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Anyone knows whats the age of an average guardsman, its been bothering me ever since I read that part in Dead Men Walking where considering Grenadiers are elite/veteran I am really wondering how old are the regular troopers.

S'pose it depends on how active the regiment is upon the battlefront. If the regiment has been placed on active duty to face the enemy I would imagine many would not see past their early 20's... If that...

Considering that Krieg regiment are almost always in battle (hell those guys in the book were on break and war found a way to them) that'd make sense.

Cadians are taught to strip, rebuild, reload and aim a Lasgun with intent to kill from the moment they learn to walk and talk. There is only war.

I'm willing to vouch that the situation is similar for other IG worlds with proximity to known [and unknown] threats.

Well, do question is about average or average [color=white]Krieg Guardsman? As average Guardsman must be at least 19+ - they're all trained in PDF and deemed best, THEN trained again in regiment.

To put it this way: Hit 25 years and, in the Guard, you're old. Hit 30 and you're ancient but obviously the Emperor loves you. After about the age of 20 years you're on borrowed time - just depends how much time the Emperor grants you.

Of course the above is for regiments on active duty on the frontlines.

Well, it kinda depends.

A tour of duty is twenty years. If you survive twenty years in the Imperial Guard, you're allowed to retire and set up with a small homestead on one of the planets your regiment helped pacify (source; Gaunt's Ghosts novels). There are very likely tens of TRILLIONS of active Guardsmen in the Imperium at any given time, but most planets are not overrun with retirees.

That being so, I would think that the average age of the Imperial Guard is pretty young. They're drafted from the PDF (which usually hasn't ever seen active combat) or the citizenry if a new Crusade or something is being called. Their training period is the time that it takes their transports to reach the war zone, which might be a week or might be as much as a couple of months, if said war zone is several sectors away (3rd Edition IG codex, I believe, said that Imperial Guard transports could cross 10,000 light years in an average of 40 days). They are then, typically, sent directly to the front lines.

The Cadian Shock Troops recruit children into their Whiteshield platoons as young as age 10, I believe. The Death Korps of Krieg has similar traditions. Other famous regiments usually don't recruit until adulthood, I would assume; so the average IG recruit might be 16-20 years old, if we're talking about a standard regiment from Random Hive World 35225, with a sprinkling of older PDF veterans and/or survivors of destroyed regiments to serve as cadre. In an active warzone, the expected lifespan of a Guardsmen can be measured not in years but in weeks, days, or in some cases hours.

So I'd say the 'average' age is probably pretty young; 21, 22 maybe. However, there are still billions and billions of veterans who have lived for multiple years in the Imperial Guard, and those guys will be TERRIFYINGLY experienced. Hell, some of them even do live long enough to retire; and let me tell you, no matter how old and feeble he looks, I would not want to be the poor schmuck who tried to burgle the house of a retired Imperial Guardsman.

It always depends on the regimen, they are free to organize however they see fit. Very little is set in stone; conscription methods, tours of duty, and tactics are all variable.

Most regimens are likely going to utilize fairly young, unmarried men. But not all will. Penal legions are an obvious example, where people could be literally any age. Cadians are slightly older (20's) due to the fact that they do lots of training and the teenagers serve in the PDF before they are allowed to join up with the guard. Elysians are likely similar, perhaps having an even older average age since they favor low casualty tactics. Other legions just conscript 17-19 year olds, shove a gun in their hands, and throw them at the enemy. Kriegers are likely fairly young since they are raised only for war and use cannon fodder tactics.

And there is going to be tons of more variety out there. There will be worlds where you are expected to join the guard only after you have fathered at least 2-3 children, or where it is a great honor and they only send their greatest warriors.

It is also a misconception that 30 is 'ancient'. That is only going to be true for certain battlefields, usually the worst of them. Most guard action is going to be against other humans, most of whom aren't nearly as well equipped. There are many examples of guardsmen serving many tours of duty, often for decades, on many worlds.

Retiring is also fairly common. After all, fighting guardsmen acting as colonists is one of the primary ways the Imperium settles/integrates new worlds.

40k is just too big and the Imperium too decentralized for there to be any 'average' situations.

riplikash wrote:It is also a misconception that 30 is 'ancient'. That is only going to be true for certain battlefields, usually the worst of them. Most guard action is going to be against other humans, most of whom aren't nearly as well equipped. There are many examples of guardsmen serving many tours of duty, often for decades, on many worlds.

The average age of the dead in WW1 was 25. Now to even that out most of those who fought were aged between 14-45 - 14/15 year olds joined up and lied about their age, so were packed off to war as had been done for the past 200+ years. 41-45 year olds were at the end of their service. These men fought on the most horrific battlefields history has ever known. 40k battlefields are even worse. The casualties over the 3 weeks of the Somme reached 1 million for all forces. The British Army lost 350,000 as casualties. The Imperial Guard could lose regiments that size within a couple days fighting in 40k.

