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 Warpig1815 wrote:

Iron_Captain wrote:

 Warpig1815 wrote:
I've been playing Battlefleet Gothic: Armada recently and in the course of reading up on the Imperial Navy, I couldn't really find any firm numbers of the size of Imperial Fleets. Indeed the one fact I did come across was that in the Segmentum Obscurus alone (1 out of the 5) there were only 600 Lunar Class Cruisers, which were meant to be the most numerous of Cruiser designs. So, onto a little maths, bearing in mind that this is all extrapolation on my part:

If the Segmentum Obscurus has 600 Cruisers, then being roughly the same size as Solar and Pacificus combined, the same size as Tempestus and half the size of Ultima that would nominally put total Imperial Cruisers at around 3000 Cruisers.

Fair enough. However, here's where I start to get a little disbelieving:

A Space Marine Strike Cruiser is equipped to hold one full SM company. A Battle Barge can hold up to 3 companies. So assuming these numbers to be correct, a full SM Legion of circa 100,000 Marines would require either 333 Battle Barges or 1000 Strike Cruisers, or more likely a combination of the two, to carry the Legion to battle. So, assuming all 9 Traitor Legions still possess roughly the same fleet assets as they did after the HH (Even if split up into warbands or replaced with similar vessels), then the Traitor Legions alone can muster up to 9000 Cruiser class vessels.

It seems therefore, that the Traitor Legions alone can muster three times as many Cruisers as the whole Imperium, without even taking into account the many billions of traitors and renegades in the Lost and the Damned and the thousands more vessels they can muster.

That's got to be wrong, so what would be a more reasonable estimate of the Imperium's naval strength?

That seems indeed wrong. Firstly because the Legions were not just limited to strike cruisers and battle barges (they had much larger ships). Also, even in 40k, battle barges can be of wildly varying size. 'Battle barge' is not the name of a standardised ship class or such, it is simply a designation for any large warship owned by a Space Marine chapter. Entire Chapters are based out of a single battle barge, indicating some can carry far more than 3 companies.
Secondly, the estimate is wrong because after the Heresy and the Scouring, no SM Legion had numbers even close to 100,000.
Thirdly, it seems wrong because in the more than 10,000 years of war that seperate the end of the Scouring and 'present-day' 40k, the vast majority of traitor legion assets will have been destroyed in the endless campaigns against the Imperium, with only few opportunities for replacement.
And last but not least, there are as many cruisers as the plot demands. The amount of cruiser classes that exist is unknown. If they run out of Lunar-Class cruisers, the writers will just invent a new class.

Just to say - It's not me that is 'wrong', because I don't make the numbers up. The numbers come from Lexicanum, and each fact is fully sourced to one of Games Workshop's sources. In this case, the Strike Cruiser quote comes straight from the 2004 Book Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, page 23. The Battle Barge number comes from Imperial Armour Volume Two: Space Marines and Forces of the Inquisition, pg. 10. Whether GW is right or wrong with these numbers is a different matter (the matter we are discussing) but the numbers are still given as canon values in several sources.

Never trust a wiki. I can't check the Battlefleet Gothic quote, but the Vraks quote about 600 Lunar-class cruisers is just made up by someone. The actual quote says that there are over 600 ships of that class in service in the Segmentum Obscurus. That does not give us any definite number, as 'over 600' can be anything from 601 Lunar Class cruisers to thousands of Lunar Class Cruisers. And given Imperial bureacracy and difficulty in interstellar communications, the actual number of Lunar-class cruisers in the Segmentum Obscurus is likely unknown even to the Navy's commanders. The wiki makes it seem much more like the Vraks book gives a definite number, which it does not.

