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How many percent of the fighting personnel of the imperial forces do you guys think would be engaged in the Imperial Navy as opposed to the Imperial Guard?

For me it's a clean 74-25, with that final percent being divided between the rest of the elements in the favor of the rest to the Imperial Navy's advantage.

I don't quite get what you're asking here. You're saying a fight between Guard and Navy?

Because while I'd say Guard out-number the Navy (seeing as they're numbering in the uncountable billions), the Navy'd win, even if only because the Guard are entirely land-based, and the Nazy control the skies and orbit. They'd just bombard from space. It's not like they're slugging it out. You're giving one side tanks and rifles and the other side bombers and space cruisers with weapons that can wipe out a planet.

The army will outnumber the navy. That is how it has always worked for every military force in history and I see no reason why it would be any different here.

Airforce is combined with Army. Marines dont exist in the IoM

The Guard is the biggest force, followed by the Navy (which I would assume has a "Marine" like force to guard ships and things while the Guard is slugging it out below)l There really are no other branches at that point.

Galdos, I don't think there is an airforce honestly. The IoM made sure that there would be no chance of a regiment defecting and being self-sustaining. All the flyers we see as "Guard" vehicles are usually Navy that were embedded in. This is the same way with tanks and artillery usually as well, little to no regiments have full combined arms ability by themselves. The Infantry is a dedicated Infantry Regiment, tanks from a dedicated Tank Regiment, etc etc.

Fighters and bombers are all Navy. I seem to recall the Taros Campaign identifying all of the Valkyries/Vendettas used by the Elysians as Navy, too. I don't think any airborne vehicles are actually under the authority of the Guard. Space Marines are the only organization allowed to combine land, air, and space forces.

The Imperial Navy is pretty dependent on other organizations. It has few foot armies, mainly comprised of landing parties. Due to the fact that these landing parties have won few battles of note and generally achieved few honors, it can be assumed that their strength is greatly limited. If its fighting on a planet, its dependent on the Imperial Guard.

Meanwhile, its dependent on the Mechanicum for ammunition and maintenance. If the Imperial Navy fought the Imperial Guard, and the Mechanicum didn't take its side, it would exhaust its resources fairly quickly. It would need to put an end to the conflict as soon as possible, and break the Imperial Guard before they can draw it into a protracted campaign.

Lastly, the Navy is too divided. It has no central command, but rather five fleet leaders. Only one of these leaders, the Lord Commander of a Segmentum (usually Segmentum Solar, as it contains Terra), is present among the High Lords of Terra at a time, giving them little political influence. The Imperial Guard on the other hand has the Master of the Administratum (which the Guard is part of) and the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard.

In a final analysis, the odds are againt the Imperial Navy. They would have to exterminate the Imperial Guardsmen aboard its ships, something very difficult (as the Guardsmen massively outnumber) them, but still possible (they control the airlocks, the turrets, the doors, and the servitors onboard). They would have to quickly eradicate the Imperial Guardsmen using a series of ruthless orbital bombardments, and then they would have to maintain the Imperium in the following insanity. If the Guardsmen were able to survive the moment the Navy initially turned on them, and were able to secure the loyalty of the Mechanicum (or simply neutrality; as long as the Mechanicum doesn't supply the Navy, its screwed) the Guard would win.

Not that any of this would ever happen in the fluff. The organizations are too entwined.

This is like asking which would win in a battle "your arms vs. your legs".

Navy fights in space and can glass planets from orbit.

guard fight on the little life-giving chunks of rock, that is required for human existence.

Guard cannot beat the navy in space, and the navy has to resort to bombing a planet ( and razing its important facilities) to beat the guard.

I sort of thought the IN would be like the Royal Navy in the age of sail, GB then had a small professional army and a huge navy, that was how I thought the IOM would work, as ajust a small ship takes the manpower of 20k. men to steer.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
I sort of thought the IN would be like the Royal Navy in the age of sail, GB then had a small professional army and a huge navy, that was how I thought the IOM would work, as ajust a small ship takes the manpower of 20k. men to steer.