For a regiment whose only concern is possibly putting down a small revolt or keeping the private armies of noble houses in check, they're going to have far greater odds of coming out alive. For a regiment facing a whole world that's under the sway of the enemy, for example the Siege of Vraks, it's going to be a lot, lot harder. I think Vraks had a population of 8 million and the Death Korp lost 14 million retaking it. Now you could put that down to the Death Korps tactics, but facing an entrenched enemy fighting every step of the way, the Korpsmen had no choice but to soak up the casualties and keep on pushing the renegades back. What do you think the odds are of any Korpsmen from the original regiments that landed on Vraks making it out alive? Vraks is not a single example either - what do you think the average age of Cadian's engaged in the daily fight against Chaos would be?

The few who survive the treacherous battlefields of the 41st millenium are very, very lucky - or possibly not. Many suffer psychological disorders from the continual shelling, lack of sleep, seeing their friends, lovers* and fellow Guardsmen being obliterated, charging into the enemy fire again and again, possibly being wounded and suffering the mental trauma of it, recovering and being shoved back into the frontline. They might as well be dead.

So those who serve on the frontlines, not sitting back dealing with a few cultists or uprisings, who encounter the massed enemies of mankind from renegades to the tyranids, they're not going to live long and if you get out of there and make it to 30 - by Guard standards you will be very, very old. Not saying only a couple make it that far, but on average, 30 would be old for any Guardsmen who started service on the frontline at about 16-20.

*I doubt both genders in mixed regiments stay celibate.

I don't disagree, but as I said, it is only true for certain battlefields, certain wars. The Imperium isn't in one giant war like WWI or WWII was. They are involved in thousands of wars. Some are Korea and WWII, others are Iraq.

But most battlefields are not like Krieg or Macragge. Those are the exception, not the rule, notable for how bad it was.

So overall it isn't uncommon to have guardsmen with long careers, or that retire. It isn't necessarily what happens most of the time, but it isn't an outlier either.

I don't disagree with your point either, just that splurge of text was meant to convey that where the battlefields are really bad few will ever live (which, rereading your post, is a point you've already made - excuse me, long day at work )

In Cadian Blood, there's a whiteshield in active service whom is 14-16 years old

In Flesh and Iron

The protagonist (I think he's a sergeant) apparently doesn't have facial hair but then again I'm asian and I'm 20 and I barely have stubble so I say 20 is a pretty good average age

BUT

Most guardsmen dont see 30 or 25, the ones that manage to retire are the most meanest, toughest, roughest bastards in the entire galaxy & they did this without super high tech armour or magics with automatically makes them more bad-ass then everyone else.

Unless they're conscripted at 30....

I think a Guardsman can be almost any age given how the Imperial Guard functions.

I think a Guardsman can be almost any age given how the Imperial Guard functions.

QFT

If your old enough to carry a gun then you could be in the guard. The fluff around conscription/recruitment is diverse to say the least.

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:In Flesh and Iron

The protagonist (I think he's a sergeant) apparently doesn't have facial hair but then again I'm asian and I'm 20 and I barely have stubble so I say 20 is a pretty good average age

BUT

Spoiler:

At the end of the novel he gets inducted into the Blood Gorgons, a CSM warband. I'm not sure if he's a full marine or just a hybrid but still, you'd have to be pretty young to go through the process right? Or is chaos just like that

Are you talking about the commander? He is 33 I believe and he is a Colonel. Some people just don't grow hair. I'm 18 and come from a line of hairy Italian men and I shave when ROTC tells me I have to, which is usually about once a month.

Being in your early 20s as a line Guardsman, with a Sergeant a couple of years older and a Company Commander being just a few years older still is not terribly unexpected. Most of the fighting forces of the US Military, for example, are between the ages of 19 and 22, with NCOs averaging around 26-28, Company Commanders (Captains) being in their early 30s.

You don't start seeing true, grizzled veterans until you get into the very senior NCO ranks or Field Command-level of the Officer Corps.

Ignatius wrote:

blazinpsycho&typhooni wrote:In Flesh and Iron

The protagonist (I think he's a sergeant) apparently doesn't have facial hair but then again I'm asian and I'm 20 and I barely have stubble so I say 20 is a pretty good average age

BUT

Spoiler:

At the end of the novel he gets inducted into the Blood Gorgons, a CSM warband. I'm not sure if he's a full marine or just a hybrid but still, you'd have to be pretty young to go through the process right? Or is chaos just like that

Are you talking about the commander? He is 33 I believe and he is a Colonel. Some people just don't grow hair. I'm 18 and come from a line of hairy Italian men and I shave when ROTC tells me I have to, which is usually about once a month.

Some body in command I don't know my ranks. Just wanted to point out that someone pretty young can still get into the guard.

And as people said before, varies!

Also what's ROTC mean?

Reserves Officer Training Corps. Basically, while studying in college, you join the Army and do all sorts of training. When you graduate, you are commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Army.

