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 Tyran wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

The least unrealistic part of 40k is the population of the Imperium. Real life Earth, assuming we went full "screw the environment, lets make as much food as is physically possible", could easily support trillions of people.

We would cook ourselves into extinction, heat has to go somewhere and trillions of humans (plus the infrastructure needed to keep them alive) is simply way to much heat.

The IoM probably has some sort of void cooling that simply dumps excess heat into the warp.

You underestimate the extremes that humans can tolerate and how big the planet is. This scenario realistically just means that most animal life biomass is converted into human biomass, other than the artificial ecosystems in our farms.

This is of course assuming that the planet was optimized for agricultural production and food dispersal alone, which is unrealistic but it is an illustration of what a "normal" planet is capable of producing.

Grey Templar wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

In the modern day we might think “100 Billion, how can a single planet support that many smelly hoomans”. But Armageddon, like many Hive Worlds and Industrial Worls, they’re fed by imports and other means, and so aren’t expected to be self sufficient.

I don't think anybody is questioning the ability for the Imperium to have 100 billion people on a planet. We're questioning that "If they have 100 billion people on X planet, why does the war on planet X only have a few million soldiers fighting on it?"

The least unrealistic part of 40k is the population of the Imperium. Real life Earth, assuming we went full "screw the environment, lets make as much food as is physically possible", could easily support trillions of people. Multiply that by a few hundred thousand and it is highly plausible for agri-worlds to support the countless quadrillions of humans that have to be populating the 40k galaxy if we take their population statements for stated hive worlds as representative of the whole.

Logistics is of course a reasonable limitation. But the numbers are still too low. I would say safely we should probably multiple the number of enlisted troops on Armageddon by 10 at a minimum, and this number should not include any militia raised from the locals to fight the orks. The local militia should easily be in the many tens of millions.

We have no numbers for this,see my posts above. I think it is very likely that the Armageddon PDF is in the tens of millions at the outset of the war (similar to Coronis Agathon). We only know that Guardsmen might be in the ballpark of 1.5 million at the onset of the conflict (from the Helsreach novel) and that the numbers of regiments are quite low one year into a truly apocalyptic war where enormous casualties are likely.

Really, any defensive conflict in the Imperium should show that sizable forces are raised from the local populace, given bare minimum equipment, and then sent to die as cannon fodder instead of the more limited Imperial Guard who actually take resources to supply and maintain.

I am imagining an upper echelon tactica guide for Imperial commanders including a section on fighting defensive wars in the Imperium telling them to organize the locals, stoke patriotic fervor, and try and use the excess population to fight the enemy. Benefits to this callous tactic would be less unrest as the civilian population will be reduced and not need as many supplies if the war drags on. Meanwhile the guardsmen will also suffer fewer causalities as the numbers are made up by the locals. Any local units who do distinguish themselves can be enlisted as the end of the conflict as veteran guardsmen as well. Naturally steps should be taken to keep valuable or skilled laborers among the populace off the front line, focus on the dregs of society first.

I'm confident this generally happens, but even a super basic harvest, training and equipping of conscripts will take up resources from the combat troops, so this does have a maximum rate at which it can be done from pre-existing troop levels. Hive gangs are favoured because then you only need to do the harvesting.

From looking at the sources we have for Armageddon, it appears the number of militia units more than doubled in a couple of months during the lower intensity fighting of the Season of Fire (with lower casualty rates). That would correspond with what you are saying. Whilst it would help to preserve combat power amongst better trained and/or experienced units, you would probably have to use a considerable amount of those troops as blocking forces to prevent the fodder from retreating/deserting.

Tyran wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

The least unrealistic part of 40k is the population of the Imperium. Real life Earth, assuming we went full "screw the environment, lets make as much food as is physically possible", could easily support trillions of people.

We would cook ourselves into extinction, heat has to go somewhere and trillions of humans (plus the infrastructure needed to keep them alive) is simply way to much heat.

The IoM probably has some sort of void cooling that simply dumps excess heat into the warp.

I doubt this is a huge issue if it is planned for and accounted for when constructing/expanding the hive. Hives require lots of energy to function and are constantly sending energy off-world in the form of people and materials. Moving energy around is quite easy and efficient for modern-day humans with heat pumps. I can see heat pumps being used on a huge scale to concentrate the energy output of humans into huge energy-reclamation plants, where it is then used for industrial processes.

An example is recycling. Necromunda tells us that hive worlds typically recycle as much as they can, including organic matter. That means a lot of the human waste (by which I mean faeces and urine much moreso than corpses) is being turned back into food. To have any significant nutritional value, this is going to require storing energy back into the food as chemical energy.

Also, as the world heats up, it will lose more heat to space. I know there are equations for this, I don't pretend to be able to do them...

Also, for reference in regards to biomass.

Humans on Earth currently account for 0.01% of the total biomass. 7.9 billion humans is 1 tenth of a percent of Earth's biomass. You could get into the Trillions and only be a couple of % of Earth's biomass

 Grey Templar wrote:
Also, for reference in regards to biomass.