Battleships can have crews in the millions. And the Imperium's tactics need mass of numbers to work because humans are too squishy and weak to rely on a small, professional army as the core of their armed forces in the 40k milky way. Even an Ork can survive plenty of lasgun shots (which show similar firepower to modern .50 bmgs) and then pop your skull like a grape between his fingers. Unless you feel like passing out meltaguns and plasma rifles to everyone you are going to need a lot of guardsmen firing to stop an ork charge.

Small, elite unit tactics also have major difficulties against the Tyranid swarm if constrained by the limit of the human body. You need a metric boatload of dakka to stop a carpet of gaunts from murdering you, and the typical tyranid air response to air power is to meet you with a mass of gargoyles, sky slashers, flyrants, shrikes, harpies, and harridans thick enough to block out the sun. At that point they can down you by just having enough gargoyles latch onto your plane to weigh you back down to earth.

So better hope you had enough ground support!

Battleships do not have crews in the millions.
That's absurd.
Imperial tactics do not rely on massed waves of men and tanks.
That' also absurd.

The Imperial Guards is (Usually) a fairly well trained and equipped force. They are usually deployed against other humans and similar forces. When they fight various xenos and chaotic forces they have a problem because they get so outmatched after that... anyone would be outmatched fighting some of those enemies and frankly they do a damn good job as it is.

As for Beaviz's idea of having a smaller land force and a large navy...
You need a lot of people to invade even a single world which forces the Imperium to have a large land force and enough of a navy to patrol and contest pirates, raiders etc

The Navy is probably more powerful on the whole but it is probably smaller in terms of manpower.

Did I say millions? No, but they tend to have fairly large crews, 95.000 per Lunar Cruiser, which means 57.000.000 men and women are onboard them just in the Segmentum Obscurus alone, source Lexicanum.

I can't claim knowledge of how many there are that mans f.ex. an Emperor battleship, but I envision between 150k. to 200k. members on board since they are like the Nimitz-class vessels tossed into space.

As for the competency of the Imperial Guard that varies greatly. Some tosses enough bodies at a thing to make it go away, others used cutting combined arms-tactics.

I just sort of see the real power of the IOM as that reminiscent of the Brits in the age of sail.

He wasn't replying to you.

Anyway, yes they have very large crews. Tens of thousands of crew, most of whom are little more than slaves chained to their post. A large Battleship could have a hundred thousand or more.


But the IG does rely on massed waves of men and tanks in some situations. They've thrown billions of troops at a single hive before.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
This is like asking which would win in a battle "your arms vs. your legs".

Arms, clearly. Arms could manipulate a hammer or a saw to remove the legs as a threat as soon as possible. The legs would have difficulty in attacking the arms, and their only real strength lies in the potential to run off a cliff and drag the arms with them.

 LoneLictor wrote:
The Imperial Navy is pretty dependent on other organizations. It has few foot armies, mainly comprised of landing parties. Due to the fact that these landing parties have won few battles of note and generally achieved few honors, it can be assumed that their strength is greatly limited. If its fighting on a planet, its dependent on the Imperial Guard.

Meanwhile, its dependent on the Mechanicum for ammunition and maintenance. If the Imperial Navy fought the Imperial Guard, and the Mechanicum didn't take its side, it would exhaust its resources fairly quickly. It would need to put an end to the conflict as soon as possible, and break the Imperial Guard before they can draw it into a protracted campaign.

Lastly, the Navy is too divided. It has no central command, but rather five fleet leaders. Only one of these leaders, the Lord Commander of a Segmentum (usually Segmentum Solar, as it contains Terra), is present among the High Lords of Terra at a time, giving them little political influence. The Imperial Guard on the other hand has the Master of the Administratum (which the Guard is part of) and the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard.

In a final analysis, the odds are againt the Imperial Navy. They would have to exterminate the Imperial Guardsmen aboard its ships, something very difficult (as the Guardsmen massively outnumber) them, but still possible (they control the airlocks, the turrets, the doors, and the servitors onboard). They would have to quickly eradicate the Imperial Guardsmen using a series of ruthless orbital bombardments, and then they would have to maintain the Imperium in the following insanity. If the Guardsmen were able to survive the moment the Navy initially turned on them, and were able to secure the loyalty of the Mechanicum (or simply neutrality; as long as the Mechanicum doesn't supply the Navy, its screwed) the Guard would win.

