The models and the majority of art depict starships wrong because they are based on BattleFleet Gothic tabletop game in which ship models had huge cannons so you can paint them. In the lore macrocannons fire projectiles the size of super heavy tanks or small buildings and there are hundreds of such cannons on the board of the ship grouped in batteries.
The burj Khalifa is just another spire on a millions of cathedrals in the universe of warhammer 40k. Every ship has a cathedral on it but the macro cannons are even bigger. Their purpose is to level cities, continents and planets, depending on the mission.
The Speranza is a special case, it was built in the golden age of technology and has a sentient ai in it plus some weapons from that time nobody in the imperium understands. It can literally launch a black hole at a ship and make it collide with its future self
For the Speranza, the book it was in specifically states that it was "continent-sized" and that it has the industrial capacity of an average Forge world on its own. It was also so large that when it took off from the Forge world it was embedded in, said world broke apart. Taking these descriptions at face value since there is no evidence that counteracts it in the source material, this would mean that the Speranza is at the very least, as large as Australia.
The Imperator Somnium carried 10(!) Nova Cannons, same as the Speranza. So I guess the IS is either as big or close to the Speranza. The Phalanx is essentially a mobile Star Fort, but it's not continent sized.
@@glennjanot8128 Nova cannons are hardly a consistent size standard, as the Dominator class (a standard imperial cruiser around 5 km in length sans cannon) is armed with one
@@fadelsukoco3092 Yes, with ONE. And the reason that no ship below a cruiser of that size can have one is how big and powerful it is, the barrel is the length of all but the largest vessels.. And it's located right at the front, because the entire ship's mass has to catch the recoil. Now imagine ten on a single ship. They can only be in towers, so you can imagine how freakishly big those ships must be that their mass can take the recoil of a tower-based weapon without rolling
@@glennjanot8128 What source states that Nova cannons run almost the entire length of the ships they're attached to?!? They aren't MACs from Halo or Mass Effect dreadnought cannons, in any official image you see of a Nova cannon it's an underslung attachment to the prow, barely being twice the length of said prow. As for the recoil, yes, most Nova cannons do require the thrust of an entire cruiser or battleship to counteract the recoil, but the Somnium is stated to be full of atchaeotech that allows it to run with a startling degree of automation and do things Imperial ships have no right being able to do. Whose to say that some of that archaeotech didn't include enhanced inertial dampeners on the Nova cannons to mostly mitigate their recoil, or maybe some grav generators on the back that produce a counterforce for every time the cannons fire, like how PD guns in the Expanse show have thrusters on their rears to counteract recoil. It's more likely that the full size of the Nova cannons would be similar to those of something like a Gloriana, so likely 2-3 km long each, and maybe they are put on articulated turreted mounts across the hull for optimal coverage.
"Poor leadership" For 10,000 years Imperium didnt have actual leadership, Its Galaxy-Spanned Interstellar Bureucratic,Military,Mechanicus Humongus where the "Prime Minister" Or Head of Imperium Goverment put on stasis field while the Supreme Leader (Emperor of Mankind) Sitting 10,000 years to Projected and Guided Astronomicon Light beam entire galaxy so Every Imperial Starship safely travel inside Warp while Battling all Four God itself and Astronomicon need 1,000 souls psyker sacrifice per day, Because its so needed, It literally have whole ass Bureaucracy dedicated for Sacrificing and Kidnapping presses weak or untrained psyker in whole galaxy
@@flowepower3000the tyranid are not here yet and the necrons are literally sleeping. As things stands, an actually well run imperium would body everybody else at the same time exept mayby the orks.
@@leandrocastello309 You willingly neglect the fact that the archenemy, Chaos is the antithesis to order and logistics. Even if we were to somehow establish good leadership, weed out corruption and develop a new, more efficient chain of logistics all of this miraculous new development would have been corrupted by chaos at numerous places. Chaos doesn't win by martial might, as long as human souls exist chaos will never be defeated. You could argue that a logistically sound imperium could forever repel the forces of Abaddon, but to "body" chaos doesn't mean to simply show up to the gates of hell with an impressive armada. ignoring necrons, chaos can't be defeated (unless the necron get their shit together and build pylons throughout the galaxy), tyranids in the coming millenia will overwhelm every single living being, orcs are a "maybe". Oh, and the drukhari can't be fought because humanity doesn't know how to transport forces into the webway, let alone navigate the world city of Commoragh. This leaves us with the pitiful achievement of wiping out Aeladri who are already on the brink of extinction.
To think that something as big as Speranza is "found" rather than built is hilarious. Man, Imperium really should sort their inventories in an Excel sheet or something more "dark age" than a long ass parchment scroll.
It is understandable as during Dark Age of Technology entire civilizations were wiped out. It is not hard to imagine that civilization fell and ship de-orbited. Then it laid buried in soft layer of soil and sand until someone decided to dig that odd looking pile of sand.
@@REgamesplayer I mean it's still understandable to mistake something like a destroyer or battle barge as a hill or mountain when it is covered by sand dunes or soft soil. This is a friggin continental-sized ship. If this thing "buried" on Terra alone, its bow or stern would protrude out toward the space as it is far longer than the curvature of Terra's horizon.
@@freedom4651 I think that at that point, it was part of local terrain. Thousands of years had passed until humanity had settled into the system. You also have to remember that it is not like on Earth where humans are crawling everywhere. It is more like a colony. You just started colonizing planet and it will take centuries even with advanced technologies to even settle the entire planet. If it is barren, it would be more like a moon. A small base and a lot of nothing around. People literally have no reason to go outside. It is like arctic regions are today. Just few thousand people sheltered in research stations. Do you think they are going across the continent? Are they trying to dig up snow there? There could be a continent sized ship in our arctic right now and the only thing which would show us that is geological surveys from orbit. Now imagine colonist just settling on the planet. They wouldn't have anything fancy like geological satellites doing scan of an entire planet and team of researchers carefully investigating data.
