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How many and of what type of ship's would it take to relocate a chapter? A few battle barges? Or would strike cruisers be taken as well? Or would the chapter just move out in its fleet? and if so what composes said fleet?

Considering 1 chapter is ~1,000 Marines I think 1 Battle Barge could easily hold the entire chapter if it had too given the size of the ships, though this almost never happens as chapters rarely operate as a single unit.

Today you can easily transport thousands of soldiers on large ships, and these would pale in comparison to a Battle Barge or even a Strike Cruiser.

So they would likely take their whole fleet other than a lucky one shot screwing a chapter over then.

So what comprises a chapters fleet? I know probably 1-2 battle barges, just cant get an appropriate feel for strike cruisers.

Depends on the nature of the chapter, but I'd say maybe one or two battle barges, then I'd say three or four, maximum of five, strike cruisers for every battle barge. A crusading chapter or just a space borne one like the Imperial Fists or Black Templars will have significantly more. A chapter that's come off badly from a difficult campaign will have less, like the Crimson Fists.

Alright thanks for the feedback guys.

A battle barge can hold 4 companies, and a strike cruiser can hold 1, so thats 3 battle barges or 10 strike cruisers.

True, but it's not just about transportation. Space Marines use their fleets for engagements alongside the Imperial Navy, and a lot of their duties are for generally patrolling a designated area, like the Ultramarines are Ultramar.

If you just want to relocate your chapter than a single battlebarge is enough. Hells, those ships are 5-8km long, your chapter could be made of Emperor Titans and they would still have plenty of room ( even with menials, ammo, and water/food . Having only a single ship would also make it quite difficult to deploy all your marines in one go, since as others have already said, a battlebarge can only deploy 3 or 4 companies at once ). Of course, a chapter generaly has many more ships, several strikecruisers, some escorts and perhaps even a second and third battlebarge, simply to spread out their forces and deploy on multiple warzones.
With the chapter spread amongst several ships it is also less likely to go extinct when you lose a vessel trough enemy fire/ mistake / warp travel.

Harriticus wrote:Considering 1 chapter is ~1,000 Marines I think 1 Battle Barge could easily hold the entire chapter if it had too given the size of the ships, though this almost never happens as chapters rarely operate as a single unit.

Today you can easily transport thousands of soldiers on large ships, and these would pale in comparison to a Battle Barge or even a Strike Cruiser.

As vodo40k has said this is really wrong, a space marine battle barge is designed to transport and maintain 4 companies, they have forges and chapels in them, plus weapon stock piles and all the serfs needed to pilot it.

BluntmanDC wrote:

Harriticus wrote:Considering 1 chapter is ~1,000 Marines I think 1 Battle Barge could easily hold the entire chapter if it had too given the size of the ships, though this almost never happens as chapters rarely operate as a single unit.

Today you can easily transport thousands of soldiers on large ships, and these would pale in comparison to a Battle Barge or even a Strike Cruiser.

As vodo40k has said this is really wrong, a space marine battle barge is designed to transport and maintain 4 companies, they have forges and chapels in them, plus weapon stock piles and all the serfs needed to pilot it.

And it is still a 5-8km long warship while 400 marines + perhaps 40-50 vehicles realy don't need that much space, even with forges, chapels, a personal spa for every single marine as well as the chaptermaster's land raider collection. We are speaking of flying cities here, where even smaller ships can easily have crews tens of thousands strong ( according to Rogue Trader which is the newst fluff suplement we have regarding imperial ships ) and not some puny Enterprise wanabe. Besides that, BFG only mentioned how many marines could be deployed by a single strikecruiser/ battlebarge and not how many could be transported. Having only 40 droppod tubes / a few dozen t-hawks ( assuming that you need some to transport vehicles while other transport the marines ) seems much more plausible than having the largest ghosttowns in 40k as your chapter's flagships.

You COULD cram a full chapter of Marines into a battlebarge, it jsut be a really bad idea.

A battlebarge is said to be able to drop 3~4 companies at once, so most chapters have 2 or 3, plus an assortment of Strike Cruisers for various missions, and more escorts for random side things.

A full chapter fleet would probably rival a small Imperial Navy battlefleet in scale.

Remember, even though the ships are huge LOTS of space is taken up by the engines, armor, weapons systems and torpedo bays...all kinds of mechanical systems you can't have people living in. The actual habitable area of the ship is probably much smaller than the ship appears to be.

KingDeath wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:

Harriticus wrote:Considering 1 chapter is ~1,000 Marines I think 1 Battle Barge could easily hold the entire chapter if it had too given the size of the ships, though this almost never happens as chapters rarely operate as a single unit.

Today you can easily transport thousands of soldiers on large ships, and these would pale in comparison to a Battle Barge or even a Strike Cruiser.

As vodo40k has said this is really wrong, a space marine battle barge is designed to transport and maintain 4 companies, they have forges and chapels in them, plus weapon stock piles and all the serfs needed to pilot it.

And it is still a 5-8km long warship while 400 marines + perhaps 40-50 vehicles realy don't need that much space, even with forges, chapels, a personal spa for every single marine as well as the chaptermaster's land raider collection. We are speaking of flying cities here, where even smaller ships can easily have crews tens of thousands strong ( according to Rogue Trader which is the newst fluff suplement we have regarding imperial ships ) and not some puny Enterprise wanabe. Besides that, BFG only mentioned how many marines could be deployed by a single strikecruiser/ battlebarge and not how many could be transported. Having only 40 droppod tubes / a few dozen t-hawks ( assuming that you need some to transport vehicles while other transport the marines ) seems much more plausible than having the largest ghosttowns in 40k as your chapter's flagships.

And you think that ships are just empty cardboard boxes where you can just shove things in, A space marine battle barge is a strike vessel, it has massive amounts of armour plating and lock off areas in case of pressure breaches, it has massive hangers for storing t-hawks and launch bays for them, as well as the armoury facilities for 4 companies worth of tanks (and even more if its the flag ship) it would also have massive food stores (and probably hydroponic areas to grow food) seeing as these ships need to supply 400 massive space marines that need lots of food and god knows how many serfs. Due to the nature of space marines, battle barges would also have massive training facilities as well. A battle barge isn't just a tin can full of bunk beds, just look at the difference in passenger capacity between a commercial cruise ship and an aircraft carrier, also remember that space marines take up alot more room than normal humans.

Also think of how much space is used for training areas. Not to mention that these things are also part monestary.

There are also chapters that are not based on a planet, like the Blood Ravens or the Dark Angels. The Blood Ravens have a sizable fleet of ships.

Shayden wrote:There are also chapters that are not based on a planet, like the Blood Ravens or the Dark Angels. The Blood Ravens have a sizable fleet of ships.

Dark Angels don't really count as they are a first founding, so they break any normal rules anyway and they have one of the largest ships in the imperium.