Pretty much the opposite of this. Out of the two of them, the Guard are the dependent party. This is a space fantasy setting. Think of the era of colonial imperialism, but in space. Each and every factions ability to hold any power or influence whatsoever will always, always, boil down to their capacity for space travel. No exceptions. The IoM has one of the biggest and most widespread military powers in the galaxy thanks to their spacefaring. Take that away and the entire thing collapses. Take the Guard away from the IoM and you have a suddenly nomadic space power that hit-and-runs for a few hundred years until it fades away. Take the Navy away and it simply dies, dead in the water.

 Grey Templar wrote:
He wasn't replying to you.

Anyway, yes they have very large crews. Tens of thousands of crew, most of whom are little more than slaves chained to their post. A large Battleship could have a hundred thousand or more.


But the IG does rely on massed waves of men and tanks in some situations. They've thrown billions of troops at a single hive before.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Iracundus wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Ehm according to the Rogue Trade Rulebook you can be in error. Also ships of a class tends to increase in size as the class get older due to things getting added, and I can see that happening to ships in the Imperial Navy.

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Ehm according to the Rogue Trade Rulebook you can be in error. Also ships of a class tends to increase in size as the class get older due to things getting added, and I can see that happening to ships in the Imperial Navy.

Go read my post. Rogue Trader is by Fantasy Flight games. That post I quoted in that earlier post came from Andy Chambers, creator of BFG.

The Rogue Trader numbers again if you read my earlier post, is completely out of whack with all other sources, ranging from Andy Chambers to a range of BL novels (all of which were most in keeping with Andy Chambers's scale).

Even a large Lunar class cruiser such as one with the BFG refit of Reinforced Hull increasing its size to 10 damage points, would hit at most around 16,000 crew per Andy Chambers' scale.

What happened was that GW surprisingly had a very internally consistent set of numbers for scale in BFG as given across a range of sources, then suddenly when it came to the RPGs, the crowd of big numbers took over and decided on their own to inflate the numbers for everything.

It is no different than those people that argue Warlord Titans are so huge they dwarf entire mountain peaks. If they took over and suddenly inserted ridiculously big Titans into the background fluff, you'd suddenly have the same sort of conflict with the more reasonably sized Titan scales given before.

Also Lexicanum is a third party site and is not accurate. Always refer to the direct sources, as I did in my earlier post with direct quotes and page numbers cited.

Iracundus wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Ehm according to the Rogue Trade Rulebook you can be in error. Also ships of a class tends to increase in size as the class get older due to things getting added, and I can see that happening to ships in the Imperial Navy.

Go read my post. Rogue Trader is by Fantasy Flight games. That post I quoted in that earlier post came from Andy Chambers, creator of BFG.

The Rogue Trader numbers again if you read my earlier post, is completely out of whack with all other sources, ranging from Andy Chambers to a range of BL novels (all of which were most in keeping with Andy Chambers's scale).

Even a large Lunar class cruiser such as one with the BFG refit of Reinforced Hull increasing its size to 10 damage points, would hit at most around 16,000 crew per Andy Chambers' scale.

16.000 has been mentioned as the airforce-guys at a Dictator-line cruiser methinks.

 Beaviz81 wrote:
How many percent of the fighting personnel of the imperial forces do you guys think would be engaged in the Imperial Navy as opposed to the Imperial Guard?

It's impossible to even guess - both contain innumerable amounts of personnel that constantly change due to warfare, loss of regiments/ships, influx of replacements & other reasons*. If I had to say which one was bigger, I'd hazard that the guard is going to be that bit bigger, but I couldn't write down a figure.

*Such as serving females in both the Guard & in the Navy producing offspring.

 Sparks_Havelock wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:
How many percent of the fighting personnel of the imperial forces do you guys think would be engaged in the Imperial Navy as opposed to the Imperial Guard?