Humans on Earth currently account for 0.01% of the total biomass. 7.9 billion humans is 1 tenth of a percent of Earth's biomass. You could get into the Trillions and only be a couple of % of Earth's biomass

Sure, humans make up 0.01% of the total biomass. But that didn't really matter when we developed CFCs and began destroying the ozone layer did it? Proportion of total biomass is a, frankly, meaningless statistic when you are talking about populations and habitability. Energy and resource requirements, and stuff like greenhouse gas emissions, are much more valuable and humans are incredibly energy and resource hungry.

 Haighus wrote:
That gives an indication that the combat prior to the onset of the Season of Fire was probably consuming units too fast to maintain numbers, let alone grow in strength.

Well I suspect Imperial training is rather fast. Hypnoconditioning, basics of lasgun usage, etc. Shortages would be in bureaucracy - so predicting those losses as you might not be set up to train that many, and fighting over which workers to release next. Stuff like the underhives would be swept and conscripted on mass, everyone else has a job to do.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:

Inspite of all talk and debate about rebellions, losing planets to aliens (Orks, Tyranids, Necrons and even smaller factions like Kroot, Tarrelians etc.) should be a more relevant and more often occuring problem. (But correct me if I'm wrong)

The old fiction was very much constant rebelions by human worlds, for whatever reasons. Zenos were a deadly but isolated threat after the genocides 10,000 years ago.


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 kurhanik wrote:
Honestly the big issue here is that the GW writers didn't think through the numbers, you cannot really take them at face value and just have to assume they mean 'lots' in a lot of cases. I mean heck, we are at a point where the opening point of this discussion is that Armageddon might have (or had) between 150 and 350 BILLION people on it. That is a wide margin of error.

They are terrible.

HH is a great example, I doubt any author had actually read much historical warface information. You read stories of apocalyptic tank battles and think hang on, I played Kursk a few years back and while 1 6mm modfel was one platoon, we still had more stuff than this author is talking about. Taking real accounts of campaigns, especially eastern front, change the names to silly ones and vehicles to chimera and russ and it would be a lot more convincing and awful...

The writers of 40k certainly do not seem to have grasped the full scale of the destruction that was world war 2. Around 3% of the population of Earth in 1940 (most reliable numbers I could find from a quick Google) would be dead come 1946 as a result of that war.

40K wants to try and get that existential war feeling for the Imperium, which is basically in Nazi Germany's position in 1944, fighting on all fronts and steadily losing. But it never puts up large enough numbers to really convey that.

In an earlier thread I ran numbers for how many casualties Terra alone (population 1 quadrillion which is the lowest possible estimate as it is described as being in the quadrillions) would need to be suffering to match the rate of destruction of WW2, and it came to around 13.7billion casualties per day, every day, for 5 years straight.

All i'm going to point out is that the Astra Militarum 8th edition rulebook has this to state

"For a hive world such as
Armageddon, caught in the throes of an all-consuming war, a
draft of at least a hundred million men at arms and several million
armoured vehicles is typical – a tiny fraction of the total populace
which numbers in the hundreds of billions."

the-gentleman-ranker wrote:
All i'm going to point out is that the Astra Militarum 8th edition rulebook has this to state

"For a hive world such as
Armageddon, caught in the throes of an all-consuming war, a
draft of at least a hundred million men at arms and several million
armoured vehicles is typical – a tiny fraction of the total populace
which numbers in the hundreds of billions."

Good source, don't know how I missed that one.

I think it still leaves the question of "why so few formations ffighting at a given time?" but I think exceptionally high attrition rates does explain it. Literally throwing freshly-raised units into the grinder like ammunition whilst the few surviving veteran units do operations that require capabilities beyond standing in a trenchline with a lasgun. That way you can have huge annual recruitment figures but fairly low numbers at any given snapshot in time.


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 A Town Called Malus wrote:
The writers of 40k certainly do not seem to have grasped the full scale of the destruction that was world war 2. Around 3% of the population of Earth in 1940 (most reliable numbers I could find from a quick Google) would be dead come 1946 as a result of that war.

40K wants to try and get that existential war feeling for the Imperium, which is basically in Nazi Germany's position in 1944, fighting on all fronts and steadily losing. But it never puts up large enough numbers to really convey that.

In an earlier thread I ran numbers for how many casualties Terra alone (population 1 quadrillion which is the lowest possible estimate as it is described as being in the quadrillions) would need to be suffering to match the rate of destruction of WW2, and it came to around 13.7billion casualties per day, every day, for 5 years straight.

I think WW2 is a poor comparison for most 40k warzones though, because the Imperium is set up as a colonial empire. Colonial conflicts historically have involved much smaller proportions of the relative populations fighting. WW2 was fought by nation states with a strong national identity, good information distribution and control, and reasonable living conditions (pre war). Even within WW2, the most populous part of the British Empire (India) contributed a much smaller proportion of troops than you might expect, because colonial pressures existed there. Russia collapsed in WW1 because it wasn't a modern-enough nation state that could sustain such a war as long as the other Great Powers.

