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Mekniakal wrote:Wait one second...

Each Space Marine chapter is divided into ten companies of a hundred men. I know the 10th company (scouts) has a theoretically unlimited number of soldiers, but is there a company dedicated solely to driving the others into battle? I'm saying this because if each company is divided into ten ten man tactical squads, they still need someone to drive the vehicles.

Okay, you're getting a little confused here. Each Codex Chapter is limited to 1000 "Fighting Marines", not 1000 total. Each Company is divided into 100 Marines PLUS Command staff(Commander, Apothecary, Standard Bearer, Chaplain). Techmarines, the Chapter Master, Librarians, and several other support staff marines do not count towards the 1000 Marine total. Each chapter is closer to actually having 1200 Marines(including all Techs and Staff/Command) if gathered at full strength.

As for vehicle crews, they can be either drawn from Techmarines or from the Reserve Companies(the usual case). The Reserve Tactical Marines of Companies 6(also optioned as an all Biker Company) and 7(also optioned as an all Land Speeder Company) are pulled to be drivers for armoured vehicles. All Marines, however, are trained as Scouts to learn how to drive every vehicle.

BrotherAtrox wrote:Space Marines on garrison duty? Have you gone mad?

According to the Insignium Astartes, this is the main purpose of Devestator Squads(the taking, securing, and holding of objectives).

Some former formula I drivers.

Ok, here's a better question, not who drives the Land Raider, but where does the driver sit??? I always pictured it being in the "roof" next to the twin-linked hull weapon.

SimonL wrote:Ok, here's a better question, not who drives the Land Raider, but where does the driver sit??? I always pictured it being in the "roof" next to the twin-linked hull weapon.

Look at the poster that was in WD at release of the Land Raider

the question of marine chapter sizes has always bugged me and i've posted this on a few boards about sizes.
i would like to apologise in advance if this seems to be teaching people to suck eggs or seems an overly harsh response it isnt meant to be but i would like to clarify how many marines are in a chapter as the 1000 and no more argument just doesnt add up when you look at the actual figures in print in GW books themselves.

so if possible to draw your attention to index astartes vol 1 p14 & 15. this page shows a graphical example of an average marine chapter and gives us a rough basis on which to garner our numbers.

to start with this lists the following as extrenuous to the fighting companies:

HQ staff - this covers a multitude of ranks but according to the image and notes this does not include company commanders, company chaplains and company apothacarys
Armoury - techmarines
Librarius - librarians of all ranks
this doesnt show how many marines are in each aspect of these hq staff but i can guarentee that each chapter has more then 10 of each role, ie libbys and techs, as there are those out fighting with the battle companies and those who remain maintaining either the armouries of the librarius and training new inductees in to these areas. i personally would suggest a conservative figure of 50 marines per section (thats 150 straight off) but ill come back to that later.


then numbers start mounting up as we start looking at the battle companies, admittedly this representation in the book works on a chapter been at full strength so we will work with those figures as a rough guide.
as an example it shows the 2nd company of been made up as follows:
1 captain
1 chaplain
1 apothecary
1 standard bearer
6 tact squads (10 men per squad)
2 assualt squads (10 men)
2 devestators (10 men)
then it has a load of bikes, dreads, rhinos etc.

if we take this company at face value then this company stands at 104 marines without all the trimmings!

then for this company factor in a command squad (something not mentioned on the chart but they seem to exsist in fluff and rules so we'll work with that) as an easy number we shall say there are 8 in the squad to make it a 10 man squad (the other 2 members to make a 10man squad are the standard bearer and apoth and they are already counted in the initial count). that makes 112 marines in a company so far.

then there are drivers for rhinos - the book says each company maintains enough rhinos for its squads and commanders so as an estimate we say 12 (10 squads and a rhino a piece for the capt and chap) , we assume that the drivers are extra only because if you take a 10man squad who is going to drive the rhino around once the disembark, also in the imperial armour 2 book it shows the rhino as having 10 transport places and a driver (hope that explains why ive included these marines)these drivers are probably from the armoury as the most likely source, that then makes 12 more marines (dont get me started on gunners! lol)

that gives a very rough and ready total of 124 marines in a company.


