What is the average size of a regiment? I heard somewhere that it was only 15000. That seems a bit small for the IOM. If there is no canon number. What do you think would be a average size of a imperial guard regiment?

For the navy what is the common composition of a fleet? How many ships are there in grand total of a fleet? Is there a limit of ships a certain fleet can have before it gets in trouble?

I firmly believe the numbers in the book are exaggerated, and represent more of a rare case of exceedingly large regiments. Honestly, 15,000 is a huge regiment, massive even.

Considering a Platoon is anywhere from 35-100 with all the special and heavy weapons, and you'll have anywhere from 3-10 platoons per company. That brings us to a minimum of ~100 up to ~1000. A regiment will then have anywhere from 3-15 companies (an example in the apoc rule book states 12 companies at full strength), which brings our numbers to ~300 up to 15,000, with the average falling somewhere in between around the 4-7k mark. Armoured companies will have less, light regiments will have more.

IG Regiments are typically depicted as being between 2,000 to 20,000, but it varies massively. Really it's stupidly small if you're below the 100,000 level given what their missions involve.

BFG stated that a Battlefleet (one that operates at a Sector Level) consists of usually 70 capital ships plus escort squadrons and support craft. It was stated before in BFG that all of Segmentum Obscurus' operates 900 Cruiser-class vessels. Those are really the only 2 things as far as numbers go and of course does not include Space Marine vessels, local defense fleets operated by PDF's, Arbites patrol vessels, Inquisitiorial Strike Cruisers, the League of Black Ships, Ecclesiarchy craft, etc.

most sci-fi authors don't have a great grasp of numbers required for military formations. Typically Regiments are depicted as having a few thousand troops and then they take worlds with a handful of regiments. Taking WW2 as an example of the most recent industrial scale global conflict, troop numbers were much greater. A division might have anything from 50-150k guys, made up from not too many regiments. Also if you take an infantry regiment, only half of those guys will be riflemen. The rest will be specialists, vehicle crews and logistics staff.

You could easily have a Guard regiment of 20,000 guys split into battallions of several companies each. I think the problem is that people concentrate on the US version of Regiments as a defined size of formation, rather than the more traditional UK definition of a regiment being an organizational construct that coul d be made up of a variety of sizes of formation.

There are figures in 40k as diverse as 1,000 to 750,000 (Xenos by Abnett). It varies dependant upon the world raising the regiment and the tithes demanded by the Munitorum.

Without going into detailed research, all I'll say is a 40k regiment is specifically NOT the size of a real world regiment and would be magnitudes larger for most worlds.

Simply put, the life of a human is worth far less in 40k than in real life, and when the prototypical regiment's(read: not Cadian) main tactic consists of clogging your enemies war machines with bodies, you're going to need a lot of bodies.

A regiment varies wildly. It can be from a few dozen super heavy tank crews to well over a hundred thousand. As they will often never see the homeworld again, will not get reinforcements to replace loses, it tends to be large.

On the navy, as was said about 50-70 main capital ships is the average for a sector. some have much, much larger numbers.

Flinty wrote:most sci-fi authors don't have a great grasp of numbers required for military formations. Typically Regiments are depicted as having a few thousand troops and then they take worlds with a handful of regiments. Taking WW2 as an example of the most recent industrial scale global conflict, troop numbers were much greater. A division might have anything from 50-150k guys, made up from not too many regiments. Also if you take an infantry regiment, only half of those guys will be riflemen. The rest will be specialists, vehicle crews and logistics staff.

You could easily have a Guard regiment of 20,000 guys split into battallions of several companies each. I think the problem is that people concentrate on the US version of Regiments as a defined size of formation, rather than the more traditional UK definition of a regiment being an organizational construct that coul d be made up of a variety of sizes of formation.

No, divisions during the war had ~8,000-12,000 men in them.
But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

Hunterindarkness wrote:
On the navy, as was said about 50-70 main capital ships is the average for a sector. some have much, much larger numbers.

That's overstating it:

Each battlefleet consists of 50 to 75 warships of varying size, although in some sectors this will more or less, according to the importance of the sector and the number of enemies it must contend with. As well as these destroyers, frigates, cruisers, and battleships...

p. 86, Battlefleet Gothic rulebook

It is 50 to 75 warships of all sizes, meaning not all are capital ships and are escort sized.

Joey wrote:

Flinty wrote:most sci-fi authors don't have a great grasp of numbers required for military formations. Typically Regiments are depicted as having a few thousand troops and then they take worlds with a handful of regiments. Taking WW2 as an example of the most recent industrial scale global conflict, troop numbers were much greater. A division might have anything from 50-150k guys, made up from not too many regiments. Also if you take an infantry regiment, only half of those guys will be riflemen. The rest will be specialists, vehicle crews and logistics staff.

You could easily have a Guard regiment of 20,000 guys split into battallions of several companies each. I think the problem is that people concentrate on the US version of Regiments as a defined size of formation, rather than the more traditional UK definition of a regiment being an organizational construct that coul d be made up of a variety of sizes of formation.

No, divisions during the war had ~8,000-12,000 men in them.
But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

I've seen some number crunching that says that the hive worlds alone could raise quadrillions of soldiers if the Imperium had need of such massive numbers. And according to the Strategic Council of Terra, the Tyranids alone would require that. Whatever happens, I think a bowl of popcorn is called for.

Iracundus wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:
On the navy, as was said about 50-70 main capital ships is the average for a sector. some have much, much larger numbers.

That's overstating it:

Each battlefleet consists of 50 to 75 warships of varying size, although in some sectors this will more or less, according to the importance of the sector and the number of enemies it must contend with. As well as these destroyers, frigates, cruisers, and battleships...

p. 86, Battlefleet Gothic rulebook

It is 50 to 75 warships of all sizes, meaning not all are capital ships and are escort sized.

Eh I was counting those, I was not counting transports, shuttles and the like as you can most likely almost double or triple a fleets size with these, much less things like fighters. Perhaps i should have said "warship", sorry if I was unclear. Even a 40k destroyer like a cobra can lay waste to a planet.

Joey wrote:
No, divisions during the war had ~8,000-12,000 men in them.
But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

Current World armed forces are about 100million, so about 10% of that. If pushed the world probably could manage a wimpy US billion. However no where near a proper UK billion.

Electro wrote:

Joey wrote:
No, divisions during the war had ~8,000-12,000 men in them.
But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

Current World armed forces are about 100million, so about 10% of that. If pushed the world probably could manage a wimpy US billion. However no where near a proper UK billion.

Damn you differences in the English language, damn you to hell. Some spelling differences are okay, but having billion be different in the US and UK is confusing as hell.

Buttons wrote:

Electro wrote:

Joey wrote:
No, divisions during the war had ~8,000-12,000 men in them.
But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

Current World armed forces are about 100million, so about 10% of that. If pushed the world probably could manage a wimpy US billion. However no where near a proper UK billion.

Damn you differences in the English language, damn you to hell. Some spelling differences are okay, but having billion be different in the US and UK is confusing as hell.

Ya know up until now I did not know there was a difference. It really does not matter as the UK has adopted the American usage. It I had to guess I would say the older Uk usage was the archaic meaning of the word, and the American usage was changed to fit into standard tens counting.

i feel 4k-12k is a good estimate for an average regiment. when you see far greater numbers than that it is probably a one time thing to levy troops meet a certain threat at the time. The command structure would probably seem chaotic at times i bet.

