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Melissia, cool down the rhetoric. There's really no reason to get so worked about about someone being wrong about something on the internet.

Thank you.

Tanith do indeed have their own locally made lasguns: Nalwood pattern (it even causes logistical problems with ammunition). Just like Steel Legion uses Armaggedon pattern lasguns and autoguns, Cadians have Cadian pattern and Vostryans definately make their own guns too.
The Munitorium demands a certain number of regiments get raised but its up to the world itself to make them. That's why every planet has a different uniform and a hundred other variations.

Melissia wrote:

DEUS VULT wrote:I think you guys are overthinking and overanalyzing this quite a bit. The Imperial Guard is inconsistant, as proven by the fluff being inconsistant with itself.

Actually the Imperial Guard IS consistent.

You are absolutely right.
What exactly are you debating? OF COURSE they are gonna be equipped to a certain level. That level, however, fluxtuates depending on the world in which the regiment is raised, the forge world producing the goods, logistical availibility, etc. Its a BIG galaxy.

DEUS VULT wrote:What exactly are you debating? OF COURSE they are gonna be equipped to a certain level.

Exactly, but the problem is people claim that the Imperium provides regiments with essentially nothing, which is false.

DEUS VULT - thanks much for that picture, very cool!

Rogueyopants wrote:IG are bullet shield, low moral, no high quality of thinking, kinda like Gretchin, little bit better though. All there meant to do is hold out for days, weeks, or even months till the SM arrive and OP everything to shiii!, then the Orks Arrive and everything go's to shiii....

No, they're not. They just SEEM that way cause every other army is so friggin' dangerous that the Guardsmen seem that way. Look at the Sabbat Crusade 95% of the fighting was being done by Guardsmen and Marines of either the loyalist or Chaos variety are extremely rare.

We get the idea the all the IG does is die until the Marines show up because all the stories are ones where the Marines are the main characters, and thus need an excuse to show up. Read things that focus on the IG, and you'll see how dangerous they really are.



As for the debate, if we look at this map of the Imperial Government, we see that both the IG and the Imperial Navy are under the Adeptus Terra and the Administratum, however they are seperate. Since the Departmento Munitorum is described as the logistical backbone of the IG, I feel like the truth of the matter is the Munitorum is seperate from the Imperial Navy. Remember, not every transport ship requisitioned will be an Imperial Navy vessel. IIRC there is fluff that says the vast majority of ships in the Imperium are under charter control, so I imagine the Munitorum would call on old favors with whoever holds the charter to arrange for transport.

Of course the Imperial Navy would provide the escort, but I don't think they'd provide the transport in and of itself. The transport comes from other sources.

Melissia wrote:

DEUS VULT wrote:What exactly are you debating? OF COURSE they are gonna be equipped to a certain level.

Exactly, but the problem is people claim that the Imperium provides regiments with essentially nothing, which is false.

Ok, I think were of a same mind then. My contention is what a Guardsman SHOULD be issued, is rarely what they ARE issued. Also, the equipment issued to the PDF is entirely dependent on how much the planetary governor is willing to spend on them, so in theory they can be just as well equipped if not better than an IG regiment.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Alpharius wrote:DEUS VULT - thanks much for that picture, very cool!

Thanks! I got a kick out of it too!

This thread is 5 pages long because some idiots here believe that Guard is nothing more than expandable guys with no sense for tactics and with morale so low that they disperse when they see 1 Ork.

If that man where alive in 41'st millennial the Commissars would cut off their balls and make them eat them, but not before they stab them with their swords in their stomachs and make them cry....

They are just like those Tau fans claiming that Tau have billions of Fire Warriors and Millions of battle suits... No matter their planet have only slightly more than 100 worlds and only 26 of them are heavy populated...

Guard is an regular army, better trained and armed than today military. The reason they are losing that many men is because their enemies are super humans in almost indestructible armor, monsters that eat planets and things that pour from another dimension and who are making men to lose their minds, not to mention they then fight many uprising alien empires, tyrants and so on...

