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Well, the Post-Heresy reforms are an organisational issue. Both transports and warships belong to the Navy, so of course they are allowed (supposed!) to transport them. They're just not allowed to have a firm hierarchical link to any regiment (usually, there are some few exceptions). Hence transports tend to have, or so I've read somewhere, dedicated areas for the Imperial Guard where they are basically locked away so as to not interfere with crew operations.

It's just that warships are geared for artillery exchange with other warships, not for transporting or offloading troops in a planetary assault. So they won't be able to carry as much troops as a dedicated transport of a similar size category, and not be able to offload them as quickly - neither having as many drop ships as a capital transport, and not being able to land on the planet itself like a light transport. Also, they'll lack the barracks and the training facilities. It could even put a strain on their consumables.

They still could carry some troops, but I'd doubt they would have sufficient space for most entire regiments (depending on their size .. i.e. Cadians vs Valhallans).
In times of need, perhaps you could put a single regiment on a fleet by dispersing their companies or something. But that would certainly not be standard practice.

Occasionally, Navy warships support landing operations by having their armsmen participate in securing a beachhead. At least I do remember reading a short story about an Imperial Admiral contesting the crazy suggestion that the airlocks be welded close after the crew has boarded (basically imprisoning them in the vessel) in order to prevent incidents during shore leave, with the Admiral using instances of armsmen participating in planetary invasions as one of the reasons for why that'd be counterproductive.

The Retribution-class is not meant to carry troops, period. The BFG entry for capital ships in orbit during planetary assault (not including Astartes vessels) even states their assault points are obtained by means of bombardment.

An archived quote from an Andy Chambers post to the BFG list many years ago:

My two pennyworth on crew sizes was around 1500-2000 per damage point for Imperial and Chaos capital ships (adjust down a bit for Eldar and up a bit for Orks), but only around 2-500 total for escorts. Space Marine ships, as had been mooted, I would imagine to benefit from a lot of automated systems and wired in servitors to reduce their crew requirements to a minimum and increase their state of readiness in comparison with Navy ships. I would imagine that most Imperial and Chaos capital ships could find transport capacity for troops equal to about 1/3 to 1/2 their crew compliment. Tanks, artillery, Titans etc would need specialist transports to carry in any significant numbers.A far more interesting way of looking at crew numbers is summed up in this excerpt from a short story I've been writing for my own amusement.

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

And primarily they are.

But that does not exclude the possibilty that they can carry and deploy some. Not the same capacity as troop transports certainly.

But the Battleship still needs to take on crew, munitions, consumables, and remove excess.

Their are instances of captains receiving the imperial tithe on behalf of the imperium as happened in relentless.

This does nesseccitate the use of a landing/docking bay. Is it as large as a dedicated assault bay? No. But it still must have the facilities to equip and resupply those shuttles and lighters bringing those supplies/crew.

 Grey Templar wrote:
I don't recall them going into explicit detail about the specifics of Imperial Hangers and how ships enter. I seem to remember them using simple Airlocks.

Especially since boarding actions seem to always involve landing on the ships hull and using a meltacharge to breech I would think that the Hangers wouldn't just be open. Its a stupid Sci-fi trope anyway.

 Brother Captain Alexander wrote:
I know Lynata, I am not sure about that too.

I do remember that ships were going trough force in and out field in "Fire Warrior", and once they get past it they are in atmosphere. I don't know if that is valid because I honestly didn't find anything regarding this subject in 40k fluff except there.

Note the last five seconds of video, devilfish does right trough the void shield:



I just don't know if this is valid considering how invalid that entire game was when regarding to 40k fluff.

Movie fail, a Tau ship at that close range wouldn't last longer than a few seconds. In BFG or "IRL"

Be fair-its one aginst an emperor class-there carriers and just dont carry that much firepower. Now those devilfish on the other hand are way out of scale

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 Hunterindarkness wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
Retribution-class Battleships don't have launch bays.

Nominally that is correct. However each ship can be re arranged. You could put bays in place of weapons on such a ship

Then it won't be a Retribution-class. And as I recall, the Adeptus Mechanicus gets real irritated when you mess around with technical specifications.

[

Nope still the same class. 40k ships are old, that class is in the feth thats old group. Its not uncommon for ships of the same class to have whole diffent layouts inside or diffent parts of load outs. Something like a battleship would rarly be messed with but it would not be unknown to do so.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
The Retribution-class is not meant to carry troops, period. The BFG entry for capital ships in orbit during planetary assault (not including Astartes vessels) even states their assault points are obtained by means of bombardment.

It's not meant to but I bet it can.

 purplefood wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
The Retribution-class is not meant to carry troops, period. The BFG entry for capital ships in orbit during planetary assault (not including Astartes vessels) even states their assault points are obtained by means of bombardment.

It's not meant to but I bet it can.

No rules for battleships, but seeing how many ways you can build cruisers and grand cruisers, it is a good bet.