Ignatius wrote:Reserves Officer Training Corps. Basically, while studying in college, you join the Army and do all sorts of training. When you graduate, you are commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the US Army.

That doesn't sound far from Colonel, so depending on how early you are drafted into the guard, it is very possible for someone in his/her early twenties to achieve that rank.

Eh, no...If one of these officers reaches Colonel in the IG then they have spent quite a bit of time in the field. Or were given that rank when their officer died...which in 40k is not unlikely...But 2nd Lieu. is pretty far down the latter from Colonel. Takes a while.

Gregersen wrote:Eh, no...If one of these officers reaches Colonel in the IG then they have spent quite a bit of time in the field. Or were given that rank when their officer died...which in 40k is not unlikely...But 2nd Lieu. is pretty far down the latter from Colonel. Takes a while.

Oh okay, hahah like i said i don't know my ranks! Well considering guardsmen die a lot, i'm pretty sure there would be a lot of room for promotions

In the British Army it is as follows:

Recruit/Private-Lance Corporal-Corporal-Sergeant-Staff Sergeant-Warrant Officer Class 2-Warrant Officer Class 2 (mk2)-Warrant Officer Class 1-2nd Lieutenant-Lieutenant-Captain-Major-Lieutenant Colonel-Colonel-Brigadier-Major General-Lieutnant General-General-Field Marshal

keep in mind we aren't talking about a game from the United States, so possible variation there, not sure.

And we are talking a completely different time period, I don't think they use that many ranks.

The Crusader wrote:In the British Army it is as follows:

Recruit/Private-Lance Corporal-Corporal-Sergeant-Staff Sergeant-Warrant Officer Class 2-Warrant Officer Class 2 (mk2)-Warrant Officer Class 1-2nd Lieutenant-Lieutenant-Captain-Major-Lieutenant Colonel-Colonel-Brigadier-Major General-Lieutnant General-General-Field Marshal

I recognise those ranks for sure. Looks like it's more likely that if you live longer easier it is to advance.


obviously

The Crusader wrote:In the British Army it is as follows:

Recruit/Private-Lance Corporal-Corporal-Sergeant-Staff Sergeant-Warrant Officer Class 2-Warrant Officer Class 2 (mk2)-Warrant Officer Class 1-2nd Lieutenant-Lieutenant-Captain-Major-Lieutenant Colonel-Colonel-Brigadier-Major General-Lieutnant General-General-Field Marshal

While that is technically true and represents seniority well, it doesn't represent promotion ladders well. There are two career tracks here.
Enlisted: Recruit/Private-Lance Corporal-Corporal-Sergeant-Staff Sergeant-Warrant Officer Class 2-Warrant Officer Class 2 (mk2)-Warrant Officer Class 1
Officer: 1-2nd Lieutenant-Lieutenant-Captain-Major-Lieutenant Colonel-Colonel-Brigadier-Major General-Lieutnant General-General-Field Marshal

So, for example a warrant officer or staff sergeant is going to be the oldest and most experienced of the enlisted track, while a first lieutenant (who outranks him) is going to be the youngest of the officer track. So while the lieutenants may outrank lots of people, they are the youngest, most inexperienced officers.

It's technically possible for an enlisted man like a staff sergeant to get promoted to officer, it is typically rare. In the US it requires an act of congress.

So is that where the NCO's and CO's come from, or am I off

Yes, exactly.

An officer usually starts as an officer. Usually they are recruited in college and start officer training upon graduation with a bachelors degree. Officers have authority over all enlisted men, and only officers will ever be promoted to strategic leadership positions.

An Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) is a leadership position (officer) of the enlisted ranks. They aren't technically officers because they haven't been given a commission by the government to lead men, that is the officers, they have instead been put in leadership positions by officers.

So you can see why there can sometimes be disdain among the rank and file towards the officers. No matter how high an enlisted man is promoted as an NCO, and no matter how many years you serve, you are always going to be of less authority to a 22 year old 2nd Lieutenant just out of college.

Which isn't to say there can't be a lot of authority in the enlisted ranks as well. I knew a staff-Sargent who had been given the option of receiving a commission (not a common thing), but chose to remain a Staff-Sargeant because it is the NCO's who are most responsible for making decisions about training and discipline procedures, and he wanted to have an impact there.

And then there is unofficial authority, a lot like in the Imperium. You technically only have to salute officers, the men who wear metal rank insignia ('if it shines, salute' the saying goes), but only a fool doesn't salute his Sargeant, cloth insignia or no. And sure a Lieutenant just out of college technically has authority over Command Sergeant, who will salute, but he has the respect and ear of the Lieutenant's superiors and men, and can make his life a living hell, even ruin his career, if he mouths off.

The military...is kind of weird that way. Can you see the parallels between nobility (officers) and peasants (enlisted)? It isn't accidental. Traditionally if you were noble you became an officer, common an enlisted man with no prospects of high level leadership. It's still the exact same system used in medieval times, except now you can become a nobleman (officer) by going to college instead of being born into the right family. The military does love its traditions.