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Browsing through the thread on Imperial rank structure and I was again wondering just what is a guard regiment. It seems to be more like an echelon of troops in that it is raised at a certain time and place, but the structure of them seems to change drastically along with their numbers. You have everything from what the modern military here on earth would consider a regiment (about 3000 troops) to those that are better described as small armies of tens of thousands with their own armour brigades.

If that's so, it's a wonder that Imperial planners can ever achieve anything, that and that regiments are considered logistical units as opposed to some larger unit of at least divisional size.

I consider a regiment to be a small division with troops and armor.

In terms of actual military organisation, logistics etc, none of the imperial guard background makes any sense at all.

The best way to reconcile it with common sense is to assume that regiments may be larger or smaller, with more or less armour/artillery, according to the means of their home planet. BUT the commanders are ranked according to this size. E.g., commander of 1-3k men would be a Lt-Cl or Cl. Commander of 10-20k would be either a brigadier or major-general, etc.

I guess it's not written in stone. In Gaunt's Ghosts books the Tanith began with 3 regiments of 2000 troops each and heavy support (tanks and the like). That only lasted one day lol and finished with one only regiment of about 2000 troops and nothing else.

In IG Codex the Cadian regiments look like much bigger...

OP your original assumption is correct. The IG is not a monolithic, unified organization like the modern military. Regimens are allowed to chose their own armaments, command structure, and training. There is no "standard issue" on a galactic level, everything is decided at the planetary.

So an IG regimen may resemble a modern militaries, or it may be more like a barbarian horde, or built up in five man blood brother groups who have been raised together since birth, or broken down into forcibly "allied" tribes of amazonian warriors, etc. etc. etc. They can literally come in any form and organization you can imagine, and the IG codex does a good job of allowing for this.

So what is a regiment? They start out as a unit raised from a planet. If possible they will be continually reinforced, and so a regime will continue on as fighting organization representing their planet. However, when things go badly it is not unheard of for regimens to be combined by a general. So a Regimen is can also be a fighting unit as designated by an IG general. However, it is noted in both the codex and other fluff that that rarely works well. The command structures, tactics, and cultures of different regimens are often incompatible, and good generals try to avoid this. Imagine the problems you would have with a unit comprised of modern marines, terrified conscripted medieval serfs, mongol warriors, crusaders, WWI trench fighters and Napoleonic line infantry. Not pretty.

The lexicanum article sums it up well: "Recruited from a single planet at a single raising, it is founded as a complete entity, complete with its own officer, supply, and support cadres. It should be noted however, that like most everything else in the Guard, the precise details of even these essential elements can vary widely from world to world. Whilst the majority of the regiment, even the non-combatant personnel, will come from their founding world, the Commissar or Commissars assigned to it are always off-worlders."

The beauty of the IG though is that it is presented as fairly flexible because of this. The WWI Kreigers are sent in for sieges, Arcadians for rapid strikes, Cadian for holding the line, Valhallans when it is cold, and Tallarns when it is hot. If there is one thing the Imperium is good at it is embracing the diversity of its peoples, probably because the alternative would be impossible.