But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

Only if it drafted every able-bodied man between the ages of 18 and 45 could Earth field an army of 1 billion people. If we included women, and drafted all of them capable of military service, we might see an army of 3 billion people. Maybe. And that's almost half the total population of the planet, incidentally. Our actual military capability would, in all likelihood, be much, much less.

I really think that the term "Regiment" is used because it sounds cool and because its a well known infantry unit over in Britain.

The fact is the structure for the Imperium is a bit silly and not really believable. It's a secondary thing and unimportant. They range wildly in size for the same due to population differences, casualties, and role. For example a modern Military Intelligence Brigade will have significantly less personnel than a Infantry Brigade. I believe, but may be incorrect, that Infantry units tend to be proportionally larger than other units.

Also keep in mind that support staff is largely ignored unless a tiny portion is introduced for story-line purposes....and then only for a short glimmer.

Story-wise;

Medics are cool.....Field Hospitals are boring.
Armoured vehicles are awesome......Mechanics? Yawn!
Firing guns? YAY.....Driving around with ammo and fuel? Nay.
Calling in close contact artillery strikes rocks......Making sure communication lines are kept up sucks.

and so on....

There isn't an average regiment.

Regiment size depends entirely on the type of regiment.



Gaunt's Ghosts are around 5000 at full strength, but they are a scout not a front line regiment.

Armored Regiments will be fewer in number but will have their armored elements making up for it.

Foot regiments will be the largest.


It may also vary depending on where the regiment was raised.

Harriticus wrote:IG Regiments are typically depicted as being between 2,000 to 20,000, but it varies massively. Really it's stupidly small if you're below the 100,000 level given what their missions involve.

BFG stated that a Battlefleet (one that operates at a Sector Level) consists of usually 70 capital ships plus escort squadrons and support craft. It was stated before in BFG that all of Segmentum Obscurus' operates 900 Cruiser-class vessels. Those are really the only 2 things as far as numbers go and of course does not include Space Marine vessels, local defense fleets operated by PDF's, Arbites patrol vessels, Inquisitiorial Strike Cruisers, the League of Black Ships, Ecclesiarchy craft, etc.

It's likely that a large sector of thousands of worlds would have tens of thousands of ships, counting all the small ones, while a smaller sector might have only around 1,000. Even WWII armies had thousands of ships. People make 40k armies way too small.

The Wehrmacht was 18 million soldiers.

Hunterindarkness wrote:

Buttons wrote:

Electro wrote:

Joey wrote:
No, divisions during the war had ~8,000-12,000 men in them.
But it does make me laugh when sci-fi writers say that "The Imperial Guard numbers billions of troops". 21st Century Earth could probably manage that at a push.

Current World armed forces are about 100million, so about 10% of that. If pushed the world probably could manage a wimpy US billion. However no where near a proper UK billion.

Damn you differences in the English language, damn you to hell. Some spelling differences are okay, but having billion be different in the US and UK is confusing as hell.

Ya know up until now I did not know there was a difference. It really does not matter as the UK has adopted the American usage. It I had to guess I would say the older Uk usage was the archaic meaning of the word, and the American usage was changed to fit into standard tens counting.

Incorrect, in the UK a billion is still defined as a million million (12 zeros) rather than the american ~100 million = billion (9 zeros). GW is a UK company so it sounds reasonable to assume they use the UK format of a billion I.E. 1,000,000,000,000.

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:

Harriticus wrote:IG Regiments are typically depicted as being between 2,000 to 20,000, but it varies massively. Really it's stupidly small if you're below the 100,000 level given what their missions involve.

BFG stated that a Battlefleet (one that operates at a Sector Level) consists of usually 70 capital ships plus escort squadrons and support craft. It was stated before in BFG that all of Segmentum Obscurus' operates 900 Cruiser-class vessels. Those are really the only 2 things as far as numbers go and of course does not include Space Marine vessels, local defense fleets operated by PDF's, Arbites patrol vessels, Inquisitiorial Strike Cruisers, the League of Black Ships, Ecclesiarchy craft, etc.

It's likely that a large sector of thousands of worlds would have tens of thousands of ships, counting all the small ones, while a smaller sector might have only around 1,000. Even WWII armies had thousands of ships. People make 40k armies way too small.

The Wehrmacht was 18 million soldiers.

Engaged in million man battles with the USSR.

Hell, I think WW2 alone is bigger than any war I know of in 40k.

DxM Scotty MxD wrote:

Incorrect, in the UK a billion is still defined as a million million (12 zeros) rather than the american ~100 million = billion (9 zeros). GW is a UK company so it sounds reasonable to assume they use the UK format of a billion I.E. 1,000,000,000,000.

No, I looked it up. Officially GB uses the American version. They switched in 1975 under Chancellor Denis Healey. Some people may still use it but officially the country uses the American version.

Steelmage99 wrote:Also keep in mind that support staff is largely ignored unless a tiny portion is introduced for story-line purposes....and then only for a short glimmer.

Spot on. People want to read about the action, whether that's imperial guard troopers pouring into the breach as fast as the front lines can die or heroic space marines taking out ten times their number in a brutal swift strike.

Guardsman Joe and Tim sweating while hauling up ammo crates for the HW teams? Servitors under the guidance of chapter serf Michael restocking a Rhino? Nah... Boring. Besides, the actual games are also so short that they don't need to deal with supplies so there's no reason to even think about it.

Amaya wrote:

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:

Harriticus wrote:IG Regiments are typically depicted as being between 2,000 to 20,000, but it varies massively. Really it's stupidly small if you're below the 100,000 level given what their missions involve.

BFG stated that a Battlefleet (one that operates at a Sector Level) consists of usually 70 capital ships plus escort squadrons and support craft. It was stated before in BFG that all of Segmentum Obscurus' operates 900 Cruiser-class vessels. Those are really the only 2 things as far as numbers go and of course does not include Space Marine vessels, local defense fleets operated by PDF's, Arbites patrol vessels, Inquisitiorial Strike Cruisers, the League of Black Ships, Ecclesiarchy craft, etc.

It's likely that a large sector of thousands of worlds would have tens of thousands of ships, counting all the small ones, while a smaller sector might have only around 1,000. Even WWII armies had thousands of ships. People make 40k armies way too small.

The Wehrmacht was 18 million soldiers.

Engaged in million man battles with the USSR.

Hell, I think WW2 alone is bigger than any war I know of in 40k.

Yeah, that's the problem. WWII should be a tiny battle in 40k, and yet a lot of people shout out figures that are inferior even to that.

Inquisitor Ehrenstein wrote:It's likely that a large sector of thousands of worlds would have tens of thousands of ships, counting all the small ones

Nope. Fluff states ~70, therefore it is ~70. Sectors don't vary too much in size. Certainly not enough to justify the existance of a fleet more than one hundred times the size of a 'usual' fleet.

I think I recall reading of 200+ ships in a sectors but can't recall where or which one, On the same note some sectors could have as few as 30-40 warships.

@ Kaldor, I though a sector was an area of space, not a number of planets. I know for example the Calixs Sector exceeds that number by a bit with 177 known worlds. I am unsure of its fleet size but by fluff it seems to be on the larger side of the scale.

...Why does this matter at all? Is someone planning on making an entire regiment? Good luck finding a game big enough to use it in, let alone painting ten thousand Guardsmen. At the end of the day, how many Guardsmen/capital ships/Space Marines/Adeptas Sororitas/Craftworlds/Chaos Marines/whatever there are in the galaxy shouldn't affect any background you're writing or army you're building unless you're a munchkin who wants to put the entire Purifier Order on the table at once or something like that. Just avoid stepping on other peoples' toes when you're writing fluff (avoid contradicting the fluff if you're trying to make a force from an established organization (no Aspect Warrior-heavy Ulthwe armies, for instance), for instance), and you should be fine.

