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 Crimson wrote:
Stated crew sizes are always absurdly small as the writers really don't understand scale and have never heard of square-cube law.

This has been debated before.

The issue though is crew exist to perform functions, not merely to fill volume. A lot of the functions of a starship may be operating as black box machinery that nobody touches while in operation (so little to no crew needed), while the crew haul on chains to load a torpedo. The Imperium is a mix of the primitive and the high tech juxtaposed on top of each other.

The Imperium also has a habit of expansive public spaces and cramped private spaces in order to impart a sense of smallness to the individual. Hence there are grand cathedral-like spaces and ship bridges, but tiny rooms for individual crew. That is a lot of wasted space and volume, before getting into all the unused, unusable, and abandoned spaces. An Imperial starship has a lot of "fat" that seems non-critical to its functioning. There also seems to be massive redundancy in systems as most of the BFG “critical hits” are repairable, representing rerouting of power and information flows.

Imperial warships can also be on patrol for far longer than comparable modern warships. The longest patrol recorded in at least the Gothic sector until 657.M41 was 1,741 days by the cruiser Marquis Lex. (BFG supplement Warp Storm, p.75). It is unknown whether there was any replenishment while in space, but either way, volume would still have had to been dedicated to the consumables.

I think neither is good. The majority of a starship crew are literal slaves or bondsmen that do hard, menial (yet necessary) work down below the waterline and live in squalor and confined spaces, forgotten by everyone but their cruel overseers. (Forges of Mars book series are a good source for this, Cadian Blood novel too)

So if you manage to avoid becoming a bandsman and be, for example, an Armsman or better, you might actually have a bit more comfortable life than a regular footslogger in the Guard.

Navy if you choose to enlist, since you've presumably got some kind of skill and it's in their interest to keep you around. Officers had it pretty comfortable.

Guard if you're conscripted. At least there's 'probably' more room for advancement and probably a quick death than spending 90% of your day performing what is menial, body-breaking slave labour and never seeing the sky again.

Of course it also depends on which regiment/world you're assigned to. Guard might have cushy postings or be from a rich world that keep them quite well (and comfortably) supplied. Compare that to the Navy where if you're press-ganged life is universally horrific for the rest of your short, tedious, painful existence. Hell, you might even get to retire from the Guard, whilst the Navy will just work you until you're done and then grind you into paste and/or Servitor you.

Teething I've always loved about the image of an imperial ship is all the empty spaces were entire cultures can develop exist and noon knows why they are there. Then add in the image of pulling along torpedos with chains along the deck
In my head cannon I've always imagines that if some one knocked over mechanics shrine and pressed a few buttons hidden underneath those empty spaces would turn out to be automated ammo loaders or other DAOT technology that they build into the ships without knowing it

It comes down to where you like to die horribly, in space where there is no room to run or on surface getting fragged or eaten. I prefer the IG.

chimera0205 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

It's important to realise that, to the Imperium, humans ARE machines. Especially the lower classes who are likely cheaper to feed than machines and are also expendable. Plus they can multi-task better. They can't just load torpedoes but that same person can also be used to load other munitions as the ship requires; swab the decks; pray to the Emperor and self replicate. A machine cannot do all those things, since that would require it to have an AI and AI is abominable technology banned over the whole Imperium.


Also don't forget that they likely do have auto loaders; but for specific historical roles that could not possibly be ported to other weapons. Plus different ships from different ages likely have different levels of technology on display and in-use. Provided it works the Imperium often sees no need to improve; and many times even if it doesn't work all that well they still won't improve.

But thats BS. Machines are ALWAYS cheaper then people in the long term. The fuel needs of a machine will always eventually be cheaper then the Food, Water, Housing, etc needs of a person. Thats an unmutable fact backed up by all of human history. Not to Mention how much space is wasted on living quarters? Mess halls? Food storage? By automating as much as they can the ship is not only cheaper in yhe long term but can be made smaller and thus much harder to hit. Imagine how much a smaller target a Imperial Battlehip would be if you stripped out 90% of the Crew facility's. A smaller ship with just as much firepower.

Not necessarily true - if you look, for example, at the M1 Abrahms tank compared to equivalent era Soviet tanks, the US deliberately chose not to give the tanks gun an autoloader whilst the Soviets did.
The autoloader is better than a conscript at one thing-loading the gun. The loader -once suitably trained - is a close match at loading, but also offers a fourth pair of hands for maintaining and operating other parts of the tank when not in combat, firefighting, providing medical aid to a third member whilst one and two fight the tank, etc. Crew instead of automation provides redundancy and flexibility, which can be more desirable.

locarno24 wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

 Overread wrote:

chimera0205 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
The Imperial 40K navy thematically is a throwback to the Age of Sail.