@@data3419 It's hinted that he has been many important people through out history. The most important (for the 40k setting) was Saint George, the Dragon-Slayer
And Tyranids thought they were hunting us. How cute. Mechanicus, please insert extra large wiper unto my ship. I'm afraid that Tyranid Hive ship might splatter on my ship's deck.
haha the cope, funny how the Imperium Sacrifice one if its Gloriana and risks opening a wound in reality via warp collapse in Circadrix Maledictum just to stop a single Tyranid Fleet Invasion. This tells me you two idiots are just Tourists and not real a Fan. 😂
Really makes you modern just how OP the golden age humanity was, like they could literally create a substance at least thousand times more stronger than Napalm and create Castigator mechs easily, though both STCs were destroyed because the setting tried too hard to be grimdark and ended up as grimdumb
@@Gneisenau1935 if I remember it did give the grey knights its STC but they destroyed it This shit could’ve literally turned the tide but noooooo it must be grimdark.
@@labbit35the only known castigator stc was corrupted by chaos which makes sense if I was chaos and the imperium was able to make titans larger than imperator titans with the agility/durability of elder titans I would want to stop that asap
@@ilikecorks1715 yeah but couldn’t they still keep it and try to take what remains of it or whatever? Like sure it’s corrupted, but wouldn’t it still help to try and scrape whatever they can since it’s still a STC from a extremely strong mech (in imperium standards)
3:26 this is the Emperor battleship (big carrier basically) not an Apocalypse (that has only heavy lances weaponry). It has both mini in Battlefleet Gothic and a nice model in PC Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II RTS game (HIGHLY recommended, especially with amazing Skalgrim mod).
I wonder about the Dark Angel's Rock - there have been various takes on it over the years from being big, but mostly just the base to more recent books that describe it as being truly massive, having enough terrain space for entire enemy invasion operations with big land battles.
It's stated to be larger than the largest ark of omen while not even the largest ark of omen was hundreds of miles long. The Rock is likely more than a thousand miles long.
My understanding was it was the size of a small moon, so I have always pictured it as the size of Phobos or Deimos which are 22.2km and 12.6km respectively in diameter.
@@watcherzero5256 The invincible Reason, Dark Angels Gloriana Class flag ship was over 27 km long. Which was no where near the size of Phalanx which in turn is till smaller than The Rock.
Ark Mechanicus must be 1 of the first STC patented designed ships that closely resembles the original ships of humanity in the golden ages. Since it lacks the Gothic Designed Cathedral details all Imperium of Man Ships are famous for the "Flying Churches" ship.
Ark Mechanicus ships are ships that survived from the dark age of technology so a finite resource, the CM don't know how half the functions on them even work and they have actually made them more primitive over time by installing systems they did understand such as contemporary weapons as replacements for systems they didnt know how to operate (And for example disabling the ships AI that would have operated the advanced systems so long ago they forgot it even had one). I dont think there is an STC for capital ships, STC's tend to exist for simple objects and vehicles that a colonist might require when settling a new planet. They just designed the cathedral like ships with systems they understood and made gradual improvements or refinements to armaments over time based on the changing opponents the Navy faced.
This is an excellent scale comparison video. The best part was comparing everything at the end since it’s hard to remember size of the smallest ones, especially when getting to sizes that are too large to realistically comprehend
Just fyi... that final ship was way too small. It's supposed to be continent sized, not island sized. The smallest continent on Earth is ~4,000 km or ~2,500 miles long.
@@jonathanryan9946 Perhaps its just a Metaphor and not meant to be taken to literal to describe how ridiculously big that ship is. For example Phalanx was described as the size of Small Moon, but in here, its just 150km.
@@yoelchristian6332 I'm afraid you have bad knowledge of the size of small moons. Literally dozens in our very own solar system are less than 160km, with others still considered small bigger than 160km. So the size of the Phalanx at 160km and being compared to a small monn is literally accurate. It's also a pop culture reference to the first Death Star which was also 160km (death star 2 has varied from 200k to over 900km based on when, as their was big debate due to the size of Vader's flag ship huge size but the lack of curvature on the 2nd Death Star when it hit it). Now as to Continent sized... if it's a metaphor and meant to be smaller, it's a super bad metaphor. It's be like comparing a two story building to the biggest skyscrapers. If your only information is Continent sized, then it's Continent sized... and remember, this franchise loves how over-the-top it is. So I'm inclined to believe it is that big.
@@jonathanryan9946 Anything closer with 150km is more accurate to Meteor or Asteroid size in general than just a small moon. Most of Small Moon are in range of 500km - closer to a thousand km in size than 150km. But Asteroid have plenty with the size of a hundred km. Try to learn more about this than just saying to someone having a bad knowledge about something. Death Star is similar to a moon not because of its size but because of the shape, round like a Moon but in fact, its just on asteroid range if we talk about the size.
@@yoelchristian6332 You do realize you literally just proved my point that the scale shown was vastly too small... in an effort to disprove me. Let's review: I was basically stating an ship shown barely over 100km needed to be around a factor of 26x bigger, and your basically retort has amounted "nah, just 10x bigger." In an effort to hide the fact that your previous implication that 150km was fine... even though according to your later flip flop, I was only 2.6x too big but you were 6.667x too small originally. However I was according to you wrong... even though even by your own final statement, I was far closer than you were. You really aren't as knowledgeable or intelligent as you think you are. Also unlike you, I actually do know how big moons and continents are, as shown by me literally previously listing accurate sizes of them before (feel free to double check). So if anyone needs to learn, it's you.
As a naval nut, its always driven me insane (or nuts, ha ha) how Gamers Workshop hasn't paid alot of attention to the naval aspect of the 40K universe. So, I have to ask, are these measurements canon? Did GW state that these measurements are what every ship class is and now everyone has to follow that?
There are only average numbers for ship sizes: 1-2 kilometers long for Escorts 4-6 kilometers long for Cruisers (light/heavy) 8-12 kilometers long for Battleships It was stated in *"Horus Heresy Book Three: Extermination"* Many direct sizes in this video were stated in *"Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus"* and *"Rogue Trader: Core Rulebook"* And that's "average". There are also ships of the same class that vary in size because the class of the ship is their role in battle and not the concrete indicator of their size. There are also thousands of types of Cruisers alone for example *(HHB3:Extermination)* so depending on the type of starship within the same class their size can vary drastically. There are standard Battleships of unknown classes that were stated to be 17/20/24 kilometers long. Yet more compact Battleships were 4/6/7 kilometers long (their design and role in battle is "Battleship" and not "Cruiser"). Some huge cruisers of unknown types are 7/8/9 kilometers long. Grand Cruisers are mostly 7+ kilometers long and the largest known was 12 kilometers long and 2,5 kilometers wide. Escorts are consistently 1-2 kilometers long but there are mentions of Raiders closer to 3-4 kilometers in length. Every sector can build their own unique starships depending on resources and demand so it explains why ship sizes are so over the place.