Given the sheer size of 40k ships and how difficult they are to manufacture for the Imperium, the ~70 Capital Ships would be a good number for a Sector, though it should obviously have many thousands supporting, patrol, and escort craft to go with it.

Really I think the minimum size for a Regiment, a self-sufficent fighting force capable of waging planet-wide campaigns, should be about 500,000. I'd even keep my suspension of disbelief at 250,000.

I'm not really sure why GW has such an issue with big numbers. The Imperium has a million worlds, but everything else in 40k is fairly small. Even the huge Ork Waaagh! on Armageddon is about 2 million or so Orks. North Korea had more troops in South Korea then that.

Harriticus wrote:Given the sheer size of 40k ships and how difficult they are to manufacture for the Imperium, the ~70 Capital Ships would be a good number for a Sector, though it should obviously have many thousands supporting, patrol, and escort craft to go with it.

Really I think the minimum size for a Regiment, a self-sufficent fighting force capable of waging planet-wide campaigns, should be about 500,000. I'd even keep my suspension of disbelief at 250,000.

I'm not really sure why GW has such an issue with big numbers. The Imperium has a million worlds, but everything else in 40k is fairly small. Even the huge Ork Waaagh! on Armageddon is about 2 million or so Orks. North Korea had more troops in South Korea then that.

I agree about the numbers.

70 ships would have to be 70 capital ships, or at least major warships, as there's no way that would be able to include the smaller ships, and still be a significant force in wars the size of the galaxy.

Well even light cruisers are defined as capitol ships. There is no set in stone size for them, but the low end crew for a Lunar Class Light Cruiser is 12,000 which is fairly small in an Imperium of trillions.

Hunterindarkness wrote:I think I recall reading of 200+ ships in a sectors but can't recall where or which one, On the same note some sectors could have as few as 30-40 warships.

@ Kaldor, I though a sector was an area of space, not a number of planets. I know for example the Calixs Sector exceeds that number by a bit with 177 known worlds. I am unsure of its fleet size but by fluff it seems to be on the larger side of the scale.

A sector is apparently about 200 light years cubed. Some will obviously have greater fleet presence than others, but if the 'norm' is stated to be around 70, then having a sector fleet with 'tens of thousands' of ships as Inquisitor Ehrenstein suggested is a completely unfounded belief. And no, that figure of 70 does not just cover cruisers and above, it covers frigates, destroyers and everything except attack craft and support ships. The relevant quote has already been posted in this thread.

Kaldor wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:I think I recall reading of 200+ ships in a sectors but can't recall where or which one, On the same note some sectors could have as few as 30-40 warships.

@ Kaldor, I though a sector was an area of space, not a number of planets. I know for example the Calixs Sector exceeds that number by a bit with 177 known worlds. I am unsure of its fleet size but by fluff it seems to be on the larger side of the scale.

A sector is apparently about 200 light years cubed. Some will obviously have greater fleet presence than others, but if the 'norm' is stated to be around 70, then having a sector fleet with 'tens of thousands' of ships as Inquisitor Ehrenstein suggested is a completely unfounded belief. And no, that figure of 70 does not just cover cruisers and above, it covers frigates, destroyers and everything except attack craft and support ships. The relevant quote has already been posted in this thread.

That makes the average sector fleet so small as to be ineffective.

its GW it may or may not be reconed and yeah that size makes it a joke.


The wiki states that its 50-75 ships of cruiser and BS class vessel, but it references a book i do not own and seems to contradict BFG numbers a wee bit. It does give the Battlefleet Armagedden, a fleets belonging solely to the Armageddon Sub-sector, as made up of 4 Battleships, 27 Cruisers and 36 squadrons of Escorts. In a single sub sector. Sol also has its own sub sector fleet

Kaldor wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:I think I recall reading of 200+ ships in a sectors but can't recall where or which one, On the same note some sectors could have as few as 30-40 warships.

@ Kaldor, I though a sector was an area of space, not a number of planets. I know for example the Calixs Sector exceeds that number by a bit with 177 known worlds. I am unsure of its fleet size but by fluff it seems to be on the larger side of the scale.

A sector is apparently about 200 light years cubed. Some will obviously have greater fleet presence than others, but if the 'norm' is stated to be around 70, then having a sector fleet with 'tens of thousands' of ships as Inquisitor Ehrenstein suggested is a completely unfounded belief. And no, that figure of 70 does not just cover cruisers and above, it covers frigates, destroyers and everything except attack craft and support ships. The relevant quote has already been posted in this thread.

A sector is not a specific size. It is simply a large cluster of worlds, with the number of worlds in a location dictating the size of the sector. Sectors can include thousands of worlds or have as few as 200.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Amaya wrote:

That makes the average sector fleet so small as to be ineffective.

Hunterindarkness wrote:its GW it may or may not be reconed and yeah that size makes it a joke.


The wiki states that its 50-75 ships of cruiser and BS class vessel, but it references a book i do not own and seems to contradict BFG numbers a wee bit. It does give the Battlefleet Armagedden, a fleets belonging solely to the Armageddon Sub-sector, as made up of 4 Battleships, 27 Cruisers and 36 squadrons of Escorts. In a single sub sector. Sol also has its own sub sector fleet

Yeah, I definitely agree with that.

The Wiki agrees with Kaldor here. http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Sector

"The size of a sector varies according to local demands and stellar density. A typical sector might encompass 7 million cubic light years, equivalent to a cube with sides almost 200 light years long. Sectors are divided into sub-sectors, usually comprising between 2 and 8 star systems within a 10 light year radius (some may encompass more systems - others only 1)"

One issue is that ship sizes are inconsistent across various sources. If you have 3000+ meter long cruisers as opposed to 1000 meter cruisers than you will need a lot less of them, I'd estimate in terms of mass, there is a 2700% difference across sources.

Yeah that bugs the living Gods out of me. But GW and 40k are always inconsistent across various sources. Poor setting management will do that every time.

Amaya wrote:One issue is that ship sizes are inconsistent across various sources. If you have 3000+ meter long cruisers as opposed to 1000 meter cruisers than you will need a lot less of them, I'd estimate in terms of mass, there is a 2700% difference across sources.

Damn... so, which is it?

Which ever book you are reading using. GW are terrible at setting control. They have little consistency and basically give you a half finished product.


The correct one is the one you use. I myself use the FFG ship sizes as at lest they are consist.

Another issue is this, realistically, the maximum feasible size for a military would be around 20% of the population. The largest active military (percentage wise) is North Korea at 4.8%, but they allegedly have total military strength of 41.8% of the population when including reserves and paramilitary forces. I really do not think an army that large is maintainable for any sustained duration in a technologically advanced society though.

That said, let's say as many as 70% of such a military is in ground forces (this includes both Combat Arms and support personnel). That means 14% of a population could potentially be in ground forces or that Earth could field a force of 980 million. Earth is nowhere near the population density of a Hive World and there should be hundreds if not thousands of Hive Worlds in the Imperium with populations exceeding 100 US Billion/.1 UK Billion or 14-15x that of Earth.

Now you're trying to tell me the standard formation is a regiment of 20,000 troops? There would be an excess of 50,000 regiments per world! To say that it would be an organisational nightmare is an understatement.

