Space Marines: Surprisingly Cost-Effective
April 7, 2012 in Editorial
“Give me a hundred Space Marines. Or failing that give me a thousand other troops” –Rogal Dorn, Primarch of the Imperial Fists
In WarHammer 40,000 the main advantage of having a Space Marine on your side is that all of your enemies die a swift death. The main disadvantage is of course that no-one knows how much they cost in 2012.
But we can try.
One way to estimate the cost of a Space Marine would be to assume that one Marine = 10 contemporary troops and do the maths that way; we’d be interested to hear from people who have done this and how they have calculated the value of one soldier. We’re using the points approach.
Warhammer uses ‘points’ as a means of creating balanced armies. The idea is that if every model in an army has an assigned points value proportional to its worth, then a battle where each opponent has say 1,000 points worth of models should be an even fight.
Futuristic weapons like plasma pistols and shuriken cannons might be difficult to find a price for. But happily, we have the Imperial Guard. The footslogging, hard done by PBI’s of the 41st Millenium are really just 21st century troops trying to take on all the aliens in the universe.
Centives compared Imperial Guard weapons and equipment with modern equivalents. The slides below show the Imperial version first, followed by the modern day counterpart, calculating the points to money ratio. Click through the slideshow below to see them all:
So depending on the comparison weapon, we get different values of between £3,111 and £28,113 per point. Which, whilst not great, gives us something to work with. Now a Space Marine costs 15 points, meaning that the defenders of humanity are worth between £46,665 and £421,695. Taking the middle ground that will set you back £234,180 or $372,127. Which, we here at Centives would argue is excellent value for money for a genetically-engineered superhuman to help you out in that all important skirmish against your foe.
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I think both Maxwell and Maxis’ comments above are spot on, especially Maxwell’s points about genetic engineering and lifelong training costs.
On the flip side, though, we’re leaving out the economies of scale that kick in when you have a vast, interstellar network of laborers and material resources. Imagine the kind of outsourcing you could do at that scale, and how cheaply you could source your raw materials. There’s always going to be somebody willing to underbid everyone else, not to mention the possibility of scrappy little freighter crews happy to move cargo around for very thin margins.
Hell, even a lot of the science could probably be farmed out. In a universe that populous, even genius probably becomes a commodity.
(But maybe the main thrust of this article is to assume availability of future tech here on Earth, without the infrastructure of the 40K universe.)
The humans in this setting are deeply superstitious of technology – they had an event similar to the Butlerian Jihad as depicted in the Dune series of books. As a consequence, technology is treated by humans with much superstition and only the Adeptus Mechanicus – a monastic order of humans who live on Mars – have the authority to approve of any new technologies. Yes, a titanic infrastructure does exist but the theory of relativity and extreme bureaucracy dominates everything within the Imperium. So if a world has been lost to an alien threat or worse, it could take centuries for the Imperium to even notice and many more hundreds of years before they can mobilize and deploy a task force to investigate the issue. In this setting, many worlds have been lost to alien invasion, natural disaster, planetary civil war, demonic influence, or may simply be sucked into the Warp. By the time said task force arrives, it’s often far too late for any kind of intervention. It’s a miracle that the Imperium has even survived as long as it has (40,000 years.)
I think it’s worth noting that the values used are just for the materiel, rather than the actual soldiers themselves. Equipping a Space Marine and training a Space Marine are two very different things. Keep in mind that these are genetically enhanced super-soldiers trained from birth (or at least a very young age) to kill the enemies of Man.
A more accurate comparison might be had if one counted the cost of training the crew of the Challenger 2 in addition to merely the value of the weapons platform itself. Similarly, with the rocket launcher and mortar, one might include the cost of training the minimum one- and two-man crew.
An even more accurate value might be had if we consider the cost of training a United States or British special forces soldier (rather than a standard “grunt” because the Space Marines are supposed to be the Emperor’s best troops) and multiplied that value to cover the Space Marine’s entire life up to deployment, then added the result to what you found in the original article (the cost of armor, weapons, cybernetics, etc.). This value would likely be a bit low because it doesn’t include the cost of genetic modification.
I imagine that either of these methods would lead to significantly higher dollar value (likely in the hundreds of millions) for your average Space Marine.
You’re useing comparisons to modern US equipment. With the exception of the rocket launcher, I am sure that your comparisons are not accurate, and in the case of the rocket launcher, I would suspect that the weapon shown is wire or laser guided. The weapon used by the IG is a dumb-fire reloadable rocket launcher and is more akin to weapons used in ‘Nam then today’s weapons.
There are lots of less expensive mortars out there. The fact that the one the US costs so much makes me wonder what exactly drives up the cost of a tube, cordite charge, adjustable stand and explosive shell.
The Challenger 2 is in no way analogous to the Russ, and is more in line with the Predator for being a mobile, nimble armoured platform for weapons. the russ is a heavy, lumbering behemoth like the Tiger Tank of WW2. I don’t think there are any vehicles in common military service that sacrifice mobility for armour and fire power like the Russ does. It is more akin to a mobile gun or land battleship then modern tanks.
With the exception of exo-skeletal powered armour, most modern militaries function like Space marines. Quick, agile and highly skilled. they move it, strike vital points and project power and control, rather then consolidate each inch of ground like they used to.
I disagree. I think that Space Marines follow the Light Infantry/Scout Cavalry model of combat in regards to their response time and mobility – the irony here being that Space Marines most definitely qualify as heavy infantry. Granted, we don’t currently have any units that insert themselves into a combat zone via orbital drop, hovercraft (Space Marine Land Speeders essentially are capable of making a HAHO/HALO drop,) or teleportation. But contemporary light infantry does make HAHO/HALO drops, helocast, or find other inventive ways of being inserted into combat zones where as standard infantry still have to hump it by foot or are transported via lightly-armored movers like APCs, IFVs, etc.
I’m a civilian, though, so I have a very limited perspective of what I’ve been seeing, so perhaps my assessment is wrong.