Well, the Imperium is like 12k years old, and it's basically all over the Milky Way. I think it would be very unrealistic if ship sizes and classes and shapes, armaments etc. were consistent over that many years with constant wars, supply chain problems, tech being lost and found in a galaxy spanning empire.
What do you mean they haven't paid attwntion to naval aspects? They ram a whole parallel game thatbwas just about naval battles, it just stopped being supported because it didn't sell well.
the speranza is awesome, and so is the forges of mars trilogy it comes from. the thing destroyed a planet just by waking up and as powerful as it is, its not even fully operational or awake. they dont even know how much daot tech is in there but theres probably a lot considering it opens up and reveals a fucking chrono cannon at one point.
As soon as I saw that continent sized Imperium ship, Planet Spaceballs was the very first thing that came to mind. If ya know, ya know; if ya don't, I suggest you watch it if you're old enough (The thing literally took 5 minutes to move across the screen).
Continent sized ship, huh? if it exist in reality it was real life case of comedy/tragedy! just imagine That thing could have its own gravitational pull! it can orbit the earth like a second moon! it can cause tidal shift in the ocean! and confuses the hell out of wolves! and that's not all, how the people get inside? they can't! all they can do is jump/walk on it's surface but What is the use of a ship if no one can get inside?.... you get the Idea.
@@meysamghahremaninejad6809 Um, I have no idea where you got all that; I just repeated what was said at 6:00 on the dot in the video. =| It shows up at 5:42 and leaves the screen at 6:03 by the way.
@@tommyfox854 Calm down my friend! I was not trying to upset or correct you or something! I just was just wondering about what would be like if we had a massive ship like that in real life! that's all! BTW English is not my first language so maybe there is something about the way I said it!
@@meysamghahremaninejad6809 OOOooohh, okay; sorry about that, I wasn't really awake when I saw your reply. . it's a bad habit of mine, I will admit. Um, anyways, now that I know what ya mean; I agree, what *_would_* the consequences of such a massive ship be, and more over. . how the Hell does The Imperium get enough fuel to keep that thing going, let alone the supplies to keep it operational and built in the first place. Also, I don't know if it's just me, but every time I come across someone who English is not their first language they always, without fail, speak and/or write it better than those who English is their first language.
That's so nice of these universe eating aliens, that are coming from multiple eaten universes at the same time, for making their universe eating ships small enough for the local universe denizens to have a fighting chance.
It was a ship that was incomplete when the Admech found it, and when it was complete, it was described as "continent-sized" and its first flight destroyed the planet it was embedded in, though this was deemed as a worthwhile sacrifice since the ship eaa like a Forge world in of itself.
For spaceships so massive, you need a good lore explaining: "how the hell they made it?", otherwise it is just becomes ridiculous, why just 20 kilometers? why not as big as freaking solar system!
@@nutbug445 That's just fantasy giving science the middle finger, totally fine with me but that's not Sci-fi anymore. {Btw I did not know about this "chaos fortress", so I looked it up and I find the whole concept really funny 😄}
20km sounds doable, assembling them in space. The Scale of an entire solar system... well, just the materials could be hard to gather together without massive warpchenanigans, also very impractical to move them around. Or, if you care about such things, without destroying any solar system you are close by by your pure gravitation.
The Imperium is basically a galaxy wide empire dedicated solely to being at war. They have the resources to build huge war machines for both ground and void combat.
Supergiant Imperium ships are rare because every time you warp you roll the dices and if you roll a crit failure you lose 2 or 3 fleets worth of materials.
Mind you, these are the Hive ships of the SCOUTING wings of the tyranid fleets. The only ones we've ever seen thusfar. The main body of the tyranids still has yet to even get remotely close. I feel like once it does, a whole other level of doom will arrive and size wise, everything will look like an ant in comparison to whats inside. Afterall, the center likely has the queen of all the tyranids, and is also likely the point by which they begin to just mow through most if not all the galaxy they've already weakened with the scouting fleets, assuming the scouting fleets didn't already devour everything *Assuming the galaxy is less prepared for them than the 40k one.
@@сесьсясь Cruisers in novels have been said to be 4-6km Grand Cruisers like 8-10, battleships 10+, Battle Barges 10+, Glorianas like 18-30km, Abyss class between that and The Phalanx
Crazy to think even for the “tiny” ships, they still hold around hundreds to thousands of working crew and soldiers. Then in Battlefleet Gothic, we just use one of those as battering ram and shield wall 😂 can’t imagine the horror of the people and crews inside
Are we sure this is accurate? Is the Emperor class battleship really that much bigger than the Retribution class? And if so, why is the Retribution called a battleship if it's smaller than some cruisers?
The problem isn't that the Imperium has bigger ships, it's that their biggest ships are effectively legendary, and unreplaceable. Meanwhile, Tyranid hive ships are countless.
A bit of inconsistent lore here. Macragges honour is listed as 26km here but the Iron Blood is supposed to be the biggest Gloriana class battleship at 20km?
The largest Gloriana Class Battleship is the first one built which is the Dark Angel's Invincible Reason at 28 kilometers in length. Second is the Macgragge's Honour at 26km followed by the Iron Blood at 20km. The others likely wouldve been a similar size to the Iron Blood as the design of the Glorianas became standardised as the Great Crusade progressed.
@@fludblud this stinks of ret-con. The Gloriana class isn't standardised at all since several are pre crusade vessels like the Red Tear and Bucephalus. I am pretty sure old lore has the Iron Blood as biggest because Perturabo had it built to his own design.
Retribution class battleship… smaller than the subsequent grand cruisers that battleships.. are.. bigger.. than…. No.. I don’t think this video is quite right.
