Imperial Subterranean Vehicles

Imperial Subterranean Vehicle are a specialist type of tunnelling troop transports utilised by Imperial military forces, collectively known as tunnellers or miners. These mining machines tunnel their way underground while the battle rages above, bypassing enemy troops and fortifications and emerging behind enemy lines. Tunnellers can move over the surface as well as underground, but as they only travel slowly overland it is usual to transport them to battlefields on huge tracked transporter vehicles. Imperial military forces appreciate the value of tunnellers as assault vehicles for overcoming both surface defences and subterranean strongholds, using them in large numbers. Many of the tunneling vehicles used by the Imperium were obtained as part of the mutual exchange of materials and technologies between the Squat homeworlds and the Imperium in the years of the Great Crusade in the late 30th Millennium.

Known Types of Subterranean Vehicles
The following are the most common tunnellers utilised by Imperial forces:
 * Termite - The Termite is used by the Adeptus Mechanicus as a subterranean transport vehicle. The Termite is the smallest of the tunnellers. It carries two squads of Imperial Guard troops and the various Termites are organised into squadrons for tactical purposes. Termite squadrons all use the same tunnel, each following behind the other and branching to the surface only at the last moment. The Termite, the Mole and the Hellbore use a phase-field generator to burrow through the ground, whereas the Hades Breaching Drill uses a more "brute-force" approach that applies physical drills.
 * Mole - The Mole is used by the Adeptus Mechanicus as a subterranean transport vehicle, and is the intermediate sized tunneller, carrying a single platoon of Imperial Guard tactical troops. All Moles carry special communications equipment which allows them to relay orders to the troops they carry.
 * Hades Breaching Drill - The Hades Breaching Drill is a piece of industrial equipment that has been used for both civilian and military purposes by the Imperium of Man. The Hades drill is normally used on Imperial Mining Worlds to help miners dig new mining tunnels to find deposits of strategic ores and remove rubble and debris, but there have been several occasions where the Hades has been pressed into military service with the Imperial Guard. When the Hades is used in a military role it is usually during a prolonged siege, where it serves as a breaching drill that can break into a bunker or through the wall of an enemy fortification. The Hades Drill is equipped with a forward-firing Melta-Cutter that can turn rock and metal into molten slag in seconds. Its massive drilling blades are tipped with Diamantine and can easily cut through most materials, be it rock, metal, or even flesh.
 * Hellbore - The Hellbore is the largest of the tunnelling troop transports utilised by the Adeptus Mechanicus known collectively as tunnellers or miners.

Also See

 * Imperial Vehicles
 * Imperial Guard Vehicles

Gallery
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