Your numbers, and the application of them is wrong for the following reasons:
1. You assume the size of segmentae. The size of the Imperium's segmentae has never been given. For example, even though the Ultima Segmentum looks larger than the Segmentum Solar on maps, it might very well be that the Segmentum Solar is actually larger because it is much more heavily populated.
2. You assume fleet size corresponds to the size of a segmentum. Seeing as that battlefleets are divided by sectors however, it is likely that a segmentum's fleet size corresponds to the number and importance of sectors within the segmentum. Seeing as that numbers are never explicitly stated, segmentum fleet sizes can not be assumed.
3. We do not know how many classes of cruisers exist, therefore the total number of cruisers can never be known.
4. Given the 3 above points, I think it is fair to conclude that your number of 3000 total Imperial cruisers is baseless.
5. You assume the battle barge is a standard design that always can carry up to 3 companies. 'Battle barge' however does not refer to any specific class or design of ship. Rather it is just a designation for any large, old ship owned by a Space Marine Chapter. A battle barge could carry an entire chapter, or it could not even carry a single company (many battle barges are full warships rather than troop carrying ships). It depends on the individual ship.
6. You do not take into account traitor legion losses and many other variables, therefore the number of 9000 traitor legion cruisers is also meaningless.

 Warpig1815 wrote:
Obviously 9000 is not a hard number for the Traitor Legions combined fleet. It may be way higher if said Legions utilise large numbers of escort vessels. It may be far lower if the Legions travel mainly on board one giant Gloriana Battleship or fewer Battle Barges. It's more likely to be somewhere between the two. 9000 is just a ballpark figure if all the Traitor Legions travelled on board Cruiser Class Vessels capable of supporting the number of Astartes that the sources provide.

The sources do not provide these numbers. As explained, the capacity of a battle barge varies. Furthermore, the strength of the traitor legions is unknown and has been since the start of the Horus Heresy. A traitor legion in 40k could number anywhere from a few hundred Astartes to hundreds of thousands of Astartes. We do not know, and likely can not know, since most traitor Astartes are no longer part of the traitor legions in the first place. Most of the traitor legions have long since broken up and ceased to exist. Only the Iron Warriors and Word Bearers are still together in a form that resembles the Heresy-era legions (Thousand Sons too I guess, since Magnus is now doing stuff again).

 Warpig1815 wrote:

Grey Templar wrote:The numbers of the Imperial navy are not hard and fast. But we can make some educated guesses going by the official numbers.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Battlefleet

A Battlefleet is the basic unit of the Imperial navy. Consisting of between 50-75 ships on average. Lets say 20% of the ships are battleships, 30% are Cruisers, and 50% are escort vessels.

Every Sector has it's own Battlefleet.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sector

A sector is a unit of volume, approximately 200 cubic lightyears.

The Milky Way is 800 trillion cubic light years. Now it's quite clearly stated that the Imperium only occupies a merest fraction of the galaxy.

Lets say that the Imperium occupies 0.01% of the galaxy's volume(that's 100th of 1%). 800 trillion x .001 = 8,000,000,000 cubic lightyears. 8 billion cubic lightyears.

This would mean the Imperium has ~40,000,000 sectors.

40 million sectors. Each with 50-75 ships on average.

Low end estimates with each sector averaging 50 ships:

Battleships: 10 per sector. 400 million Battleships

Cruisers: 15 per sector. 600 million Cruisers

Escorts: ~1 billion Escort vessels.



Yes, these numbers seem large. But when you're talking a empire that is realistically defending several hundred million planets it's all put in perspective. You might occupy 1 million worlds, but you'd have picket lines beyond that so your navy is realistically covering dozens of totally unoccupied worlds for every one that actually has Imperial citizens.

That's maybe a high estimate IMHO. The IoM has around 1 Million worlds, but those worlds can range in population from 3.4 Million of Fenris to the 500 Billion of Ichar IV (Depending on the Authors taste or course). If we were to average the population of an Imperial World at a conservative 21 Billion (Triple of today's numbers) we would get the following:

1 Million x 21 Billion = 2.1 Quadrillion (21,000 Billion by the US System) - However if, by your numbers, there are circa 2 Billion Imperial Navy Vessels, then each ship could only have a crew of 10,500. However, we know that some vessels have a crew of 100,000 - the Overlord Class Battlecruiser for instance. So for your numbers to work, either every world would have to have trillions of inhabitants in order to supply not only the Fleet, but also the Guard and the wider Imperium's infrastructure (Which isn't infeasible by the settings standards, but there are no known instances of it occurring), or the Imperium would have to have far more than 1 million worlds under it's control.