Just to highlight how idiot the structure of the IG is:

Squad - 10 Guardsmen
Platoon - 3-6 Squads 30-60 Guardsmen
Company - 3-6 Platoons, 90 - 360 Guardsmen
Regiment - Minimum of 55 Companies if 20,000 strong. That's an awfully big leap going from 3-6 units per organisational level to 55...there is a reason why modern militaries typically have 3-5 units per organisational level with a given element (infantry, armor, artillery, etc).

I would say it entirely depends on the mission. From what I understand every book I have read it makes it out to sound like the Lords of Terra decide the Regiment size and how many the Commanders get. I usually read that its about 10,000 men in on Regiment pulled from a certain world, than any Commander could have 10-20 of these Regiments in their force depending on how important their mission was to Terra.

Well it's a given that military structure past the the company level is fairly organic based on the operation, but that doesn't explain all the strange things in IG structure. Really, the only thing is that it is 'background' fluff written by people with only a slight knowledge of the most basic of military operations and it's unimportant.

A better name for regiment is "army" as that is what they are.

A more appropriate analogue would be "Division" seeing as a modern one is 6000 to 14000 strong.

Edit: GW makes use of the term 'regiment' because the UK uses a regimental system opposed to the continental system where the division is the primary military unit.

True, but that would mean GW would have to know what that was. As you pointed out they seemed not to have a grasp of how a military is organized or work's.

Hunterindarkness wrote:True, but that would mean GW would have to know what that was. As you pointed out they seemed not to have a grasp of how a military is organized or work's.

Actually, I'll partially retract that statement. GW bases a lot of their fluff on British or European history and the UK makes use of the regimental system which is fine for an island nation of 60 million, but wouldn't really work when you're dealing with worlds of billions. However, Imperial worlds are typically caricatures of European, African, and Middle Eastern countries...so I can understand why they did it to an extent even if I don't care for it.

Another issue is 40k has evolved with little care to how it all fit together. Which leads to some of the issues at the edges( and the middle, to the left as well)

Hunterindarkness wrote:
The correct one is the one you use. I myself use the FFG ship sizes as at lest they are consist.

Actually if you look in the past, you should see that it is actually FFG that has produced inconsistent ship sizes by suddenly giving numbers wildly larger and out of line with existing ones.

The BFG color images in that size chart were made by a member of the BFG list per the BFG list consensus. However since then people have modified the original scale to match their own personal demands of "bigger numbers".

The original scale is on the artist's DeviantArt page:

http://the-first-magelord.deviantart.com/gallery/8686311#/d1cy8r5

This scale is actually remarkably consistent in GW and BL publications by multiple authors over multiple years. In Shadow Point, an average Dictator class cruiser is given a crew size, though it is unclear if attack craft crew are included:

Now, six years later, he was one of the most senior non-commissioned officers amongst a crew of almost thirteen thousand...
p. 62, Shadow Point , by Gordon Rennie

The size of a Retribution battleship is explicitly mentioned is in Dark Disciple:

Admiral Rutger Augustine look out over the vast length of his flagship vessel, the mighty Retribution-class battleship, Hammer of Righteousness...Six kilometres from stern to prow...
p. 31, Dark Disciple

The relatively recent Soul Hunter describes a crew for a grand cruiser, which is larger than a cruiser, more in keeping with Andy Chambers' scale:

Over 25,000 crew called the warship home, even though a sizable chunk of those were slave labourers and servitor wretches...
p. 95-96, Soul Hunter

As shown by these quotes, the scale has been remarkably consistent over many years of BL publications. It wasn't until FFG came along that then people started trying to inflate the size for no apparent reason. It smacks of "It's 40K so things have to be stupidly big...just because". No different really from those that insist Warlord Titans are as tall as mountain ranges based on exaggerated artwork.

A common issue is supposing that just because there is volume that therefore it must have stupendous amounts of crew. However 40K, BL, and FFG themselves have given examples of decks abandoned or that hardly see any crew pass through them. The "black box" machinery produced by the Adeptus Mechanicus appears able to function for hundreds or thousands of years, or be mothballed for centuries (as given by the Imperial Armour Siege of Vraks books), so it isn't a given that the machinery of a starship must have huge numbers of crew for maintenance. Some parts might but some pieces of machinery might chug along quietly in a corner on a deck without need for anyone to supervise anything for years. Also a warship will have large amounts of space given over to redundancy, armor, fuel tanks, storage spaces, and the like. All of these do not need active crew to baby sit.

I don't know, I have read BL books that give cruisers as 8 km long and such. I don't mind smaller or larger scale, the issue I have is the lack of a consistent scale. Bl does not enforce one, hell one book has a 30km long escort. As far as I can tell BFG does not list ship size. Some fans made guess work based off some BL books but, as I sad BL goes from 6km Cruisers to 30km escorts to cutter sized warp ships. I use the FFG scale because I run the RPG's and as I said its consistent and listed.

The only ships in FFG that approach 5km+ are the battle-cruisers and Grand Cruisers, with one particularly massive bulk transport, the Universe-class, being something like 12km long. The rest of the FFG ships, such as the frigates and transports, are the normal 1-3km in length.

Yep they have more or less codified size range per ship class. As I said above there is no Official BFG ship sizes, they were never published. The first magelord took a single set of BL book by a single author and used those.. His chart is not official.. It is an example of pick your source and go with it.

Hunterindarkness wrote:A better name for regiment is "army" as that is what they are.

This is exactly right. I always read the references to "regiments" as "armies" for the most part, because that's an accurate description of their size and function. They can carry out sustained operations that often involve capturing large chunks of continents and so forth, which would take hundreds of thousands if not millions of troops at a minimum. Organizationally it wouldn't make sense to keep track of anything less than an army group on a galaxy-wide scale either.

The exception I make is for regiments like the 1st Tanith. If the planet had an extremely low population (like, in the hundreds of thousands or low millions) and no industrial base, the Administratum might call on them to raise regiments numbering in the thousands who are expertly trained as scouts or some other appropriate specialty based on their background. Similarly as someone said, a regiment of super-heavies might comprise 5 or 10 super-heavy vehicles plus whatever other support vehicles they need. This would be appropriate though, given their rarity and the way they are deployed.

If I recall Tamith did not even get a whole regiment off world before the end.The Muster was three but I do not recall if any size was ever given.

The numbers of the Tanith First-And-Only are listed between 2500 and ~10,000 soldiers, at various points, though this also includes their mix-in replacements from Verghast and Belladon.

Well I know he got 2500 off world, but if I recall that was not the whole of the first regiment. That is what they lifted off in 3 or 4 hours. They had three full regiments to start with, but numbers have never said just how big each was.

I thought that regiments where small and had to be grouped into larger divisions, battlegroups, or army groups to conquer or defend a planet. On further reading of the IG codes and some bl books, mainly Cain and Gaunt, it does appear to be this way.

Umm the IG codex stats outright some can be more then 120'000 men.They are grouped into larger units for attacks and all, but each is not always small.

It also states they are part of a larger organization, the battle group or army group. Also it states that its typically several thousand as the size of the regiment. So I'd say 2.000-5.000 sounds about right.

Good point. It is odd to me, that they use that term for 2'000 men, 300 men or 200'000 men.

Hunterindarkness wrote:Yep they have more or less codified size range per ship class. As I said above there is no Official BFG ship sizes, they were never published. The first magelord took a single set of BL book by a single author and used those.. His chart is not official.. It is an example of pick your source and go with it.

Read my posts. There is more than a single source that is consistent with that chart, which was based off of the BFG list consensus back when Andy Chambers was making posts to it.

http://www.wolfedengames.com/battlefleetgothic/crew.htm

The above is a repost of a post he made back then showing his conception for the crew sizes.