40K Imperial ships are a hive in microcosm, with the ruling class (the officers) existing in relative comfort or even luxury (if you're an admiral) atop basically a flying ghetto. The officers tend to be recruited from noble families with a tradition of service to the Navy. Lord Admiral Ravensburg reportedly had palatial apartment suites and a harem of concubines in his flagship. All the technical information is handled by Tech-Priests, their delegates the engineers, or servitors. The bulk of the crew are minimally skilled and expendable labor. That is why BFG background and artwork has such things as people hauling on chains to load a torpedo or gun.

How the actual feth do they not have Auto Loaders for there guns and torpedos? Thats such a rediclous simple technology I refuse to beleive that even the technologically impotent imperium doesnt have them.

It's important to realise that, to the Imperium, humans ARE machines. Especially the lower classes who are likely cheaper to feed than machines and are also expendable. Plus they can multi-task better. They can't just load torpedoes but that same person can also be used to load other munitions as the ship requires; swab the decks; pray to the Emperor and self replicate. A machine cannot do all those things, since that would require it to have an AI and AI is abominable technology banned over the whole Imperium.


Also don't forget that they likely do have auto loaders; but for specific historical roles that could not possibly be ported to other weapons. Plus different ships from different ages likely have different levels of technology on display and in-use. Provided it works the Imperium often sees no need to improve; and many times even if it doesn't work all that well they still won't improve.

But thats BS. Machines are ALWAYS cheaper then people in the long term. The fuel needs of a machine will always eventually be cheaper then the Food, Water, Housing, etc needs of a person. Thats an unmutable fact backed up by all of human history. Not to Mention how much space is wasted on living quarters? Mess halls? Food storage? By automating as much as they can the ship is not only cheaper in yhe long term but can be made smaller and thus much harder to hit. Imagine how much a smaller target a Imperial Battlehip would be if you stripped out 90% of the Crew facility's. A smaller ship with just as much firepower.

Not necessarily true - if you look, for example, at the M1 Abrahms tank compared to equivalent era Soviet tanks, the US deliberately chose not to give the tanks gun an autoloader whilst the Soviets did.
The autoloader is better than a conscript at one thing-loading the gun. The loader -once suitably trained - is a close match at loading, but also offers a fourth pair of hands for maintaining and operating other parts of the tank when not in combat, firefighting, providing medical aid to a third member whilst one and two fight the tank, etc. Crew instead of automation provides redundancy and flexibility, which can be more desirable.

Not to derail the thread, but there is some discrepancy here- the US tank crew would be volunteer professionals with top of the line training (I would hope, anyway) , and probably cross trained in each other's roles. The Soviets much less so (excluding elite units like the Guards or airborne), so they would be far less able to fill in for each other. I see this as analogous to single task servitors (Soviet conscripts) as opposed to flexible crewmen (us tank crew) - AI machines would be the best bet, but of course they're banned, and with damn good reason!

In case anyone is interested in a discussion on auto loaders

https://youtu.be/R0x-8NheU1E

 Arbitrator wrote:
Navy if you choose to enlist, since you've presumably got some kind of skill and it's in their interest to keep you around. Officers had it pretty comfortable.

Guard if you're conscripted. At least there's 'probably' more room for advancement and probably a quick death than spending 90% of your day performing what is menial, body-breaking slave labour and never seeing the sky again.

Of course it also depends on which regiment/world you're assigned to. Guard might have cushy postings or be from a rich world that keep them quite well (and comfortably) supplied. Compare that to the Navy where if you're press-ganged life is universally horrific for the rest of your short, tedious, painful existence. Hell, you might even get to retire from the Guard, whilst the Navy will just work you until you're done and then grind you into paste and/or Servitor you.

Bingo. This is my thinking, too.

If press-ganged/conscripted, being a foot-slogging Guardsman is likely, on average, to be a better form of misery versus being a navy rating. However, provided you can enlist as an officer or skilled technician of some sort (therefore not menial labour), serving in the navy/on a starship starts to become a helluva lot more attractive compared to being even a middle-to-high grade line officer in the Guard.

The Guard is better. Why? You probably make a single warp journey, fight a war, and likely become a garrison force on the newly conquered planet. Sure, you're expendable, but you get issued technology and are led by people who understand that while you're expendable, that you aren't to be wasted either. Your commissar will lead you into battle heroically, you get to kill vile xenos (or traitors) and die gloriously.

