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Hello fellow Dakkites! As an avid Imperial Guard player and fan-fiction writer, I have been looking into Imperial army unit sizes.

Now I know the simple structure, Platoons go into Companies and several companies go into a Regiment

But here is the tricky bit, where does it go from there?

In Gaunt's Ghosts, Brigades are mentioned (likely in Necropolis) as well as Battalions (SP?)

Assuming this, there are also likely to be Divisions and maybe even Corps within the Army Groups mentioned.

So my question is, how many of each units fit into the one above it, with ranking going from smallest to largest, based on modern military rankings

Squad
Platoon
Company
Battalion
Regiment
Brigade
Division
Corps
Army

Any help appreciated, and rough numbers of fighting troops would be appreciated for them (stick to Infantry Regiments, but to my knowledge armies include tanks)

Squads can be broken down into fireteams,

Fireteam · Squad · Section · Platoon · Troop/Company/Battery · Battalion/Squadron · Regiment · Brigade · Division · Corps · Field army · Army group · Region · Theater


source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_organization
^If you scroll down to about mid page, a bit lower, it'll have a list of the units, the common commanding officer's ranking, and their strength (# of troops)

Hope it helps!!!

Aren't brigades and regiments the same thing, except regiments are a formal organization and Brigades aren't? Or maybe not.

Also, according to the guard codex they skip Battalion and go straight to Regiment, I assume battalion is a more Ad-hoc formation, as with brigade and division etc...

The regiment is the standard troop unit of the guard, larger formations are just a collection of regiments.

EmilCrane wrote:Aren't brigades and regiments the same thing, except regiments are a formal organization and Brigades aren't? Or maybe not.

Also, according to the guard codex they skip Battalion and go straight to Regiment, I assume battalion is a more Ad-hoc formation, as with brigade and division etc...

The regiment is the standard troop unit of the guard, larger formations are just a collection of regiments.

Brigades are a bit larger than a Regiment as a regiment usually numbers between 2,000 to 5,000 strong, a brigade goes from 6,000 to 9,000 - at least that's what it currently is, I dunno what it is in 40K, but multiple countries have different unit designations so they might not have Brigades in the UK as that's where GW is. I dunno???

But yeah, the regiment is the standard, as it is more of an all-around formation, and easily transported from place to place, as an army would be a clusterf*ck in logistics to put down a small rebellion, whereas they can call for the support of multiple Regiments from different locations to come help, making it simple to transport that single regiment then combine them once they get there.

Exactly, once the regiments arrive at the warzone they are organized into Divisions and armies. At least thats how its done in Gaunts Ghosts, which is sort of the standard for the guard fluff.

Currently, the US army has Regiment on the same "command level" as a Brigade.

so basically, it would go team, squad, platoon, company/troop, battalion/squadron, brigade/regiment... from here, is where things get abit more complicated...

Brigades go in to Divisions, and then on to Corps and Armies. Regiments go to Corps, and Army

to use a RL example, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment has, lets say, around 5,200 personnel across its squadrons. where as the 4th Brigade of 1 Infantry Division has, say 5,600 personnel across its various battalions and batteries.. they are roughly the same size, but one can support itself 100 times better than the other. That would be the Regiment. This is because of the nature of the beast, in that the Regiment being completely self containted, it has support elements, artillery elements, armor and "infantry" elements all internal and completely organic to its composition.

Although, in 40k, they seem to believe that if you have "enough" troops, you dont have enough.. so across a theater, whether thats a single planet, or a system of stars, or whatever the case may be, you'll probably have an Army, or a group of Armies under command of one person.

One other thing to look at, is the ranks within the Codex.. basically, its grunt, Sergeant, Lieutenant, then they go into completely GW unique ranks for the company command squads, and Creed, but use normal ones for guys like Straken in Colonel.

Ensis Ferrae wrote:Currently, the US army has Regiment on the same "command level" as a Brigade.

so basically, it would go team, squad, platoon, company/troop, battalion/squadron, brigade/regiment... from here, is where things get abit more complicated...

Brigades go in to Divisions, and then on to Corps and Armies. Regiments go to Corps, and Army

to use a RL example, 3d Armored Cavalry Regiment has, lets say, around 5,200 personnel across its squadrons. where as the 4th Brigade of 1 Infantry Division has, say 5,600 personnel across its various battalions and batteries.. they are roughly the same size, but one can support itself 100 times better than the other. That would be the Regiment. This is because of the nature of the beast, in that the Regiment being completely self containted, it has support elements, artillery elements, armor and "infantry" elements all internal and completely organic to its composition.

Although, in 40k, they seem to believe that if you have "enough" troops, you dont have enough.. so across a theater, whether thats a single planet, or a system of stars, or whatever the case may be, you'll probably have an Army, or a group of Armies under command of one person.

One other thing to look at, is the ranks within the Codex.. basically, its grunt, Sergeant, Lieutenant, then they go into completely GW unique ranks for the company command squads, and Creed, but use normal ones for guys like Straken in Colonel.

The idea of the guard regiment is a self contained unit that can fight a war on its own or with more regiments in an army group. It helps with logistics because otherwise the munitorium would enver be able to support that many units if they weren't somewhat self contained.

As far as ranks go it varies from world to world but there seems to be some standards:

Trooper/Private (himself)
Corporal (fire team)
Sergeant (squad)

Lieutenant (platoon)
Captain (company)
Major (regimental XO)
Colonel (regiment)
General (division/army group)
Lord general (theater)
Warmaster (crusade/ entire warzone)
Lord Commander (Segmentum)
Lord Commander Militant (Imperium)

Gunheads makes reference to Major Generals and Lieutenant Generals but thats just cadia (and a one off book by a one off author), on any number of worlds ranks may be called any number of things

It's also conceivable that different planets and systems would have slightly different systems. So Cadia may have divisions in Generals due to the unusually high number of troops they muster compared to most. They likely also have degrees among the various other ranks.

Im pretty tired and a little rusty on my military organizations but for the most part most the time a brigade or battalion is mentioned in 40k doesnt it usually involve armour?

JazzyJ wrote:Im pretty tired and a little rusty on my military organizations but for the most part most the time a brigade or battalion is mentioned in 40k doesnt it usually involve armour?

In what I've read they're usually based around artillery (battallion) I don't know about brigades, as I've seen maybe one described in the Codex and it was a combined force