Of course, they're all lines of thought we are never going to be able to reconcile with GW's facts.

Grey Templar's numbers are most likely the closest you are going to get to a reliable estimate. His math is sound, altough his estimation of the percentage of battleships is probably on the high side.
Anyways, we can not just assume the Imperium has only a million worlds. Such a low number does not make sense given the size of the Imperium and the average density of populated worlds in a sector. 'A million worlds', rather than an accurate estimation (I highly doubt anyone in the Imperium could give an estimation of the number of planets it rules) is most likely simply a poetic expression that means 'a huge lot'. Just like the Japanese say stuff 'may the emperor live for ten thousand years.' No one is actually expecting the emperor to live for ten thousand years, it is just a poetic way of wishing his reign may last very long.
This is very common in any language. Large numbers such as 'a hundred' or 'a thousand' are very often used not to indicate precise numbers but simply indicate indefinite large quantities.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Graphite wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Numbers!

Not quite. A sector is a cube 200 light years per side, not a cube of 200 cubic light years volume. So divide your numbers by (appropriately) 40,000 and we're about right. Which is still a heck of a lot of ships - 10 million battleships, 15 million cruisers etc.

Ummm. No.

A cube which is 200x200x200 lightyears is 200 cubic lightyears.

Just like a Cubic meter is a "box" where each side is 1 meter across. So a cube that is 200 light years per side is, by very definition, 200 cubic lightyears.

Yaay maths pedantry!

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/cubic-meter-meter-cubed

A box 200x200x200 light years would be 200 light years, cubed, but more importantly for this discussion is also 8 million cubic light years.

I would also suggest that 40 million sectors is stretching it a bit. Even if you don't take the whole million worlds thing literally (and I would still suggest that its a big enough number for the Imperium) as most sectors that are presented have more than one habitable planet, then the number of sectors by that calling is out by about 2 orders of magnitude.

 Grey Templar wrote:
A cube which is 200x200x200 lightyears is 200 cubic lightyears.

Just like a Cubic meter is a "box" where each side is 1 meter across. So a cube that is 200 light years per side is, by very definition, 200 cubic lightyears.

Eh, no. That cubic meter is one cubic meter because 1x1x1=1. Increase it to 2 by 2 by 2 and it's already 8 cubic meters. 200x200x200=8,000,000 cubic ly.

The BFG rulebook section on Imperial ships listed 2 famous named battleships each for the Emperor and Retribution class native to the Gothic sector. While they don't explicitly list other battleship classes in the main rulebook, 4 battleships native if we take a fleet size of 75 ships is about 5.3% battleships. While other battleships were present during the Gothic War, they were reinforcements from oither sectors.

If we take the short story called "Incident at Stranivar" by Gordon Rennie in the Warp Storm BFG supplement as canon, there was another battleship (class not specified) called the Nevsky that was destroyed in the early stages of the Gothic War in a sneak attack. That makes it likely this battleship was native to the Gothic Sector. 5 battleships out of 75 would be 6.66% battleships in a sector fleet.

Iracundus wrote:
The BFG rulebook section on Imperial ships listed 2 famous named battleships each for the Emperor and Retribution class native to the Gothic sector. While they don't explicitly list other battleship classes in the main rulebook, 4 battleships native if we take a fleet size of 75 ships is about 5.3% battleships. While other battleships were present during the Gothic War, they were reinforcements from oither sectors.

If we take the short story called "Incident at Stranivar" by Gordon Rennie in the Warp Storm BFG supplement as canon, there was another battleship (class not specified) called the Nevsky that was destroyed in the early stages of the Gothic War in a sneak attack. That makes it likely this battleship was native to the Gothic Sector. 5 battleships out of 75 would be 6.66% battleships in a sector fleet.