the book suggests comapnies 2-9 are like this, gives us a total of 992,
then the 1st company is registered as similar but with landraiders and TDA so thats another 136 (add another 12 marines as gunners etc in the landraiders,
we then factor the scouts of the 10th in as just 100 (including officers) because their numbers are too fluid.
this then gives us a total of 1228in the chapter thus far,


this doesnt include HQ staff as mentioned, if we go on the rough figures i mentioned right at the begining thats an additional 150 marines as a guess, making 1378 marines


in addition to this page 14 also mentions a number of marines who are of advanced years who are there to train and process new recruits so we can assume this includes chaplains and apothacaries, if we take a stab at a figure of say 50 marines (old ones, chaplains and apoths) that then gives us 1418

then consider that as a rough figure it also doenst count fleet based marines, to justify that comment when was the last time you read a bit of fluff on marine fleets where the ships captain and key bridge officers werent marines, then you have the thunderhawk pilots who are usually though not always marines.
then........... on top of that consider dreadnoughts and members on secondment to the Deathwatch! lol not to mention those like the black templars that are garrasoning recuiting planets or other sites of interest, those that are on training to forgeworld or on secondment to crusade HQs.

i personally think i went a bit anal over explaining this, but i like justifying things (especailly after this week at work so i apologise if this seems mental in anyway) but if we go on those figures a marine chapter has roughly 1500 marines in varying types of role.

obviously with the other staff mentioned or a larger libraiaus (like the blood ravens) these numbers can swell and i think a rough guestimate of 2000 marines in a chapter isnt too far fetched, yes many jobs are looked after by serfs etc but there are still marines to over see them in their day to day tasks.

i hope that justifies the numbers and goes someway towards helping someone understand how a chapter is made up and things are crewed marines.
thanks and sorry for going a bit OCD on you all there
cheers
millest

@ millest:

I like your explanation.

But i believe your set with 1500, not 2000.
Maybe include those KIA to get the "real" strength of a chapter and also mind a smaller than 100 sized scout-company.
The 1000 marines could be the aim given by codex astartes for fieldable battlebrothers, so any staff or crews are
not included.
Codex Space Marines (1998) had also a pic of the Ultramarines and GW got with them over the 1000 if you count the models.

My take on chapter size (codex marines) would be:

-in a perfect world = 1500
-in the grim dark = 800 - 1400

lol

prob the people in the armory

OK, this is the ultramarines setup from the codex at 999.M41. some squads may be understrength and transport, bikes & land speeders are drawn from, well, an unexplained contingent of equipment.

Marneus Calgar
Cassius
27 Honour Guard
1 Land Raider

"armoury"
Fennias Maxim (MotF)
27 techies
25 predators
8 vindicators
9 whirlwinds
12 Land Raiders

Apothecarion
Corpus Helix (Chief apothecary)
12 Apothecaries

Fleet Command
8 strike cruisers
3 Battle Barges
12 RSVs
31 Thawks

Librarius
Tigurius
5 Epistolaries
9 Codiciers
10 Lexicaniums
3 Acolytum

1st Company
Captain agemnan
97 Veterans
3 dreads

2nd Company
Sicarius
6 Tac squads
2 assault squads
2 dev squads
2 dreads

3rd Company
Captain fabian
(same numbers as 2nd company)

4th company
Captain Idaeus
same as before, but 4 dreads

5th company
Captain Galenus
same as before, except 1 dread

6th company
Captain Epathus
10 tac squads
4 dreads

7th company
Captain Ixion
10 tac squads
3 dreads

8th company
Captain Numitor
10 Assault Squads

9th company
Captain Sinon
10 dev squads

10th company
Captain antilochus
(amount of scouts unspecified)

plus, there's an "Armoured Company" or similar, which is led by Chronus and composes of about 50 marines. THEY drive the vehicles.

ungulateman

actually theres like 1200 space marines in a chapter