The BL books quoted and cited in my previous post span 3 authors and are separated by years in publication date, with Soul Hunter being relatively recent.

Having suddenly inflated transport sizes also plays havoc with the logic of troop transport ships, which are given in Imperial Armour 3 for example as transporting approximately a regiment each. Having inflated crew sizes means transports have much larger crews than their actual cargo of IG troops, which violates the whole principle of a troop transport ship in the first place if the crew outnumber the cargo.

The transport ship, being the vessel moving troops from Point A in the galaxy to Point B several dozen to hundreds of light-years away, is a Naval vessel, not an IG vessel, so it does not need to have fewer crew than it does troops to transport. Its function is to move people from Point A to B, and so that is what it does, whether it takes 5000 people to make that happen or 35,000.

Iracundus wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:Yep they have more or less codified size range per ship class. As I said above there is no Official BFG ship sizes, they were never published. The first magelord took a single set of BL book by a single author and used those.. His chart is not official.. It is an example of pick your source and go with it.

Read my posts. There is more than a single source that is consistent with that chart, which was based off of the BFG list consensus back when Andy Chambers was making posts to it.

I have. I Know for a Fact BFG does not give size. I also Know for a fact that BL ship size are all over the place. You just said it was cherry picked from three books. Sorry man the same sizes are not official and not back up by BFG. They like everything else are fan based guessed picking a few sources while ingoing everything else. I am not saying smaller ships are bad, but they are not more "Official" because they are in three BL books then the 30km long escort.

Soulhunter also put a cruiser at having a crew of 100'000 if it is the same Book about SM's as I think it is.

Psienesis wrote:The transport ship, being the vessel moving troops from Point A in the galaxy to Point B several dozen to hundreds of light-years away, is a Naval vessel, not an IG vessel, so it does not need to have fewer crew than it does troops to transport. Its function is to move people from Point A to B, and so that is what it does, whether it takes 5000 people to make that happen or 35,000.

The point isn't about who the ship belongs to, but about what makes a transport ship economically efficient/viable. A bus has 1 driver and 20 passengers, on a plane it's roughly 1 cabin crew to every 50 passengers, Chimera APC has 2-3 crew and 12 passengers, in WWII the American transport ship American Legion had a crew of just under 700 and a troop capacity of over 1500. Moral of the story is: the IN aren't going to fill their troop transports with Navy crew, it'll be filled with actual troops instead (IG).

No, it won't, because a bunch of ground-pounders know FA about flying a Throne-blasted starship.

The Imperium does not worry about "economic viabilty" to operating a starship, as we're given absolutely no information as to how much it costs the Imperium to operate said ship compared to how much the Imperium makes from said ship. Yes, said ship might have 25,000 crew members... 20,000 of them might be press-ganged laborers who don't get paid!

Psienesis wrote:No, it won't, because a bunch of ground-pounders know FA about flying a Throne-blasted starship.

Huh? "No" what won't? Why do the grunts sat in the barracks/cargo bays need to know how to fly a starship? The pilots and navigators etc take care of all the flying, silly! I really don't think you understand how crew-to-passenger ratios work for transport vessels... yes it's 40K and it's fiction, but there are still basics of logic that are followed (i.e. it makes no sense whatsoever for the Navy to outfit their transport vessels in a huge surplus of crew - crew that would be better served on escorts).

As they say; "Fleet do the flying, Infantry do the dying!"

IN transport ships are usually stated to be bigger then the Battleships accompaning them.

So a transporter could still have a Crew of several hundred thousand, it's cargohold can just carry a few million soldiers.

The Universe class has a crew of 60k. But is 12 km long, I.3 km wide and about 3 Km deep. She also can haul 500'000 passengers without modifications.If I have my math correct, that is 46km of ship to maintain. 60k does not seem like such a huge number when you take the size into account.

If you use the numbers from ffg you will come across the fact they are really, really small numbers for the size of ship. A modern ship say a may have 2-5 k troops on things like carries and they are a fraction of the size of the smallest 40k ship( the Enterprise is 333m and a crew of 5'800). The viper for exsample is tiny for a 40k ship(FFG Ones) at 950m long, its .25 km wide and about that deep. With a crew of 7'500 to cover a ship that size.

The numbers are simply not as far fetched as one would think.

For comparison the 1600m Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer has a crew of about 36,000 and 9,000 infantry on board. Personally, I think that is a bit excessive. At most that class of ships is 1/40th the size of a Universe class. The Omega Class Destroyer of the Earth Alliance in Babylon 5 is 1700m long and has a crew of just 850 and troop capacity of 18,000.

Crew and troop capacity varies wildly throughout various science fiction universes.

Well the IoM does not use machines or computer programs that most races would. They use a bare minimum of automation within ships.If it can be done by manpower, no matter how much more you need , no matter how much more deadly or time consuming and well idiotic to do so. They do.

Grey Templar wrote:IN transport ships are usually stated to be bigger then the Battleships accompaning them.

So a transporter could still have a Crew of several hundred thousand, it's cargohold can just carry a few million soldiers.

This is incorrect. Imperial transports for the most part small escort size vessel as shown by the BFG rulebook, thus much smaller than batteships. The occasional very large ship doesn't change the norm.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of transport ships participated in the Gothic War. The vast majority were chartered merchantmen pressed into service to move war materials to systems under blockade, while many others were Imperial Navy support vessels used to resupply the fleet and form temporary repair bases in isolated systems. The crews of these small vessels...
p. 114, "Imperial transport" BFG rulebook

Note the use of the word small. The ship size in the stats entry is also given as Escort, with 1 Hit worth of damage capacity (An Imperial battleship has 12). Also if we look to Imperial Armour 3, we see the 17th Tallarn Regiment ends up being embarked on 3 transport ships, which carried no other cargo (Imperial Armour 3, p. 45). We are also given the size of this regiment at 10,684 men (Imperial Armour 3, p. 256). That comes out to about 3,561 men per ship. Now even if there were some variable about of consumable supplies included with them on the ship, the situation is still broadly similar if we look at the 89th Tallarn infantry regiment in Imperial Armour 3, embarked on 2 transports (Imperial Armour 3, p. 45). If it were the same size that still only comes out to about 5,342 men on each ship. If we switch to the 12th Tallarn Armoured Regiment, it is spread across another 2 transports, and numbers 4,039 men (Imperial Armour 3, p. 261). That is 2,019 men + tanks per ship.

All of these are consistent with smaller ship sizes.

Anfauglir wrote:
The point isn't about who the ship belongs to, but about what makes a transport ship economically efficient/viable. A bus has 1 driver and 20 passengers, on a plane it's roughly 1 cabin crew to every 50 passengers, Chimera APC has 2-3 crew and 12 passengers, in WWII the American transport ship American Legion had a crew of just under 700 and a troop capacity of over 1500. Moral of the story is: the IN aren't going to fill their troop transports with Navy crew, it'll be filled with actual troops instead (IG).

Bingo. Right there is encapsulated the whole logic of having a transport in the first place, whether that be a bus, a plane, or ship. The whole purpose is to transport large numbers of men or cargo in a more efficient manner. Having the number of crew or drivers or whatever be vastly larger than the number of people carried makes no logical sense in terms of the meeting the objective and purpose of a transport design. It is not about money but simply that the whole point of having transports of any sort in the first place is to be able to move large numbers of people or cargo with less effort and staff. 1 crew transporting 100 makes sense. 1:10 makes sense. Even 1:2. But 2:1 or 10:1? No, that doesn't make sense then. It would be as nonsensical as being asked to believe a doctor to patient ratio in a hospital of 10 doctors per patient, when the reality is more like 1 doctor per 30 patients or more.