Its because it comes from the tabletop game Battlefleet Gothic, a ship had one of four primary armament capabilities: Massive Macro Cannon or Plasma Macro Cannon batteries, a Nova Cannon, Lance batteries, or extensive Fighter Hangar capacity (they all possess smaller secondary cannon batteries for air defence) and you customised your ships by selecting equipment from a points cost list as well as it giving some default equipment templates. The Retribution class just has Macro Cannons with no lance batteries or Hangar capabilities so is smaller, the other battleship templates tend to combine two of the four either Macro and Lance, Hanger and Lance, Macro and Hanger, etc.. then the very largest battleships might have three.
@@watcherzero5256tabletop models and canon sizes are two different things Also Retribution Battleships are larger on tabletop. My dad still has his navy fleet. The Grand Cruiser is smaller because it is smaller.
It’s sad though , the technology that built massive starships has been lost over the many millennia’s that have past. Like the Astartes & Ultra Marines the engineers must reverse tech to keep the upkeep of these insanely huge ships.
What about the Imperial Fists ship fortress. It's supposed to be a massive ship from the Dark Age of technology that is the mobile fortress monastery of the chapter.
Speranza - imba Dark Age of Technology Ark Mechanicus with it's own Abominable Intelligence, I suggest reading how it's weapon works - one of the most OP stuff in 40k.
Thank you so much for the video! I only reached Battle for the Abyss book , this helped me understand the true size of Imperium naval fleet. There is big question for me , if Imperium has such giant war machines then why Tyrannids Hive fleet considered the most undefeated foe for Humanity?
Ты забыл про новый корабль тиранидов - живую луну,из посленец компании про четвёртую тиранидскую войну,её обнаружила гвардия ворона.Правда до чизьпор не ясно:это боевой корабль или гигантская консерва для флота тиранидов
so you are telling me that imperial ships have cannons as big as Burj Khalifa
The models and the majority of art depict starships wrong because they are based on BattleFleet Gothic tabletop game in which ship models had huge cannons so you can paint them. In the lore macrocannons fire projectiles the size of super heavy tanks or small buildings and there are hundreds of such cannons on the board of the ship grouped in batteries.
yes. Humanity made them. therefore, bigger gun = better gun
The burj Khalifa is just another spire on a millions of cathedrals in the universe of warhammer 40k. Every ship has a cathedral on it but the macro cannons are even bigger. Their purpose is to level cities, continents and planets, depending on the mission.
It's not surprising considering how the Imperium cracks planets open every tuesday
@Breadlootgoblin an Inquisitor has more destructive power than Emperor Palpatine. Who "somehow is back", but it's never explained
The imperiums smallest ships are the size of imperial star destroyers.
Super destructor 19km
Supremasy 60km
Basestarkiller 650km
Siths gana.
@@RobertoGonzalez-vn5jd By that logic an average forgeworld is a star destroyer.
@@RobertoGonzalez-vn5jdthe first two are SUPER star destroyers, not the normal ones and the third is a planet. You should learn to read
@@TheOneWhoSometimesSaysOktu logica esta mal.
@@Randomalpharius- son naves y estaciones que se mueven por la galaxia .
Aademas ese mundo tambien se mueve por el hiper espacio.
i love that the biggest imperial ships were lost relics of the dark age.
(Speranza comes in)
Hive Ship: "Whoa!!!" (races of)
(Speranza leaves)
Hive Ship: "Phew..." (sneaks back)
yep the speranza could go off and start it own colony at this rate
For anyone reading this, please understand that acoustics like OP aren't representative of franchise fans.
The Speranza is a special case, it was built in the golden age of technology and has a sentient ai in it plus some weapons from that time nobody in the imperium understands. It can literally launch a black hole at a ship and make it collide with its future self
I don't think we ever got numbers for the Phalanx or Imperator Somnium or Speranza. Other that they are so massive they have their own gravity.
For the Speranza, the book it was in specifically states that it was "continent-sized" and that it has the industrial capacity of an average Forge world on its own. It was also so large that when it took off from the Forge world it was embedded in, said world broke apart.
Taking these descriptions at face value since there is no evidence that counteracts it in the source material, this would mean that the Speranza is at the very least, as large as Australia.
The Imperator Somnium carried 10(!) Nova Cannons, same as the Speranza. So I guess the IS is either as big or close to the Speranza. The Phalanx is essentially a mobile Star Fort, but it's not continent sized.
@@glennjanot8128 Nova cannons are hardly a consistent size standard, as the Dominator class (a standard imperial cruiser around 5 km in length sans cannon) is armed with one
@@fadelsukoco3092 Yes, with ONE.
And the reason that no ship below a cruiser of that size can have one is how big and powerful it is, the barrel is the length of all but the largest vessels.. And it's located right at the front, because the entire ship's mass has to catch the recoil.
Now imagine ten on a single ship. They can only be in towers, so you can imagine how freakishly big those ships must be that their mass can take the recoil of a tower-based weapon without rolling
@@glennjanot8128 What source states that Nova cannons run almost the entire length of the ships they're attached to?!? They aren't MACs from Halo or Mass Effect dreadnought cannons, in any official image you see of a Nova cannon it's an underslung attachment to the prow, barely being twice the length of said prow. As for the recoil, yes, most Nova cannons do require the thrust of an entire cruiser or battleship to counteract the recoil, but the Somnium is stated to be full of atchaeotech that allows it to run with a startling degree of automation and do things Imperial ships have no right being able to do. Whose to say that some of that archaeotech didn't include enhanced inertial dampeners on the Nova cannons to mostly mitigate their recoil, or maybe some grav generators on the back that produce a counterforce for every time the cannons fire, like how PD guns in the Expanse show have thrusters on their rears to counteract recoil. It's more likely that the full size of the Nova cannons would be similar to those of something like a Gloriana, so likely 2-3 km long each, and maybe they are put on articulated turreted mounts across the hull for optimal coverage.
The fact the Imperium is losing is attributed to poor leadership and a terrible logistics network.
