What Red Thirst? There is nothing of that name and there has never been. Anything like that would surely be heresy. Don't be ridiculous.
Also cerally, To kill this thread they dont swim,they sink, so that They invade from the depths, to a degree depending on the pressure they can take etc.. Space Marines can breathe underwater...
As usual i will try to make some educated guess, just for the kick. For start: yeah they totally can go on foot underwater. They have Space grade sealing on their armour and can totally breath underwater with all the gear and plushes they carry around them.Considering armour thickness, puncturing resistance and tensile strength of the materiel and the raw resistance to pressure and pain of a fused ribcage, black carapace wearing space marine, I'd say they are good for a few k meter deep. ( > 5 at least)) So an underwater assault, Pirate of the Caribbean style, is totally within reach. Question is does they know how to swim ? I'm pretty sure they do. First of, they quite probably need it anyway. Anyone who have ever try to walk underwater ( for diving or dragging a boat) know how fucking hard it is. Swimming is whole lot easier. Ok I know they sink like brick in water. Except they have the reach, muscular power and surface of a small cement truck, so at the expense of colossal level of energy and quite a good stirring of water they can sustain themselves up and swim imho. Second thing is every one of you assume swim IN WATER. I mean, why ? there is lot of fluid way denser than water and considering the variety of place and combat ground that an average space marine see, it's not far fetched to think that maybe he can have use for swimming in mercury, arsenic, heavy metal with low liquid point, any compound fluid enough and heavy enough to lift it. Since they are naturally sealed( even without armour ) and can withstand most of toxins anyway I don't see why they would not swim on these things ( considering that swimming is a whole lot easier than walking in molten mercury ) What about extremely salty water ? What about oil ? What about any monstrous fluid of chaos ? What about blood ? Third I think they need it for training purpose. Space marine are supposed to be trained before and after genetic mod and armour training. they are supposed to be prepared to fight in weightlessness and performing orbital combat. They are supposed to handle weak gravity and dense as hell atmosphere. They are train to dive in all kind of gas and fluid. how do you prepare to that without a tank of fluid ? There is a reason why every space agency as huge tank of fluid around training facility. Since some student sink like brick and since some student are young ( recruiting start early ) it will be criminal negligence to not take 5h to teach them some swimming. TL;DR: Does space marine swim ? Probably not, or rarely Does they know how ? Pretty sure they do
They should, actually. If medieval knights could swim in their full armor (the medieval rite of passage to the knights included the 100-yard swimming in full armor), then these 700-pound beasts with power of a good silverback gorilla shouldn't have any problems with it
I just want to take the time to thank everybody for taking my question seriously and actually coming up with logical and logistical arguments about the matter In all honesty, it was posted partly as a joke, but also because I don't recall the topic ever being brought up, or at least very seldomly being brought up in the fluff.