Hunterindarkness wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

Hunterindarkness wrote:Yep they have more or less codified size range per ship class. As I said above there is no Official BFG ship sizes, they were never published. The first magelord took a single set of BL book by a single author and used those.. His chart is not official.. It is an example of pick your source and go with it.

Read my posts. There is more than a single source that is consistent with that chart, which was based off of the BFG list consensus back when Andy Chambers was making posts to it.

I have. I Know for a Fact BFG does not give size. I also Know for a fact that BL ship size are all over the place. You just said it was cherry picked from three books. Sorry man the same sizes are not official and not back up by BFG. They like everything else are fan based guessed picking a few sources while ingoing everything else. I am not saying smaller ships are bad, but they are not more "Official" because they are in three BL books then the 30km long escort.

Soulhunter also put a cruiser at having a crew of 100'000 if it is the same Book about SM's as I think it is.

First, can you quote and cite these claims of your now multiple mention of this 30km escort? Also quote the precise part from Soul Hunter of this supposed large crew size, because the same author has already been cited by me as using a scale consistent with Andy Chambers' given scale.

The number and consistency within sources like BL novels do matter. When the inflated or aberrant mentions are the vast minority or even just a one off outlier, then the conclusion would be the author did not do their research. It would be much the same as if one day some BL author wrote of bolters shooting laser beams. The conclusion people would make in such a case would be the author did not read about bolters and wrote something completely out of whack with the existing background, and rather than conclude that 40K bolters shoot lasers, people would simply conclude the author made mistakes and got things wrong.

The scale was given by BFG's developer. BL novels have also agreed with that spatial scale as given by Andy Chambers, as demonstrated by the novel Warriors of Ultramar's description of a nova cannon firing and its range. The scale given by the designer of BFG, GW's canonical system of space warfare, holds more weight than just any random scale spouted off by a fan or a single BL writer.

The issue of inflating ship crews has numerous knock on effects that are not adequately addressed. Besides the above nonsensical situation of vast crew outnumbering their cargo on a transport ship, there is the issue of the performance of the crews in boarding actions. Eldar ships are not described as overflowing with crew, yet they perform equally well in boarding actions, point for point. Either then Eldar ships also then have to be changed to be swarming with Eldar, which is at odds with what is known about the Eldar way of things and their status as a less numerous "dying" race, or we are then asked to believe Eldar Corsairs can outfight many many times their own numbers. This is also inconsistent because we see in Imperial Armour 11 that Eldar Corsairs are about on par with Guardians with comparable weaponry, and thus roughly about equal to Imperial Guardsmen, and are shown as performing on par with such. This is not consistent with dramatic overperformance and being able to consistently outfight many times their own numbers.

People keep trying to bring up real world ships as examples. However there are key differences between today and 40K. The 40K universe has technology that somehow can last centuries in mothball storage and yet still work fine if activated (see Imperial Armour Siege of Vraks series), and ships that last for centuries or millenia. There is no indication of a need for the level of massive and regular maintenance that modern day equipment requires, certainly not undertaken by crew anyway given the Adeptus Mechanicus hoarding of technology. The STC system use in the Imperium has led to durable and advanced technology being used without being understood. Why should modern maintenance requirements therefore be used as any sort of guideline as to what is "reasonable" for a crew size? As I already mentioned earlier in this thread, both BL and FFG have background describing how it is possible for whole decks to be quiet, abandoned, forgotten about, or have stoaways or other people hiding out on them.

Finally there seems to be the mistake of using volume and then concluding therefore there must be huge crews. Modern day super freighters or LNG carriers have tiny crews despite being huge ships. One of the largest iron ore carriers ever built for example, the Vale Brasil, is 362m in length and has a total crew of 33. Cargo storage containers or gas tanks don't need huge crews to baby sit them. Reactor space, armored bulkheads, storage spaces, torpedo silos etc... are all areas that might be in use but not require anyone to actually be there or supervise anything on a regular basis. Simply having volume doesn't equate to a need to fill that volume with flesh and crew. Crew are needed for tasks to be done. While some tasks within a ship, especially combat related tasks on a warship, might require high manpower, there can equally be all sorts of minor tasks that are handled by black box machinery that does not need anyone to supervise, save perhaps by a Tech-Priest once in awhile.

Really the only purpose for having vast crew seems to be to achieve the GRIMDARK theme of having a flying ghetto in space. However as described above, just suddenly upping the crew size starts creating other conflicts and issues that are more difficult to resolve. It is analogous to accepting a claim that bolters fire lasers. It creates more conflicts with the background than it solves.

The Source I am looking at says "Wolf Pack" by Gordon Rennie has the 30km escort( To be honest I am hoping that is a typo as that is stupid, buts its BL so eh). And yes if official a scale world hold more weight, but it is not so it does not. Due to GW so called "Management " style it is all official from the BL. Any Chambers gave an 'Well in my game" statement, which sadly is not an official one. BFG has no official scale, none. the BL has no official scale, yes they have some small ships and some say they are large and some go off with cutter size warp ships and one is as official as they other,

Now I agree taking BL novels for scale is shoddy, but the fact remains before FFG's you had nothing official. Maybe they had official guidelines people were supposed to use, maybe they did not. What they did allow to happen was BL writers to use no set scale. Sure a few went with an unofficial scale but just as many if not more did not. You simply an not sit and say well this BL book is official, but these which totally contradict it is not. If it was just one or two, you might be able to say that. But the truth is the ones that agree are the minority. And that is not a good thing, but that is what we have.

The chart , while cool simply does not line up with the majority of the BL stuff. I myself would use any other source for size over BL first, but BFG does not give one.

You are also over looking the fact that the IoM does not do automation to anything but the most minimum scale. Anything that can be replaced by manpower, no matter how inefficient is.They do not have all that vaulted tech in use, they hoard it and do not understand it. In the DAoT, they would have had smaller crews. But not now, now they have replaced machines with people in every way they can. Mostly as A.I burned them , then the machines became holy and no longer understood. That is how the IoM works and that is why you have the massive crews.

Hunterindarkness wrote:The Source I am looking at says "Wolf Pack" by Gordon Rennie has the 30km escort( To be honest I am hoping that is a typo as that is stupid, buts its BL so eh). And yes if official a scale world hold more weight, but it is not so it does not. Due to GW so called "Management " style it is all official from the BL. Any Chambers gave an 'Well in my game" statement, which sadly is not an official one. BFG has no official scale, none. the BL has no official scale, yes they have some small ships and some say they are large and some go off with cutter size warp ships and one is as official as they other,

Yes that was a typo. Gordon Rennie even commented on that in the past on the BFG list. Apparently from what I recall, he said it was a change the editor made without consultation with Gordon, because the editor wanted BIG ships for no reason other than they be BIG. That's again the whole fetish of demanding everything 40K = stupidly big. There are no other such contradictions in Gordon Rennie's works.

Andy Chambers as the developer of the BFG system, carries much more weight than a random gamer reeling off his own interpretation. Just because you don't care for what he says doesn't mean it is valid to just dismiss him.

Now I agree taking BL novels for scale is shoddy, but the fact remains before FFG's you had nothing official. Maybe they had official guidelines people were supposed to use, maybe they did not. What they did allow to happen was BL writers to use no set scale. Sure a few went with an unofficial scale but just as many if not more did not. You simply an not sit and say well this BL book is official, but these which totally contradict it is not. If it was just one or two, you might be able to say that. But the truth is the ones that agree are the minority. And that is not a good thing, but that is what we have.