Not every Imperial war is colonial, Armageddon is an example which is not, but if your military is necessarily set up to suppress revolts it takes time to convert into a total war economy, doubly so when record keeping and bureaucracy is poor for the population (as on hive worlds).

I don't know much about Armageddon but based upon 90s Necromunda I think fighting on a hive world will consist of three different forms, each of which will draw upon different numbers of people.

Firstly, fighting in the ash wastes. This is WW2 north African campaign except there is zero water, zero food and you die if your respirator fails. Ideally, all forces here would be mechanised and be supported by a major logistical fleet. You can certainly take 1 million PDF and send them into the ash wastes with a lasgun, a respirator and as much food and drink as they can carry but each person will literally be dead within a week unless further food or water can reach them. If the enemy is sufficiently far away then literally none would reach the enemy So supporting a large military here is only possible if the hive world has or can build a major supply chain or if they have planted pre-existing supply depots.

Secondly, fighting in defensive lines near to hives. This is Kursk WW2. Here you can deploy the PDF say twenty miles outside the boundaries of the hive. By being closer to the hive you need a smaller supply chain. Crucially, you conscript the population to carry them food and water. Keep the defensives lines close enough to the hive that a hiver can carry them food and water and get back without dying of hunger and thirst then you can have a major supply chain without significant mechanisation.

Thirdly, there is fighting in the hive itself. This is Stalingrad. Here everyone is given a lasgun until we run out of lasguns, then they are given a wrench or something (like how civilians were given bamboo spears to defend against the invasion of Japan).

So how many forces can be supported depends upon where the fighting takes place, pre-war planning for supply chains and depots (not a strength of the Imperium) and organisation once the war starts (also not a strength). Without decent logistics, 99% of people sent into the ash wastes die before reaching the enemy.

 Samsonov wrote:
I don't know much about Armageddon but based upon 90s Necromunda I think fighting on a hive world will consist of three different forms, each of which will draw upon different numbers of people.

Firstly, fighting in the ash wastes. This is WW2 north African campaign except there is zero water, zero food and you die if your respirator fails. Ideally, all forces here would be mechanised and be supported by a major logistical fleet. You can certainly take 1 million PDF and send them into the ash wastes with a lasgun, a respirator and as much food and drink as they can carry but each person will literally be dead within a week unless further food or water can reach them. If the enemy is sufficiently far away then literally none would reach the enemy So supporting a large military here is only possible if the hive world has or can build a major supply chain or if they have planted pre-existing supply depots.

Secondly, fighting in defensive lines near to hives. This is Kursk WW2. Here you can deploy the PDF say twenty miles outside the boundaries of the hive. By being closer to the hive you need a smaller supply chain. Crucially, you conscript the population to carry them food and water. Keep the defensives lines close enough to the hive that a hiver can carry them food and water and get back without dying of hunger and thirst then you can have a major supply chain without significant mechanisation.

Thirdly, there is fighting in the hive itself. This is Stalingrad. Here everyone is given a lasgun until we run out of lasguns, then they are given a wrench or something (like how civilians were given bamboo spears to defend against the invasion of Japan).

So how many forces can be supported depends upon where the fighting takes place, pre-war planning for supply chains and depots (not a strength of the Imperium) and organisation once the war starts (also not a strength). Without decent logistics, 99% of people sent into the ash wastes die before reaching the enemy.

I think this is broad strokes correct.

The main caveat is that Armageddon is not quite as harsh a world as Necromunda. There are ash wastes, but they don't cover the entire space between hives and there are less-toxic areas of wilderness that support some life. I don't think any unaugmented human would want to go without heavy protective gear in these areas, but it is less necessary and subsistence living is possible for skilled foragers. Your average hiver who has never even seen the sky before still won't last very long, but specialised Guard regiments can be deployed to those regions with low logistical support, like the Asgardian Rangers.

Supply depots are definitely a thing that Imperial worlds do. The extent and quality of those depots tends to be more related to local politics as they are typically PDF facilities. Perlia had a well maintained system of depots across their desert region, which allowed Commissar Cain the lead an effective guerilla campaign against Orks there. Necromunda notably has a network of underground tunnels and storerooms between hives for military use. However corruption has left this network understrength (and some of the stored rations have decayed for so long they are now a valuable illicit drug...).

Armageddon had a very corrupt leadership prior to the 2nd War for Armageddon, so military readiness in any supply depot network was probably poor under von Strab. However it has been controlled by a military council since then focused on rebuilding and rearming the world, so I suspect Armageddon would have a solid network of supply depots by the 3rd War. A lot would be overrun and looted in the opening phases, but the surviving depots would allow for greater mobility of units.

Having said all that, I think it is noticeable that offensives in the 3rd War tend to be done with full Guard regiments, with the militia units presumably kept in defensive positions. For example, Yarrick keeping regiments of Cadians and Pyran Dragoons in reserve for the counterattack at Hive Infernus. Much of the war was grinding trench warfare along huge defensive lines. That tallies with your general hypothesis.