That fits past eras too. Battleships made up small proportion of fleets but where powerful surface assets.
America at peak had some 10-20 inservice but dozens of cruisers, hundreds of escort class and such.

The BB tie up alot as there assets that often require another pf there class to face down properly and take down if under a propper escort.

That brings up an interesting question.
A chapter like the Space Wolves or the Blood Angels currently don't have enough Marines to fill a cruiser but they have cruisers to spare - at least if the Blood Angels have re-absorbed their successor chapters like some people suggest - what does that cruiser do?
It has to be crewed by a "normal" milita but is it still capable of any kind of military service or engagements?

Considering those cruisers as far as I can tell are crewed and commanded by auxiliaries, with Marines primarily for ground combat (and boarding actions) I'd say they're perfectly capable of carrying out 95% of the same military actions a Marine-crewed cruiser could.

The only disadvantages they'd have is not having supersoldiers for boarding actions (doesn't seem to stop the Guard terribly much, although the conditions would favour Marines) and being prevented by bureacracy from conducting ground invasions (something I expect the Space Wolves wouldn't give two hoots about).

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Considering those cruisers as far as I can tell are crewed and commanded by auxiliaries, with Marines primarily for ground combat (and boarding actions) I'd say they're perfectly capable of carrying out 95% of the same military actions a Marine-crewed cruiser could.

The only disadvantages they'd have is not having supersoldiers for boarding actions (doesn't seem to stop the Guard terribly much, although the conditions would favour Marines) and being prevented by bureacracy from conducting ground invasions (something I expect the Space Wolves wouldn't give two hoots about).

Also ad mission, escort and patrol duty.
They may only have a combat sqaud on board, and doing a warzone support run. Escort or other duties such as ferrying vital and valuble suplies tona frontline. They may also be acting as a convoy escort for a vital guard campaign if Navy short or in there area at time.

Also the cruiser can still provide say guard or others fire support..

They can do far more than just be marine battle taxi ships.

Yeah absolutely. They can do everything a Marine cruiser can do except ground combat (and even then as you say they can provide fire support, or just outright break the rules and deploy Armsmen to the surface).

To be honest, they're probably far more valuable than the Marines...

 Ynneadwraith wrote:
Yeah absolutely. They can do everything a Marine cruiser can do except ground combat (and even then as you say they can provide fire support, or just outright break the rules and deploy Armsmen to the surface).

To be honest, they're probably far more valuable than the Marines...

Even then. The rule breaker your after well, might be not care you broke rules to bring em down.

So it's unlikely that a chapter like the Space Wolves would have been exempt from any amount of loss of non Space Marine specific equipmnent.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
So it's unlikely that a chapter like the Space Wolves would have been exempt from any amount of loss of non Space Marine specific equipmnent.

Space Marine Chapters, especially First Founding ones twist, bend and even break the rules.

Many Chapters have unusual vessels from actual Battleships to Forge Ships - it will also depend how they clasify them - it used to be the Space Wolves had a single Battleship that they classed and used as a Battlebarge.

If you go by the numbers n the last SW Codex they would be pushed put a single pack on even half their vessels - and that's without including the vast space Fortresses they have.

I have not read the recent Fenris campaign so I don't know if they changed the size of their fleet or if they clarified if their non Astartes crews are void born from ancient Fenriseisan (or other) Stock.

The Imperial fleet just needs to be bigger than their enemy's fleet, so I suppose many fleets are thrown together and not even the admiral knows how many ships there are. I remember a scene in Scars where Russ doesn't know the name of Bjorn's ship, but then again Russ isn't known for his intelligence...

Battlefleet gothic armada confirmed that the crew of an astartes cruiser is made up of chapter serfs and servitors.
Astartes, if any, are limited to a handful of command positions (the gladius class frigate states that having even a squads worth of marines amongst the thousands of crew is rare).

the figure of 600 lunar cruisers only refers to one class among many