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Design features of Imperial Navy vessels

Offensive Weaponry
Weapons Batteries usually are the primary armament for most warships. Since each battery consist of numerous ranks of individual weapons, whole sections of the ship's hull can be covered by gun ports, launcher systems, turrets and weapon housings. The weapons employed vary immensely: plasma projectors, close-range missile launchers, laser cannons, rail guns, fusion beamers and graviton pulsars have been found on Imperial ships. These batteries fire in co-ordinated salvoes, to increase the chances to hit and amount of damage done to a target.

Lances are energy weapons of extreme power. Usually mounted in large and heavily armoured turrets, lances use triple or even quad energy projectors to focus its energy into a concentrated beam, capable of burning through even the most armoured hull and cutting smaller vessels in half.
Torpedoes are long range missiles carried by many Imperial Navy vessels. From sixty to two hundred metres in length, these weapons are powered by a plasma reactor which also doubles as its warhead. Once launched, the plasma drive propels the torpedo towards its target, whilst starting an energy build-up that will detonate the projectile once it reaches its target. Most torpedoes only have limited detection capabilities and will not track and engage its target unless its passes within a few thousand kilometres of the target vessel. Unlike weapons batteries and lances, torpedoes cannot be deflected by a ship's shields - the sheer size of the warhead enables them to plough through even the most powerful energy barrier with ease.
Nova Cannons are huge weapons. Normally mounted in the prow of the ship so that the ship's engines can compensate for the recoil, these guns use gravimetric impellers to propel a projectile close to the speed of light. After reaching a preset distance, the projectile implodes with a force potent enough to cripple most vessels and/or damage several at once. The largest Imperial battleships are known to mount Nova Cannons so monstrously powerful that they are able to devastate entire enemy fleets in a single salvo.

Defensive systems
Every Navy vessel is covered with defensive turrets designed specifically to destroy incoming bombers and torpedoes.
Shields are protective energy barriers that allow ships to survive the hostile environment that is space. Shields form an invisible band of energy around the vessel, a variable layer of force that can absorb radiation, interstellar dust, particle showers and weapons hits. Shields have a maximum tolerance and can be overloaded by sustained fire, forcing the generators to shut down to vent off excess energy.
Every spacefaring vessel is equipped with a certain amount of armour, capable of deflecting impacts on the ships' hull. The strength and thickness of the armour varies depending on the ship's size and type - a tiny escort ship will have a ribbed outer hull maybe a foot thick or less, while an 8-kilometre-long Imperial battleship will have three separate, heavily reinforced adamantium hull layers, with a total thickness of over 10 metres. Typical among modern ships of the Imperial Navy is the armoured prow, which is massively reinforced and can be hundreds of feet thick on the largest ships as it is also used as a ram prow. It is capable of deflecting all but the most powerful of frontal hits.

Propulsion systems
Every Imperial ship is equipped with a plasma drive for normal propulsion through the depths of space. Running up to a third of the ship's length, the aft section is a mass of drive tubes, engine compartments and plasma reactors.
Most Navy ships employ warp drives to breach the barrier that separates realspace from the Immaterium and allow for interstellar travel. Implosion of these drives can lead to the creation of a warp rift.

Fighter Squadrons

Many Imperial Navy capital starships are capable of carrying starfighter squadrons. These are used in a variety of roles, from small fighters providing defence against torpedo attacks, to heavy bombers packing anti-ship ordnance. The largest battleships and heavy cruisers are known to have launch bay capacities of up to 2000 fighter craft, bombers and dropships.

The Fury Interceptor is the most common starfighter used by the Imperial Navy for space combat. With some variants reaching 60 to 70 metres in length, the Fury is significantly larger than most atmospheric fighters, and carries a pilot, navigator and gunner. On occasion, an Astropath psyker will also be aboard, to provide greater communications capability. The Fury's reinforced hull contains an extensive network of circuitry and life-support systems, and even has a small chemical toilet and sleeping compartment for the crew. Furies are normally equipped with multiple forward-firing banks of lascannons and anti-starfighter missiles.

Starhawk bombers are larger, slower craft, designed to carry a heavy payload of plasma bombs and armour piercing missiles, for use against enemy capital ships. Crewed by a pilot, co-pilot, tech-priest (plus acolytes), various turret gunners and a logistics officer, a standard Starhawk features limited sleeping quarters, chemical toilets and even an automated medical unit inside its hull. Armed with a multitude of short-range turret-mounted defence weapons, used to fend off enemy starfighters, a lone Starhawk can wreak havoc among enemy fighter squadrons before swooping in to deliver a crippling missile strike on an enemy capital ship. On rare occasions, Starhawks can be modified to carry and launch a very small number of anti-starship torpedoes.

Atmospheric Aircraft
As part of the post-Heresy reorganisation, all aviation capability was assigned to the Imperial Navy. No Imperial Guard regiment (with the exception of the Phantine Air Corps and Elysian Drop Troops) has access to atmospheric fightercraft, and the assistance of the Imperial Navy is required when air support is needed for a campaign.

For atmospheric fighter combat, the two workhorses of the Imperial Navy are the Lightning strike fighters and the Thunderbolt heavy fighter . The Lightning is the faster and more maneuverable of the two, but cannot carry as many weapons as the Thunderbolt, and are considerably lighter armoured. Lightnings are often used as reconnaissance aircraft and interceptors, while Thunderbolts are mainly assigned to an air superiority role. Both are equipped with vector-thrust capability.

Marauder bombers are huge aircraft, capable of carrying two thousand kilograms of ordnance. Each Marauder possesses a massive bomb bay, along with a pair of lascannons and two pairs of heavy bolters for defense against enemy fighters. Marauders were the Imperial Navy's original space-borne bomber craft before their replacement by the equally large, but more advanced and heavily armed, Starhawk bomber class The Marauder is also equipped with vector-thrust.
For close support, the Imperial Navy has access to Valkyrie transports, and the Vulture gunship. These aircraft are not true flight craft, instead using vectored thrust to travel quickly at low altitudes.