter 1
- 25: Dawn of War (Novel), Chapter 1
- 26: Betrayer (Novel), Chapter 20
- 27: The World Engine (Novel), Chapter One
- 28: Legends of the Dark Millennium: Deathwatch (Novel):
| Modern Space Marine Fleet | |
|---|---|
| Battleships | Battle Barge |
| Cruisers | Strike Cruiser • Vanguard Class |
| Escorts | Gladius Class • Nova Class • Hunter Class • Rapid Strike Vessel |
| Attack Craft | Thunderhawk • Stormraven • Storm Eagle (Fire Raptor) • Storm Talon • Stormhawk • Xiphon • Overlord • Nephilim • Dark Talon • Stormfang • Stormwolf • Corvus Blackstar • Caestus Assault Ram |
| Transports | Thunderhawk Transporter • Landing Craft • Thunderbolt • Drop Pod |