Like I said earlier, Ranger role in Imperial Guard might have Veterans or Stormtroopers. Guard is in general advancing standard military force. AS for equipment it is provided by the world of origin but at Munitorium's standard. Or the world simply buy equipment from Munitorium and equip it's men ( like many worlds around Cadia having Cadian equipment ).

Any other questions?

Yeah.

Are you my mommy?




Jokes aside, the standard Imperial Guard kit does seem to vary a bit, but there's severla things that are consistent-- medical supplies, a light source able to be attached to the gun, grenades, a combat weapon preferably taht can be attached as a bayonet to the primary weapon, and so on.

It's not just "a flashlight, a thick tee-shirt, and the IIUP" as many people would claim...

Melissia wrote:Yeah.

Are you my mommy?




Jokes aside, the standard Imperial Guard kit does seem to vary a bit, but there's severla things that are consistent-- medical supplies, a light source able to be attached to the gun, grenades, a combat weapon preferably taht can be attached as a bayonet to the primary weapon, and so on.

It's not just "a flashlight, a thick tee-shirt, and the IIUP" as many people would claim...

Except for the skultakers and Crapachans of course.

Melissia wrote:Yeah.

Are you my mommy?

Jokes aside, the standard Imperial Guard kit does seem to vary a bit, but there's severla things that are consistent-- medical supplies, a light source able to be attached to the gun, grenades, a combat weapon preferably that can be attached as a bayonet to the primary weapon, and so on.

It's not just "a flashlight, a thick tee-shirt, and the IIUP" as many people would claim...

No-one understand that Guardsman are professional solders, but again many people doesn't know what real army is...

Frazzled wrote:

Melissia wrote:Yeah.

Are you my mommy?




Jokes aside, the standard Imperial Guard kit does seem to vary a bit, but there's severla things that are consistent-- medical supplies, a light source able to be attached to the gun, grenades, a combat weapon preferably taht can be attached as a bayonet to the primary weapon, and so on.

It's not just "a flashlight, a thick tee-shirt, and the IIUP" as many people would claim...

... and Crapachans of course.

Thems fightin words!

He won't be saying that when some crazed bandana wearing maniac jumps from his small window-sill plant

Harriticus wrote:PDF's are standing armies, there's little "militia" about them, they have uniforms, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and so on. The key difference between them and the IG is that the PDF is under the control of the planetary governor, is less trained, has its best troops donated to the IG, and generally operates older equipment.

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

The differences between IG and PDF are being overexagerated. It very much like the US Army and The National Guard. Those two groups could go on and on about the differnces they know about but from your average Iraqi's POV still getting shot by M16s by guys in Kevlar.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Harriticus wrote:PDF's are standing armies, there's little "militia" about them, they have uniforms, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and so on. The key difference between them and the IG is that the PDF is under the control of the planetary governor, is less trained, has its best troops donated to the IG, and generally operates older equipment.

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

The size, equipment and maintenance of the PDF is under the jurisdiction of the Planetary Governor and how much funding he wants to allocate to them.
Also, thousand year old canteens? no thanks.

Kilkrazy wrote:If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

The vast majority of PDFs don't see action until either some heretical cult suddenly ends up controlling half a city or an ork's hulk happens to come wandering through the system. Additionally, proper training puts wear and tear on equipment. You need to pay ammunition costs (considerably reduced for las weapons due to the easy recharge feature of the power packs, but still a factor for weapons that use rockets or projectiles), maintain large enough training yards for all of the troops to use, replace weapons and equipment that wears out during training, etc... There are a lot of real world militaries that barely train their troops due to the cost and expense (all those bullets being "wasted" on inanimate targets cost money). On a planet that hasn't seen conflict in over a century and isn't likely to see any during the subsequent century, there's going to be a lot of pressure to "cut costs" by performing very little in the way of training and maneuvers.