You haven't shown "as many". You have shown 1. I have demonstrated 3, and can demonstrate a 4th if it comes to talking about spatial scale. 3:1, means the ones that conform remain the majority. You keep spouting off "many". I see no quotes and no citations other than that one naming of that short story. One does not constitute many, any more than if one BL author saying bolters shoot lasers might make that suddenly the case. If you have "many", produce some evidence with quotes please.

You have also completely failed to address the issue of what happens when a random author or writer or publisher makes a complete outlier of a statement that is at odds with the existing background. As I already mentioned previously, the reaction of people would probably be "they screwed up by not doing their research" and write it off as a mistake and ignore it. They don't then go around bending over backwards trying to rationalize how bolters were actually firing lasers all this time, because the contradictions and knock-on effects of such a thing would wreck too many other pieces of background. This is the case with sudden inflation of crew numbers for human ships. See my previous post for some of the contradictions caused in interactions with other ships.

The 40K RPGs, for all their atmospheric background, do not have a good record when it comes to numbers. One only need look at the Calixis Sector's populations for planets. Their sector capital planet doesn't even meet the population definitions of a hive world according to the 3rd edition 40K rulebook, and is far below that of a "typical" hive world as given in the 5th edition rulebook. Essentially the RPG's when it comes to numbers, have a history of being unreliable when compared to GW's official published works.

When I get time this evening I'll look them up for you. I know( as I read it last week) Salvation reach by Dan Abnett uses the FFG scale for the Frigate in it ( a tempest class). I know Soul hunter was a gothic class, I Know the tiny warp ship came from one of the older BL inquisitor books, but I'll have to look it up.

"I cannot be everywhere, Warrant. There are ten thousand men aboard the Relentless."

http://www.richard-williams.com/relentless-notes.php

From the author of the BL novel Relentless depicting the story of a captain of a cruiser. I do not have an exact page numbe because I do not have immediate access to the paper copy of that book at the moment. Nonetheless, that makes 4 sources in conforming with Andy Chambers' scale. While 10,000 might be a little on the low side for the 1500-2000 per damage point scale, it is within ~16% which is far closer than FFG's numbers which are several hundred percent larger.

As I said if I get time I'll look them up but GW numbers are not that small.


Page 127 of 5e rulebook- Troopship Emperor's Faithful, crew size 200,000, passengers 5 million.

Also as I have it close the frigate Eisenstein is two km long in the Flight of the Eisenstein. Page 127
"THE EISENSTEIN WAS an unremarkable vessel, an older pattern of ship in the frigate tonnage grade, just over two kilometers in length from bow to stern. It bore some resemblance to the newer Sword -class craft, but only inasmuch as most Imperial ships shared a similar design philosophy. "

The FFG sword class is 1.6 km long

Hunterindarkness wrote:As I said if I get time I'll look them up but GW numbers are not that small.

Page 127 of 5e rulebook- Troopship Emperor's Faithful, crew size 200,000, passengers 5 million.

We are not dicussing potential outliers but the actual standard bread and butter ships. As shown in one of my previous posts, the capacities shown for standard Imperial transports, such as those used during the Gothic War or during the Taros campaign was only in the range of a few thousand troops carried.

Also that is a mention in the 40K rulebook timeline precisely because it was a notable event, presumably due to the large numbers that fell victim. That doesn't mean that it should be taken to mean it is a standard troop ship any more than the Titanic was a "standard" liner in its day. Sure there may be some mass conveyers that are larger than battleships, and I'm sure the transports used to transport an entire Titan Legion would be pretty huge as well, but that doesn't mean they are the standard sort of transport that is encountered and destroyed or captured in normal engagements. The extremely large rare ships are more the exception to the rule.

Yet I just gave two examples that contradict your small ship ones.GW does not seem to use that scale. The thing is the new books seem to use the larger scale, while the older books seem to use any scale they felt like.

Hunterindarkness wrote:Yet I just gave two examples that contradict your small ship ones.GW does not seem to use that scale. The thing is the new books seem to use the larger scale, while the older books seem to use any scale they felt like.

The example from the rulebook is not a contradiction per se, because it is not about an existing ship class that we already know about, and it is not even in an existing size class since BFG only goes up to "battleship" size scale in terms of its ships, and then there is a jump to the "Defence" class sized Ork Space Hulk. Introducing a new never before seen ship class in a size class of its own isn't the same thing as contradicting information about an existing class such as claiming a Lunar has many tens of thousands of men compared to an estimate of 12,000-16,000 according to Andy Chambers' scale. That would be a contradiction.

I have already explained in my previous post that the existence of a few outlier ships, remarkable for their bigness does not by itself overturn the standard ship scale, which is what BFG deals with, not one of a kind unique ships.

Regardless, the number of sources conforming to Andy Chambers' scale still outnumber anything you have been able to produce.

Sigh dude, I am not near my books. If you really think BL's ship size is constant and abide by some dudes house rule I do not know what to tell you. BL is the worst place you should look to defend your argument as they are not consist.

You ruled out one from the Rulebook as you did not like it. You ignored the one form a HH book as "It was just 1 vs 4" sorry man you can keep chanting "Andy Chambers" all day long. That does not make it an official scale no matter how much you want it to be.

Hunterindarkness wrote:Sigh dude, I am not near my books. If you really think BL's ship size is constant and abide by some dudes house rule I do not know what to tell you. BL is the worst place you should look to defend your argument as they are not consist.

You ruled out one from the Rulebook as you did not like it. You ignored the one form a HH book as "It was just 1 vs 4" sorry man you can keep chanting "Andy Chambers" all day long. That does not make it an official scale no matter how much you want it to be.

When you claim there is a majority, you have to show it. You have at absolute most shown 2, and 1 of those is debateable. I have shown 4 sources, 5 if you count the Imperial Armour books, and can show a 6th if it comes to spatial scale. Your claims of a "majority" of sources hasn't been shown true yet as the totals still add up to 5:2 at best for your case, and 6:1 at worst. Having less than half is hardly a majority.

Also your original statement was:

The chart , while cool simply does not line up with the majority of the BL stuff

If you restrict to BL sources since that was your original statement, your line from the rulebook is invalid. The totals then would be 5:1, even if we ignore the Imperial Armour sources. Still not a majority of BL sources. One short story vs. 5 books, one of which was the same author and who claimed the short story change was an error made by an editor without his knowledge.

Eh keeping chanting a dudes name does not make something official either. And type o or not the 30km escort, while stupid was changed by GW so is official that makes 3 so far. and 1 of those are not debatable, you simply dislike it.

Hunterindarkness wrote:Eh keeping chanting a dudes name does not make something official either. And type o or not the 30km escort, while stupid was changed by GW so is official that makes 3 so far. and 1 of those are not debatable, you simply dislike it.

Since when have I chanted any name? It is a simple fact that the developer of a game system's notes on scale are always going to be weighed more than a random gamer's, just as Jes Goodwin's opinions on the Eldar and Dark Eldar will count for more than any random gamer's.

If you claim a "majority of BL sources" you have to prove it instead of just trying to claim it and expect others to take it as truth. You haven't been able to provide such evidence so far. Majority means just that, that there be over half. That has not been the case, and so far your claim looks like it is exaggerated.

"Wolf Pack" is 1 not 3. You haven't been able to give any other BL sources other than that one. 1 vs. 4 (Dark Disciple, Relentless, Shadow Point, Soul Hunter) for crew, and a further 5th is available for spatial scale.