In the Navy, you will frequently travel the warp, and if ONE thing goes wrong, you're stuck in the warp (full of daemons) or flung far in time and space (or even worse!). You're crammed into a metal box that will be what you see and experience for the rest of your life, and you won't even see your enemy or your commanders. You'll never know where your ship is or see planetside ever again.

But on the other hand, you will be in a comparatively benign environment compared to a lot of less pleasant imperial worlds (death worlds, desert worlds, etc) where the guard may be expected to fight.

You may be expendable, but 'expending' a major warship is a lot less likely than a regiment getting thrown into a breach in a line, because a damaged warship can always make a credible attempt at disengaging once it's no longer able to fight effectively.

The guard may get garrison rights, or they may get shipped on to yet another planetary hell-hole to have another go at dying gloriously, and they get to do so in ships that are far slower, more vulnerable and much less well armed than the ones the navy are in.

I think this question depends entirely upon which duty you draw in life. If living as long as possible is the goal then you should probably hope to draw food service on a Navy ship. You'll always be warm and won't starve.

Hoping you draw garrison duty on a backwater planet is a Pyrrhic victory. Have you guys never read a 40k novel? It always starts out with some bored guardsmen pulling garrison duty on a backwater planet until all hell breaks loose

Living in tight confines within a metal box, with all recycled air, artificial lighting, and food that bears no resemblance to actual natural food? Sounds just like home for hive worlders.

Iracundus wrote:
Living in tight confines within a metal box, with all recycled air, artificial lighting, and food that bears no resemblance to actual natural food? Sounds just like home for hive worlders.

As long as the Geller field holds.

Although in some hives, only having occasional demon intrusions and nightmares might seem like a improvement...

Also, a naval recruit has more potential for advancement in the career.

Both the guard and navy are very socially stratified: enlisted are enlisted and commissioned are commissioned and never the twain shall meet.

BUT - enlisted ranks in the navy go a lot, lot further up. A platoon commander in the guard is an officer, whilst naval petty officers and warrant officers, despite their name, are not actually "officers" but veteran enlisted.

The two highest ranking on a ship are the bosun and master-at-arms - the latter commands the ship's armsmen and on a capital ship can have as many soldiers under their command as most guard battalion commanders..... and the former outranks them.

One of the characters in the BFG novels had done just that: rising from a penal convict to being the highest non-commissioned officer on board the Macharius, which was a Dictator class cruiser.

He also conducted a side business of running a criminal drug trafficking empire within the ship, knowing that the officers and commissar would turn a blind eye so long as the drugs and crime did not become too blatant or rise above a certain threshold.

Both are generally horrible. Navy life's misery is more akin to that of civilian lower classes toiling in nightmare industries, than to terrain-slogging bloodbaths as seen in the Guard during deployment. But almost all of 40k is essentially rigged to be a horrible place to live in, no matter where you turn. A hard life, where hard men can still thrive with grit and luck on their side.

 Crimson wrote:
Stated crew sizes are always absurdly small as the writers really don't understand scale and have never heard of square-cube law.

Aye. Sci-fi authors really should avoid numbers, and instead give megalomaniac descriptions in words and leave number crunching to the imagination of people with a knowledge and mathematical mindset to hammer it out.

I'm always a tad disappointed by how Warhammer 40'000 wars spanning entire planets with massive interplanetary troop deployments to support local forces, are described as petty conflicts akin to the Second World War in scope. When they obviously should involve billions of forces and hundreds of millions of casaulties.

chimera0205 wrote:
Witch branch of Imperium service treats its men and women better? Like if you were isekaid into 40k and given a choice between joining the navy or the army which would you choose? I know it can vary wildly based on which regiment or fleet your in but in general which has a better standard of living for your average soldier/ ummm sailor? Voidsmen? Navy person?

Both the Imperial Navy and Guard ae orgaised mostly in a gunpowder era /Age of Sail style - so the officer class in both are invariably aristorcrats or at least gentlemen/ladies. Some will haev risen from the ranks or the equivalent but less often.

Which one is best - depends on the Captain of the ship/his officer or the Colonel of the Regiment /officers - this will vary conisderably.

You have a good life in a regiment headed by Colonel Regina Kasteen and Major Ruput Broklaw but on the other hand you could have a raging idiot/psycho in charge or just someone indifferent and have a very low life expectancy.

Also where are you stationed - some backwater planet garison that the Administratum has forgot again could be quite comfirtable (depending on the above) - same with a ship hat is part of a quiet sector of the Imperium - and there are plent of those..... just dont get some glory seeking captain determined to make a name for him or herself.

As always the higher the rank the better the life....