Kilkrazy wrote:

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Well if I recall correctly they actually do train on the ships, it seems to me that in the Space Wolf series they ran drills on ship, but I may have it confused with the ultramarine series, who knows with all the similarities in SM novels

Kilkrazy wrote:

Harriticus wrote:PDF's are standing armies, there's little "militia" about them, they have uniforms, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and so on. The key difference between them and the IG is that the PDF is under the control of the planetary governor, is less trained, has its best troops donated to the IG, and generally operates older equipment.

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Why would spending a lot of time on ships mean you're unable to train? They don't get put into stasis like the Marines in Halo or Aliens. They're awake the entire time. The majority of Guard transport ships have training areas, they have enough open space for drills, etc. The Ghosts books make a point of that.

Black Sky Dead Sun also features a part of the ship where Guardsmen are training during Warp transit.

Wardragoon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Well if I recall correctly they actually do train on the ships, it seems to me that in the Space Wolf series they ran drills on ship, but I may have it confused with the ultramarine series, who knows with all the similarities in SM novels

15 hours had them doing crappy fake drills clearing paintlines on the hangar floor to represent rooms and such. In the words of the immortal bard: "You will receive the standard substandard training."

I'd imagine shipboard training would be mostly calisthenics. Not that much room for anything else.

Frazzled wrote:

Wardragoon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Well if I recall correctly they actually do train on the ships, it seems to me that in the Space Wolf series they ran drills on ship, but I may have it confused with the ultramarine series, who knows with all the similarities in SM novels

15 hours had them doing crappy fake drills clearing paintlines on the hangar floor to represent rooms and such. In the words of the immortal bard: "You will receive the standard substandard training."

I'd imagine shipboard training would be mostly calisthenics. Not that much room for anything else.

There's room for like a whole parade ground. These ships are quite massive.

Frazzled wrote:

Wardragoon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Well if I recall correctly they actually do train on the ships, it seems to me that in the Space Wolf series they ran drills on ship, but I may have it confused with the ultramarine series, who knows with all the similarities in SM novels

15 hours had them doing crappy fake drills clearing paintlines on the hangar floor to represent rooms and such. In the words of the immortal bard: "You will receive the standard substandard training."

I'd imagine shipboard training would be mostly calisthenics. Not that much room for anything else.

Talk to some Marines who have been on a float; you'd be surprised what can get done in limited space. Not to mention a lot of the ships in 40k are OMFGHUUUUUUUUUUGE!

I seem to recall they were doing a full MOUT(military operation in urban terrain iirc) drill in that novel I was reading

Frazzled wrote:

Wardragoon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Well if I recall correctly they actually do train on the ships, it seems to me that in the Space Wolf series they ran drills on ship, but I may have it confused with the ultramarine series, who knows with all the similarities in SM novels

15 hours had them doing crappy fake drills clearing paintlines on the hangar floor to represent rooms and such. In the words of the immortal bard: "You will receive the standard substandard training."

I'd imagine shipboard training would be mostly calisthenics. Not that much room for anything else.

15 Hours also had a regiment that was just founded(seriously. The only person with combat experience was a single NCO who'd been Guard previously to mustering out on the planet it was raised from) and supposed to be used to put down a minor heretical cult.

Standard substandard training is all they'd need in that case.

There are plenty of things you can do while on a ship.

Regular physical exercise is one thing (and pretty much required if the troops are going to be in shape when you arrive). Hand to hand training is another, and probably takes place in the same area as the regular physical exercise. Lasgun practice probably takes place with guns set to low power. The only thing that you might not be able to do is fire heavy weapons and drive vehicles around - though there might be simulators that you can use for the vehicle crews.

And they also did plenty of drills in transit in the Cain novels, too.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:

Frazzled wrote:

Wardragoon wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

Well if I recall correctly they actually do train on the ships, it seems to me that in the Space Wolf series they ran drills on ship, but I may have it confused with the ultramarine series, who knows with all the similarities in SM novels

15 hours had them doing crappy fake drills clearing paintlines on the hangar floor to represent rooms and such. In the words of the immortal bard: "You will receive the standard substandard training."