"Poor leadership" For 10,000 years Imperium didnt have actual leadership, Its Galaxy-Spanned Interstellar Bureucratic,Military,Mechanicus Humongus where the "Prime Minister" Or Head of Imperium Goverment put on stasis field while the Supreme Leader (Emperor of Mankind) Sitting 10,000 years to Projected and Guided Astronomicon Light beam entire galaxy so Every Imperial Starship safely travel inside Warp while Battling all Four God itself and Astronomicon need 1,000 souls psyker sacrifice per day, Because its so needed, It literally have whole ass Bureaucracy dedicated for Sacrificing and Kidnapping presses weak or untrained psyker in whole galaxy
@@TS-jm7jm No lol, the tyranids are endless and the necron if fully awoken would body everyone
@@flowepower3000the tyranid are not here yet and the necrons are literally sleeping.
As things stands, an actually well run imperium would body everybody else at the same time exept mayby the orks.
@@leandrocastello309 You willingly neglect the fact that the archenemy, Chaos is the antithesis to order and logistics. Even if we were to somehow establish good leadership, weed out corruption and develop a new, more efficient chain of logistics all of this miraculous new development would have been corrupted by chaos at numerous places. Chaos doesn't win by martial might, as long as human souls exist chaos will never be defeated. You could argue that a logistically sound imperium could forever repel the forces of Abaddon, but to "body" chaos doesn't mean to simply show up to the gates of hell with an impressive armada.
ignoring necrons, chaos can't be defeated (unless the necron get their shit together and build pylons throughout the galaxy), tyranids in the coming millenia will overwhelm every single living being, orcs are a "maybe". Oh, and the drukhari can't be fought because humanity doesn't know how to transport forces into the webway, let alone navigate the world city of Commoragh. This leaves us with the pitiful achievement of wiping out Aeladri who are already on the brink of extinction.
@@leandrocastello309Man you speak heresy
Fun fact, Imperial ships are less like ships and more like battle stations with thrusters.
Batle stations with thrusters ❌
Cathedrals with thrusters ✔️
Это более реалестично
@@medievalcaucasian cathedrals with gigantic fuckoff broadside cannons and maybe some thrusters if they have room :P
@@conan2096 Emperor wills it brother
To think that something as big as Speranza is "found" rather than built is hilarious. Man, Imperium really should sort their inventories in an Excel sheet or something more "dark age" than a long ass parchment scroll.
I haven't read that story. I guess it was found laying of a forgotten lifeless planet?
It is understandable as during Dark Age of Technology entire civilizations were wiped out. It is not hard to imagine that civilization fell and ship de-orbited. Then it laid buried in soft layer of soil and sand until someone decided to dig that odd looking pile of sand.
I love how when it was found it was a choice between unearthing it or using the planet as a forge world
@@REgamesplayer I mean it's still understandable to mistake something like a destroyer or battle barge as a hill or mountain when it is covered by sand dunes or soft soil. This is a friggin continental-sized ship. If this thing "buried" on Terra alone, its bow or stern would protrude out toward the space as it is far longer than the curvature of Terra's horizon.
@@freedom4651 I think that at that point, it was part of local terrain. Thousands of years had passed until humanity had settled into the system.
You also have to remember that it is not like on Earth where humans are crawling everywhere. It is more like a colony. You just started colonizing planet and it will take centuries even with advanced technologies to even settle the entire planet. If it is barren, it would be more like a moon. A small base and a lot of nothing around. People literally have no reason to go outside. It is like arctic regions are today. Just few thousand people sheltered in research stations. Do you think they are going across the continent? Are they trying to dig up snow there? There could be a continent sized ship in our arctic right now and the only thing which would show us that is geological surveys from orbit. Now imagine colonist just settling on the planet. They wouldn't have anything fancy like geological satellites doing scan of an entire planet and team of researchers carefully investigating data.
Just a small note you might enjoy: Bucephalus (Βουκεφάλας in Greek) meaning ox-head, was the horse of Alexander the Great
you mean it was the emperors horse :P
It is hinted that the Emperor was alexander the great, that is why he named his first flagship after his horse
@@data3419 It's hinted that he has been many important people through out history. The most important (for the 40k setting) was Saint George, the Dragon-Slayer
And Tyranids thought they were hunting us. How cute.
Mechanicus, please insert extra large wiper unto my ship. I'm afraid that Tyranid Hive ship might splatter on my ship's deck.
Nothing like washing the bug splatters from your Speranza after a long road trip.
haha the cope, funny how the Imperium Sacrifice one if its Gloriana and risks opening a wound in reality via warp collapse in Circadrix Maledictum just to stop a single Tyranid Fleet Invasion. This tells me you two idiots are just Tourists and not real a Fan. 😂
@@deepdungeon8465 And that comment tells me you've never felt the touch of a woman. lol
@@oxaile4021 your comment tells me how a Big loser responds to his defeated argument. 😂
@@deepdungeon8465 Yeah, will agree with oxaile on this one. You really missed...well, everything.
A little something about the Imperator somnium.
In a book its described to be as long as an orbital plate from Terra, which are 100km in diameter.
Which book mentions it? I only recently even heard of it...
Yeah. I would also like to know more about this
Император сомниум был лишь в одной кгини цикла осада терры с именно в книге мортис
И там не было нечего про его размеры
Really makes you modern just how OP the golden age humanity was, like they could literally create a substance at least thousand times more stronger than Napalm and create Castigator mechs easily, though both STCs were destroyed because the setting tried too hard to be grimdark and ended up as grimdumb
nah the castigater where controlled by ai and thats what brought humanity down
@@Gneisenau1935 if I remember it did give the grey knights its STC but they destroyed it
This shit could’ve literally turned the tide but noooooo it must be grimdark.
@@labbit35 jeah because before that they fought a chaos corrupt one
@@labbit35the only known castigator stc was corrupted by chaos which makes sense if I was chaos and the imperium was able to make titans larger than imperator titans with the agility/durability of elder titans I would want to stop that asap
@@ilikecorks1715 yeah but couldn’t they still keep it and try to take what remains of it or whatever? Like sure it’s corrupted, but wouldn’t it still help to try and scrape whatever they can since it’s still a STC from a extremely strong mech (in imperium standards)
Those last few ships would have their own gravitational field.
They'd be similar to Pluto or something.
