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They need to refit, refuel, and resupply somewhere, right? Do they just land on a world and hope that it has some spare bolter ammo? Do they just requisition naval dockyards at will? Anyone have any official references on this?

From what I understand they can dock at pretty much any naval ship yard for supply and refitting. Some chapters may have their own space docks.

I can't get on Lexicanum at work, but have a look there.

Some(like the Black Templars) also maintain a number of keeps on various worlds.

However, I don't see why Naval assets wouldn't have standing orders to refit, resupply, and repair Astartes ships if they need it.

They are self-sufficient to a certain degree, water-reclamation, hydroponics etc...

Plus with the exception of the serfs, there's not a whole lot of requirement past material for war.

Let's just say a lot of people owe them favors. The least of which is letting them drydock.

Fleet based chapters don't all follow the same lines of doing things, but there is a few tactics that are frequent.

As has already been said, the probably try to be as self-sufficient as possible. That means water reclamation, growing their own food, and recycling as much raw material as they can. It wouldn't be unreasonable to assume that they even have some way to keep as much material from spent rounds as possible, in order to re-use what they can.

The ability to produce their own goods. It is not unreasonable to assume that their fleets contain the requisite tools to create their armor and weapons. That way all they need is raw material. They may even have the ability to break down the raw material there on their ships. At that juncture, most of the stuff they would need could easily be found floating in space. Asteroids rich in metal, comets with all kinds of gases and water, all of that can be found in various sizes all over. All they need to do is pull one in and then let the serfs get to work.

If anything, I would assume they have a higher than average number of said serfs with them. The higher workload would almost demand it. They probably also have a higher number of servitors for the same reason.

As Kamikaze implied, they probably wouldn't be averse to taking things they need from planets they've just saved, nor would the population be in much of a mood (or position) to argue.

Some of the less scrupulous Chapters would not balk at looting, I think. While I don't know that they are fleet based, in the novel Salamander by Nick Kyme, the Marines Malevolent are encountered engaging in exactly this sort of thievery, 'salvaging' lost equipment that belonged to another Chapter.

So, there you go. Most of this is conjecture on my part, but I hope it helps.

I didn't mean they loot the world they just saved. Quite the opposite, they usually leave those ones alone. Maybe take a few recruits.
A lot of worlds consider themselves honour-bound to help out a chapter that helped them out, even if it was 200 years ago.

T the end of the Badab War, the Carcharodons returned to worlds that had previously supported the Mantis Warriors and:

...' harvested an entire generation to renew their own losses, forcing those selected to fight to the death to prove their worth in order to survive in the Carcharodond' brethren'. (IA10, p55).

I didn't mean to imply looting, Canuck, sorry if it came off that way. Looting, no. But asking for some resources they need? Sure. "Hey, you guys have polar ice caps of pure frozen nitrogen. Mind if we carve off a few tons of that and take it with us?" Sorry for the confusion.

I would guess that fleet based chapters hold some rights as to resupplying and recruiting. They would most likely either get supplies and recruits from worlds/systems they defend.

Or they are fleet based chapters that hold rights to a system, the Relictors were a fleet based chapter but held rights to the world their base orbited.

They dock at spaceports and forgeworlds to refit and re-arm, though the specifics on how they arrange the ammo and armor refit are varied from forge to forgeworld.

With regards to arms production at least, I think Fleet-based chapters have their own mobile factories aboard ships.

Harriticus wrote:With regards to arms production at least, I think Fleet-based chapters have their own mobile factories aboard ships.

You are putting the cart before the horse though, all chapters make their own gear to a greater to lesser extent, but it doesn't matter how great your factory in space is if it has nothing to make stuff out of. The question of survival is resources, where do fleet based chapters get their resources.

BluntmanDC wrote:

Harriticus wrote:With regards to arms production at least, I think Fleet-based chapters have their own mobile factories aboard ships.

You are putting the cart before the horse though, all chapters make their own gear to a greater to lesser extent, but it doesn't matter how great your factory in space is if it has nothing to make stuff out of. The question of survival is resources, where do fleet based chapters get their resources.

As has been stated, there's plenty of raw materials in asteroids.

Codex Black templars page 8, first paragraph, tells us about a crusade fleet
and it has more than just cruisers and escorts, especially factory ships and training-facilities.
Something they need as they train their neophytes at their fleets and in the field.

Fleet based chapters have bases too, like BT build their holds on every world they relief of the traitor the mutant and the xeno.
Surely you have to have better relations with other imperial organizations like the mechanicum and the imperial navy to rely upon
forge worlds and fleet bases wherever you go.

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

BluntmanDC wrote:

Harriticus wrote:With regards to arms production at least, I think Fleet-based chapters have their own mobile factories aboard ships.

You are putting the cart before the horse though, all chapters make their own gear to a greater to lesser extent, but it doesn't matter how great your factory in space is if it has nothing to make stuff out of. The question of survival is resources, where do fleet based chapters get their resources.

As has been stated, there's plenty of raw materials in asteroids.

But forgetting the point that the AdMech are not idiots and most asteroids in IoM controlled systems will be the site of mining facilities.

Fleet based chapters tend to still have a territory they patrol.


they can always stop at any Imperial Shipyard and get fixed up. they also can resupply at a Forge World.


People will always fix up Marine ships, having a marine chapter in your good graces is always a good thing.



Marines often remember nice things far after a particular planet will. some random planet will be under attack and a Chapter of Marines chows up and saves the day. turns out the planet did something for the chapter 300 years ago and they were returning the favor.

There's also the fact that who in the right mind says "No" to a chapter of space marines?

"No" can be responded to with a teleporting terminator squad removing the current leadership of a planet/station/base with the marines just saying that the leadership was not loyal to the Emperor. Who's going to question them? You'll also notice that most of the fleet base chapters would have no problem doing something like this. (DA, BT, etc)