I'd imagine shipboard training would be mostly calisthenics. Not that much room for anything else.

There's room for like a whole parade ground. These ships are quite massive.

I don't buy the massive space concept. Ships are paying for space. They'd put more troops or equipment there, especially on longer trips.

Kilkrazy wrote:

Harriticus wrote:PDF's are standing armies, there's little "militia" about them, they have uniforms, tanks, artillery, aircraft, and so on. The key difference between them and the IG is that the PDF is under the control of the planetary governor, is less trained, has its best troops donated to the IG, and generally operates older equipment.

If the PDF is a standing army there is no reason for it to be less trained than the IG, which is also a standing army that spends a lot of time on ships unable to train.

There's also no reason for the PDF to have older equipment, since all Imperial equipment is thousands of years old anyway.

I disagree with all of this. There are examples in the fluff that contradict these statements. In Titanicus for example, the PDF are shown to receive only a bare minimum of training, they literally are weekend warriors. One weekend a month, two weeks in the summer (US National Guard training) is nowhere near comparable to the training that a standing army (US Army/Marines) receive. In fact, in Titanicus, it is shown that the PDF is called up in stages. There is the first stage which consists of a handful of regular, full time troopers (a large part of them are officers, administrators, etc. rather than direct action forces). There is a second stage which consists of the rest of the volunteer force (the weekend warriors) who go about their lives as normal until needed for service. And then the third stage which is conscription of every able bodied candidate. In Dead Men Walking a similar system is seen. More importantly, Dead Men Walking shows us that there is a big difference in the skill level of the PDF vs. the Guardsmen of the DKoK. Perhaps this analogy is a bit unfair, since it is implied that the DKoK are a fairly elite group of guardsmen, even as far as other guardsmen are concerned, but regardless the PDF are continually shown to be substandard compared to the DKoK, to the point that the DKoK take over training of conscripted recruits because they find the PDF training inadequate. The most experienced officer in the entire PDF happens to be the planetary Governor (rather than the PDFs commanding officer (or his replacement)), who was a former Guard officer. The PDF are also shown to be poorly equipped, armed only with Lasguns and basic equipment/vehicles, lacking heavier equipment such as hellguns (one of the PDF guys mentions that the last time he had held one or even seen one was during his basic training), meltaguns, artillery, etc. and even then they barely have enough of the basic equipment to arm new recruits. Its also mentioned that the pattern of lasgun utilized by the Krieg troopers is more powerful than the one issued to the PDF, further implying that not all things are equal and that the Guard are better off than PDF.

As for training in transit, in Dead Men Walking they mention that the transport ship has its own firing range on board, as well as other training facilities and spaces, including gyms, etc. and that the DKoK cleared out extra space such as hangars/landing bays, cargo holds, etc. for additional space to run drills in (because all four regiments decided to run drills instead of going on leave). The ship at the time was carrying roughly 30,000 guardsmen in 4 regiments, plus 4 dropships (implied to be able to carry one regiment each) capable of ferrying the troops planetside, plus all their equipment, including vehicles (Gorgons, Centaurs, Trojans, Medusa's and Earthshakers, and at least one Termite are all mentioned being used in the novel). Clearly Frazzleds analysis that they would use the extra space for more troops is incorrect. The time qualifier seems to be meaningless as well, as the DKoK in the novel had just reported from a warzone, and at the end of the book they report to a new warzone using the same vessel.

Frazzled wrote:I don't buy the massive space concept. Ships are paying for space. They'd put more troops or equipment there, especially on longer trips.

For a two day trip, sure go ahead and cram everyone in.

For a longer trip, no. Your troops *must* have areas in which to perform physical exercise, at bare minimum. Otherwise their muscles will have atrophied during the voyage. After a particularly long trip like that, they'll be lucky to make it off the shuttle carrying their full kit. An actual march would be out of the question.

Cramming troops into passenger liners only works when the trip is either extremely short or you know for a fact that they're not going to see any action when they arrive at their destination.