3:26 this is the Emperor battleship (big carrier basically) not an Apocalypse (that has only heavy lances weaponry). It has both mini in Battlefleet Gothic and a nice model in PC Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II RTS game (HIGHLY recommended, especially with amazing Skalgrim mod).
I wonder about the Dark Angel's Rock - there have been various takes on it over the years from being big, but mostly just the base to more recent books that describe it as being truly massive, having enough terrain space for entire enemy invasion operations with big land battles.
It's stated to be larger than the largest ark of omen while not even the largest ark of omen was hundreds of miles long. The Rock is likely more than a thousand miles long.
The Rock is literally Chunk of Planet that turn to Literal Fucking Spaceship and Base
My understanding was it was the size of a small moon, so I have always pictured it as the size of Phobos or Deimos which are 22.2km and 12.6km respectively in diameter.
@@watcherzero5256 The invincible Reason, Dark Angels Gloriana Class flag ship was over 27 km long. Which was no where near the size of Phalanx which in turn is till smaller than The Rock.
Ark Mechanicus must be 1 of the first STC patented designed ships that closely resembles the original ships of humanity in the golden ages. Since it lacks the Gothic Designed Cathedral details all Imperium of Man Ships are famous for the "Flying Churches" ship.
Ark Mechanicus ships are ships that survived from the dark age of technology so a finite resource, the CM don't know how half the functions on them even work and they have actually made them more primitive over time by installing systems they did understand such as contemporary weapons as replacements for systems they didnt know how to operate (And for example disabling the ships AI that would have operated the advanced systems so long ago they forgot it even had one). I dont think there is an STC for capital ships, STC's tend to exist for simple objects and vehicles that a colonist might require when settling a new planet. They just designed the cathedral like ships with systems they understood and made gradual improvements or refinements to armaments over time based on the changing opponents the Navy faced.
Great video as always. Can you do one about each legion fleet or Chapter fleets vs Chaos and their fleets. That would be awesome
Eventually
@@nutbug445привет! Фаланга размером с планетоид или луну, так что там размер побольше.
This is an excellent scale comparison video. The best part was comparing everything at the end since it’s hard to remember size of the smallest ones, especially when getting to sizes that are too large to realistically comprehend
Wow, I had no idea of this scale. Thank you.
Cool Video! Didn´t know the empire have such ridiculous giant ships!^^
Just fyi... that final ship was way too small. It's supposed to be continent sized, not island sized. The smallest continent on Earth is ~4,000 km or ~2,500 miles long.
@@jonathanryan9946 Perhaps its just a Metaphor and not meant to be taken to literal to describe how ridiculously big that ship is. For example Phalanx was described as the size of Small Moon, but in here, its just 150km.
@@yoelchristian6332 I'm afraid you have bad knowledge of the size of small moons. Literally dozens in our very own solar system are less than 160km, with others still considered small bigger than 160km. So the size of the Phalanx at 160km and being compared to a small monn is literally accurate. It's also a pop culture reference to the first Death Star which was also 160km (death star 2 has varied from 200k to over 900km based on when, as their was big debate due to the size of Vader's flag ship huge size but the lack of curvature on the 2nd Death Star when it hit it).
Now as to Continent sized... if it's a metaphor and meant to be smaller, it's a super bad metaphor. It's be like comparing a two story building to the biggest skyscrapers. If your only information is Continent sized, then it's Continent sized... and remember, this franchise loves how over-the-top it is. So I'm inclined to believe it is that big.
@@jonathanryan9946
Anything closer with 150km is more accurate to Meteor or Asteroid size in general than just a small moon.
Most of Small Moon are in range of 500km - closer to a thousand km in size than 150km. But Asteroid have plenty with the size of a hundred km.
Try to learn more about this than just saying to someone having a bad knowledge about something.
Death Star is similar to a moon not because of its size but because of the shape, round like a Moon but in fact, its just on asteroid range if we talk about the size.
@@yoelchristian6332 You do realize you literally just proved my point that the scale shown was vastly too small... in an effort to disprove me.
Let's review: I was basically stating an ship shown barely over 100km needed to be around a factor of 26x bigger, and your basically retort has amounted "nah, just 10x bigger." In an effort to hide the fact that your previous implication that 150km was fine... even though according to your later flip flop, I was only 2.6x too big but you were 6.667x too small originally. However I was according to you wrong... even though even by your own final statement, I was far closer than you were.
You really aren't as knowledgeable or intelligent as you think you are.
Also unlike you, I actually do know how big moons and continents are, as shown by me literally previously listing accurate sizes of them before (feel free to double check). So if anyone needs to learn, it's you.
As a naval nut, its always driven me insane (or nuts, ha ha) how Gamers Workshop hasn't paid alot of attention to the naval aspect of the 40K universe. So, I have to ask, are these measurements canon? Did GW state that these measurements are what every ship class is and now everyone has to follow that?
There are only average numbers for ship sizes:
1-2 kilometers long for Escorts
4-6 kilometers long for Cruisers (light/heavy)
8-12 kilometers long for Battleships
It was stated in *"Horus Heresy Book Three: Extermination"*
Many direct sizes in this video were stated in *"Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus"* and *"Rogue Trader: Core Rulebook"*
And that's "average". There are also ships of the same class that vary in size because the class of the ship is their role in battle and not the concrete indicator of their size.
There are also thousands of types of Cruisers alone for example *(HHB3:Extermination)* so depending on the type of starship within the same class their size can vary drastically.
There are standard Battleships of unknown classes that were stated to be 17/20/24 kilometers long. Yet more compact Battleships were 4/6/7 kilometers long (their design and role in battle is "Battleship" and not "Cruiser").
Some huge cruisers of unknown types are 7/8/9 kilometers long.
Grand Cruisers are mostly 7+ kilometers long and the largest known was 12 kilometers long and 2,5 kilometers wide.
Escorts are consistently 1-2 kilometers long but there are mentions of Raiders closer to 3-4 kilometers in length.
Every sector can build their own unique starships depending on resources and demand so it explains why ship sizes are so over the place.
Well, the Imperium is like 12k years old, and it's basically all over the Milky Way. I think it would be very unrealistic if ship sizes and classes and shapes, armaments etc. were consistent over that many years with constant wars, supply chain problems, tech being lost and found in a galaxy spanning empire.