If you include other sources other than just BL, then you have at absolute most 2 (Wolf Pack, the rulebook timeline entry which is debateable), vs. 4 BL books, 1 Imperial Armour book for crew, with a further BL book for spatial scale. You have produced 0 other quotes from any other sources other than those 2, and even then there is a quote from only 1 strictly speaking. Go through the thread and count your quotes or rather the lack thereof.

Whatever man, I do not put stock in BL stuff, but I have used 1 from the book I have on hand. I also have found some on the wiki's but I really do not trust a wiki if I can't double check the source. When I get home and have time to comb though my books I'll give ya some quotes.

The reason I say the majority is that BL from the research I have done have no scale for their books. I spent weeks hunting down ship sizes and that was the one constant was they had no constant.

Of those 4 books how many are the same class of ship? How many match each other, not just kinda vaguely match, but match?

Also if ya count wolfpack I have 3 not 2.Flight of the Eisenstein, wolfpack and the 5eGW book, that does not count because its GW I guess.

Hunterindarkness wrote: Whatever man, I do not put stock in BL stuff, but I have used 1 from the book I have on hand. I also have found some on the wiki's but I really do not trust a wiki if I can't double check the source. When I get home and have time to comb though my books I'll give ya some quotes.

Correct, wikis are not valid sources because they are paraphrasings from the original and thus errors can be introduced.

The reason I say the majority is that BL from the research I have done have no scale for their books. I spent weeks hunting down ship sizes and that was the one constant was they had no constant.

Of those 4 books how many are the same class of ship? How many match each other, not just kinda vaguely match, but match?

Relentless portrays I believe a Lunar class. Shadow Point a Dictator class cruiser. Soul Hunter an Avenger class grand cruiser. Dark Disciple mentions a Retribution class battleship.

Strictly speaking none are the exact same ship class, however 2 of those are of the same size class, and we know from the BFG rulebook that Dictator classes were originally rebuilt Lunar classes with added flight decks and flight crew.

The sources giving nearly 13,000 for the Dictator (which may or may not include flight crew), versus 10,000 given for the Lunar is not a particularly outlandish difference for 2 similar sized cruisers, one of which has additional fighters and bombers which would increase the count.

Given how ships within a class even within the BFG rulebook can start to differ from each other due to things like refits, it is not reasonable to expect an exact literal match to the last man in crew size.

Also if ya count wolfpack I have 3 not 2.Flight of the Eisenstein, wolfpack and the 5eGW book, that does not count because its GW I guess.

No quotes given for Flight of the Eisenstein. Until a quote is produced, it can hardly be counted.

Ya many have missed it as I edited it , prob while you were responding but it is up thread a bit in the same post as the GW page number.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok I do not have much time tonight, so I just went for the book I know has the size in it. I'll update this posts with others when I get time to find them

Salvation's Reach-Dan Abnett

p.70"Imperial Tempest-class frigate Highness Ser Armaduke .......The Armaduke measured a kilometre and a half from prow to stern, and a third of that dimension abeam across the fins. Its realspace displacement was six point two megatonnes, and it carried thirty-two thousand, four hundred and eleven lives."

And

"The other ships at high anchor unhooded their lamps to salute the departing ship. Some were true giants of the fleet, grand cruisers and battleships six or seven kilometers long."

Bry648 wrote:What is the average size of a regiment? I heard somewhere that it was only 15000. That seems a bit small for the IOM. If there is no canon number. What do you think would be a average size of a imperial guard regiment?

For the navy what is the common composition of a fleet? How many ships are there in grand total of a fleet? Is there a limit of ships a certain fleet can have before it gets in trouble?

An imperial Regiment's size if highly based on it's home world , more elitiest plants ( Like Cada, Kreig , Mordan ) will have substantaually smaller Regiments then Say Vanhalla in a book a read Cadian Regiments were around 20,000 Men and Vanhallan Regiments where on the upward scale of 180,000 men

Regiments often very wildly form world to world and dending on there function.

An infantry regiment from a hive world that trains its guard well and values volunteers may have a size of 10 000 soldiers whilst an elite recon regiment from the same world may be only 4000.

one thing that can be counted on is that if the world produces regiments with small numbers of troops it then produces many more regiments than usual in order to make up its annual tethes

Hunterindarkness wrote:

DxM Scotty MxD wrote:

Incorrect, in the UK a billion is still defined as a million million (12 zeros) rather than the american ~100 million = billion (9 zeros). GW is a UK company so it sounds reasonable to assume they use the UK format of a billion I.E. 1,000,000,000,000.

No, I looked it up. Officially GB uses the American version. They switched in 1975 under Chancellor Denis Healey. Some people may still use it but officially the country uses the American version.

well that's a relief.

I mean, we're long past the point where the language has ceased being English and is actually American, but if those silly Brits don't even know how to properly count...

Hunterindarkness wrote:The reason I say the majority is that BL from the research I have done have no scale for their books. I spent weeks hunting down ship sizes and that was the one constant was they had no constant.

Your assertion is that GW has no consistent scaling for ships.

Your evidence is that one class was described as having some resemblance to a different class, and there was a 400 metre discrepancy. Also, a typo from a single BL novel.

Dude, you're flat out wrong on this one.

eh it was not one class. It was a few dozen books with wildly different ship sizes. I had planned to go back through them again and use page number and quotes, but feth it. Thats a damned lot of work for an argument I really do not care all that much about. I mean it was one thing to waste my time on it when it was for something I was working on, but waste it for an argument? It took me 15 mins to hunt down the page from one book and I honestly don't care enough to hunt though them all again.


They may have a scale, but they do not use or enforce it setting wide. If you think they have been consistent ,You sir are simply incorrect.

The classic "I have evidence but I can't be bothered" excuse when asked to present evidence followed by simple chanting of "You're wrong" is the all too common response of those that have insufficient or no evidence to back up their points. Usually then the next tactic is resorting to ad hominem attacks at the affront of being asked to back up claims with evidence. The already presented evidence has already been shown to be predominantly showing the opposite of your claim of a majority, outnumbering your provided evidence about 2:1. With no quotable direct evidence, you have no proof and without proof you have no grounds to expect anyone to take your statements seriously. If you don't "care enough" to show evidence, then you shouldn't care that your conclusion is incorrect. If you truly had the evidence, then it shouldn't be that hard to present it. It is the responsibility of those making the claim to present the evidence, and not the responsibility of the audience to find your own evidence for you. Perhaps you have so much trouble and need to spend so much time because the evidence isn't as abundant as you claim it is?

If an outlier BL author should write bolters shooting laser beams, we don't then go and say there is inconsistency about whether bolters shoot bolts or laser beams. We say the BL author didn't do their research. The same holds for the minority of BL inconsistencies with regard to ship size. As shown already by the earlier presented quotes, there has been a remarkable amount of consistency by different authors over the years, more in keeping with Andy Chambers' scale, than FFG's suddenly inflated numbers.

I really do not care if you think I am wrong. I spent hours digging the stuff up the first go around and it showed me the BL stuff is...wonky. I have little respect ot be honest for BL or GW on the matter.

GW never produced a scale, never. If they did I would like to see it. Some guy that worked for them produced one, but it was never official. I mean I wish it had been. If you honestly think BL books are constant, then you need to read more of them.

I like to stick with the Warp Rift Magazine's size estimates; an Imperial frigate is 1-2km long, a cruiser is 6-8km long, a battlecruiser is 10+km long, and a battleship is around 17-20km long.

So, for purposes of scale approximations: a frigate is a Star Destroyer, a battleship is a Super Star Destroyer.