What do you mean they haven't paid attwntion to naval aspects? They ram a whole parallel game thatbwas just about naval battles, it just stopped being supported because it didn't sell well.
I believe in the book "Belisarius Cawl" it was mentioned the speranza was so big, that its gravity field actually disrupted moons orbits.
Speranza looks like a ship that has own culture in one of top triary turrets.
Fun fact: Every year, imperial ships grow by about 3% in length.
How ?
Frakking Imp ships all look like they have cowcatchers mounted on the nose LOL
Speranza and other : 1 ship.
Tyranid Hive Ships : hundred of millions.
Tanks for the video! I think that could be nice if the last 3 ships was putet in perspective too and if so number was outed for Speranza too
goes from looking like a colossus to a waterbug
the speranza is awesome, and so is the forges of mars trilogy it comes from. the thing destroyed a planet just by waking up and as powerful as it is, its not even fully operational or awake. they dont even know how much daot tech is in there but theres probably a lot considering it opens up and reveals a fucking chrono cannon at one point.
I thought we were done at mins 4 and didn’t realise there was another half to go haha
As soon as I saw that continent sized Imperium ship, Planet Spaceballs was the very first thing that came to mind.
If ya know, ya know; if ya don't, I suggest you watch it if you're old enough (The thing literally took 5 minutes to move across the screen).
*WE BRAKE FOR NOBODY!*
>:D
Continent sized ship, huh? if it exist in reality it was real life case of comedy/tragedy! just imagine That thing could have its own gravitational pull! it can orbit the earth like a second moon! it can cause tidal shift in the ocean! and confuses the hell out of wolves! and that's not all, how the people get inside? they can't! all they can do is jump/walk on it's surface but What is the use of a ship if no one can get inside?.... you get the Idea.
@@meysamghahremaninejad6809 Um, I have no idea where you got all that; I just repeated what was said at 6:00 on the dot in the video. =|
It shows up at 5:42 and leaves the screen at 6:03 by the way.
@@tommyfox854 Calm down my friend! I was not trying to upset or correct you or something! I just was just wondering about what would be like if we had a massive ship like that in real life! that's all! BTW English is not my first language so maybe there is something about the way I said it!
@@meysamghahremaninejad6809 OOOooohh, okay; sorry about that, I wasn't really awake when I saw your reply. . it's a bad habit of mine, I will admit.
Um, anyways, now that I know what ya mean; I agree, what *_would_* the consequences of such a massive ship be, and more over. . how the Hell does The Imperium get enough fuel to keep that thing going, let alone the supplies to keep it operational and built in the first place.
Also, I don't know if it's just me, but every time I come across someone who English is not their first language they always, without fail, speak and/or write it better than those who English is their first language.
That's so nice of these universe eating aliens, that are coming from multiple eaten universes at the same time, for making their universe eating ships small enough for the local universe denizens to have a fighting chance.
Hive ship- when the speranza here I be quiet... But when he leave... I be talkin again
and the fact that the last few ships are one of a kind.
0:17 - 0:31 what is the music you used in the video? @Nutbug
I'd like to think we haven't really seen the Tyranid equivalent of phalanxes yet
And now I'm guessing The Imperium can't build these massive beasts anymore because they lost the blueprints for 10,000 years?
What would be the rent for living in one of those, near NY city?
Wow is the last ship from dark age technology with ai?
He recently did a video on it. It's the Speranza.
It was a ship that was incomplete when the Admech found it, and when it was complete, it was described as "continent-sized" and its first flight destroyed the planet it was embedded in, though this was deemed as a worthwhile sacrifice since the ship eaa like a Forge world in of itself.
Why do the bridges keep getting bigger though?
For spaceships so massive, you need a good lore explaining: "how the hell they made it?", otherwise it is just becomes ridiculous, why just 20 kilometers? why not as big as freaking solar system!
There is a Chaos fortress as big as a solar system lol
@@nutbug445 That's just fantasy giving science the middle finger, totally fine with me but that's not Sci-fi anymore. {Btw I did not know about this "chaos fortress", so I looked it up and I find the whole concept really funny 😄}
20km sounds doable, assembling them in space. The Scale of an entire solar system... well, just the materials could be hard to gather together without massive warpchenanigans, also very impractical to move them around. Or, if you care about such things, without destroying any solar system you are close by by your pure gravitation.
The Imperium is basically a galaxy wide empire dedicated solely to being at war.
They have the resources to build huge war machines for both ground and void combat.
Dark age of technology is when most of these were built, and it seems like magic to even the avg 40k citizen.
Supergiant Imperium ships are rare because every time you warp you roll the dices and if you roll a crit failure you lose 2 or 3 fleets worth of materials.
Great video!
So one gun of the Speranza is a big as a Hive Ship?
i am 100% convinced that phalanx is where the emperor class titans are held
If the battleships had the same crew to volume ratio as a modern aircraft carrier, the crew would be about 70 million.
And there are superhulks prolly bigger than that floating in the warp.
so the Phalanx is the size of a New Eden Keepstar.
I’m surprised that they didn’t put giant chainsaw blades on the ships for ramming
Mind you, these are the Hive ships of the SCOUTING wings of the tyranid fleets. The only ones we've ever seen thusfar. The main body of the tyranids still has yet to even get remotely close. I feel like once it does, a whole other level of doom will arrive and size wise, everything will look like an ant in comparison to whats inside. Afterall, the center likely has the queen of all the tyranids, and is also likely the point by which they begin to just mow through most if not all the galaxy they've already weakened with the scouting fleets, assuming the scouting fleets didn't already devour everything *Assuming the galaxy is less prepared for them than the 40k one.
Isnt the phalanx the size of a moon
This is cute and all but hive ships don't have a set size, they can be as massive as the speranza
Dont even mention Batlefleet gothic armada 2 as source is a crime.
Humans from Gunbuster and Gurren Lagann: *Cute.*
You never seem to get cruiser and up sizes correct.
what sizes are correct in your opinion ?
@@сесьсясь Cruisers in novels have been said to be 4-6km Grand Cruisers like 8-10, battleships 10+, Battle Barges 10+, Glorianas like 18-30km, Abyss class between that and The Phalanx
Wait the Retribution class battleship isn't that small is it?
Crazy to think even for the “tiny” ships, they still hold around hundreds to thousands of working crew and soldiers. Then in Battlefleet Gothic, we just use one of those as battering ram and shield wall 😂 can’t imagine the horror of the people and crews inside
Wonder how the artifical gravity on them works
Where'd you get the sizes for the Emperors ships? I've never seen any published.
There is no specific number. It was described to be the size of a continent (Australia).
@@сесьсясь Please rewatch. There were indeed specific numbers. I believe you're getting confused with the Speranza
До моей дачи 57 киллометров)))
Ахахаха я тоже так же считал))
Хрена се вы бензина тратите чтобы полить/закрыть огурцы каждый вечер)
I thought Galatan Starfort was solar-system size
Dude it would make no sense; solar system is absolutely
That's the chaos Ruinstorm fortress
@@nutbug445 oh mb
Are we sure this is accurate? Is the Emperor class battleship really that much bigger than the Retribution class? And if so, why is the Retribution called a battleship if it's smaller than some cruisers?
It depends when it was built, same as here on Earth. Early battleships in 1880 were quite small, smaller than a cruiser in WW2.
i know this is 40k....but for some reason i was waiting for Spaceball 1 to show up
For being 20km long it doesn't have nearly enough pixels
The problem isn't that the Imperium has bigger ships, it's that their biggest ships are effectively legendary, and unreplaceable. Meanwhile, Tyranid hive ships are countless.
A bit of inconsistent lore here. Macragges honour is listed as 26km here but the Iron Blood is supposed to be the biggest Gloriana class battleship at 20km?
The largest Gloriana Class Battleship is the first one built which is the Dark Angel's Invincible Reason at 28 kilometers in length. Second is the Macgragge's Honour at 26km followed by the Iron Blood at 20km. The others likely wouldve been a similar size to the Iron Blood as the design of the Glorianas became standardised as the Great Crusade progressed.
@@fludblud this stinks of ret-con. The Gloriana class isn't standardised at all since several are pre crusade vessels like the Red Tear and Bucephalus. I am pretty sure old lore has the Iron Blood as biggest because Perturabo had it built to his own design.
Phalanx are more than Ceres (950 km)
Hi, can i ask how did u know size of Becephalus?
Incoming Craftworld
Retribution class battleship… smaller than the subsequent grand cruisers that battleships.. are.. bigger.. than…. No.. I don’t think this video is quite right.
Its because it comes from the tabletop game Battlefleet Gothic, a ship had one of four primary armament capabilities: Massive Macro Cannon or Plasma Macro Cannon batteries, a Nova Cannon, Lance batteries, or extensive Fighter Hangar capacity (they all possess smaller secondary cannon batteries for air defence) and you customised your ships by selecting equipment from a points cost list as well as it giving some default equipment templates. The Retribution class just has Macro Cannons with no lance batteries or Hangar capabilities so is smaller, the other battleship templates tend to combine two of the four either Macro and Lance, Hanger and Lance, Macro and Hanger, etc.. then the very largest battleships might have three.
@@watcherzero5256tabletop models and canon sizes are two different things
Also Retribution Battleships are larger on tabletop. My dad still has his navy fleet. The Grand Cruiser is smaller because it is smaller.
It’s sad though , the technology that built massive starships has been lost over the many millennia’s that have past. Like the Astartes & Ultra Marines the engineers must reverse tech to keep the upkeep of these insanely huge ships.
What about the Imperial Fists ship fortress. It's supposed to be a massive ship from the Dark Age of technology that is the mobile fortress monastery of the chapter.
Where's the figure for 20km Hive ship?
I can see it being the case as the "flagship" of an entire hive fleet, but not for a tendril of that hive fleet
There are "standard" hive ships in mere Tyranid splinter fleet that were described to be the size of a continent (hundreds of miles long at least).
@@сесьсясь What book bro?
I think authors have 0 sense of scale
I'm dreaming about Armada III...
*** *C* *O* *N* *T* *I* *N* *E* *N* *T* *S* *I* *Z* *E* ***
I really don't wanna walk on these ship from tail to head and vice versa. Especially ships above 4km
They have trams that take you from one end of the ship to the other.
where rock?
The Rock.
5:43 5:58 who's ship? Emperor?
Speranza - imba Dark Age of Technology Ark Mechanicus with it's own Abominable Intelligence, I suggest reading how it's weapon works - one of the most OP stuff in 40k.
@@Ddarth_sidious thank you!
no raptorus rex?
Откуда были взяты размеры?
what about the rock?
Thank you so much for the video! I only reached Battle for the Abyss book , this helped me understand the true size of Imperium naval fleet. There is big question for me , if Imperium has such giant war machines then why Tyrannids Hive fleet considered the most undefeated foe for Humanity?
The Esperanza... lol
A different kind of 20 mil caliber.
Ты забыл про новый корабль тиранидов - живую луну,из посленец компании про четвёртую тиранидскую войну,её обнаружила гвардия ворона.Правда до чизьпор не ясно:это боевой корабль или гигантская консерва для флота тиранидов
Imperium has no heavy cruisers, it is grand cruisers. Both Emperor and Retribution class battleships are equal in size.
Good video, just watch it at double speed
God, Macragge's Honor just being this big, dumb blue and yellow eyesore is just fucking PERFECT for one of the worst factions of Space Marines.
But important question: What would be the best shoe design? I think mars battle cruiser would be classy
the hive ship is bigger as every standart ship of the imps. yeaha
And Nid have many more ships than imperium 😂 so defeat them in space battles is impossible
So, a small hive ship is smaller than some big imp ships. Show a proper sized one next time
These mega ships have to be in handfuls or the imperium would dominate
🎉🎉🎉🎉
I see you....👀😅
I played enough battlefleet gothic armada 2 to know how pathetic those frigates are
Some of these ships need their own zip codes.
holy shit dude, you could have made this vcideo 2 minnutes long and id have watched it but y ou got all these slow ass animations.
在"天元突破 紅蓮螺巖"裡,這些都只能算是灰塵而已!!!
and Space Ball One is bigger than them all
Now the quistion is can earth of thes ships together bring ot down