It's impossible to even guess - both contain innumerable amounts of personnel that constantly change due to warfare, loss of regiments/ships, influx of replacements & other reasons*. If I had to say which one was bigger, I'd hazard that the guard is going to be that bit bigger, but I couldn't write down a figure.

*Such as serving females in both the Guard & in the Navy producing offspring.

Fapping is allowed, but I generally take it to be for married people.

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Ehm according to the Rogue Trade Rulebook you can be in error. Also ships of a class tends to increase in size as the class get older due to things getting added, and I can see that happening to ships in the Imperial Navy.

Go read my post. Rogue Trader is by Fantasy Flight games. That post I quoted in that earlier post came from Andy Chambers, creator of BFG.

The Rogue Trader numbers again if you read my earlier post, is completely out of whack with all other sources, ranging from Andy Chambers to a range of BL novels (all of which were most in keeping with Andy Chambers's scale).

Even a large Lunar class cruiser such as one with the BFG refit of Reinforced Hull increasing its size to 10 damage points, would hit at most around 16,000 crew per Andy Chambers' scale.

16.000 has been mentioned as the airforce-guys at a Dictator-line cruiser methinks.

Go READ my earlier post at the link given instead of just speculating wildly. There is a direct quote giving the crew of a Dictator class and it is almost 13,000. Whether it includes air crew or not is up for debate, but even so, it is nowhere near the grossly inflated numbers given in the RPGs. Another quote in that same post gives the crew size of an Avenger class grand cruiser. Andy Chambers gave a scale of 1,500-2,000 crew per damage point, with transport capacity of 1/3 to 1/2 their crew size.

For a battleship, which as 12 damage points in BFG, that means a crew size of about 24,000, and a transport capacity of 8,000-12,000. In other words, by the size given of 8,000 in the 4th edition IG Codex, a battleship could transport about 1 infantry regiment by itself.

Iracundus wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Ehm according to the Rogue Trade Rulebook you can be in error. Also ships of a class tends to increase in size as the class get older due to things getting added, and I can see that happening to ships in the Imperial Navy.

Go read my post. Rogue Trader is by Fantasy Flight games. That post I quoted in that earlier post came from Andy Chambers, creator of BFG.

The Rogue Trader numbers again if you read my earlier post, is completely out of whack with all other sources, ranging from Andy Chambers to a range of BL novels (all of which were most in keeping with Andy Chambers's scale).

Even a large Lunar class cruiser such as one with the BFG refit of Reinforced Hull increasing its size to 10 damage points, would hit at most around 16,000 crew per Andy Chambers' scale.

16.000 has been mentioned as the airforce-guys at a Dictator-line cruiser methinks.

Go READ my earlier post at the link given instead of just speculating wildly. There is a direct quote giving the crew of a Dictator class and it is almost 13,000. Whether it includes air crew or not is up for debate, but even so, it is nowhere near the grossly inflated numbers given in the RPGs. Another quote in that same post gives the crew size of an Avenger class grand cruiser. Andy Chambers gave a scale of 1,500-2,000 crew per damage point, with transport capacity of 1/3 to 1/2 their crew size.

For a battleship, which as 12 damage points in BFG, that means a crew size of about 24,000, and a transport capacity of 8,000-12,000. In other words, by the size given of 8,000 in the 4th edition IG Codex, a battleship could transport about 1 infantry regiment by itself.

I read your link, I just ain't sure if it fits as that was a personal note from the author, and you know the adage of GW, no doubt.

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:

 Beaviz81 wrote:

Iracundus wrote:
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/491073.page?userfilterid=47893

An Imperial battleship has a crew complement of about 24,000.

Fantasy Flight games arbitrarily inflated the crew size for no reason, and this places it in conflict with other sources, such as the BFG novels which gave the crew of a Dictator class cruiser (i.e. same size as a Lunar) at almost 13,000. While there might be some individual ship variation, it is ridiculous to expect over a 7 fold variation.

Ehm according to the Rogue Trade Rulebook you can be in error. Also ships of a class tends to increase in size as the class get older due to things getting added, and I can see that happening to ships in the Imperial Navy.

Go read my post. Rogue Trader is by Fantasy Flight games. That post I quoted in that earlier post came from Andy Chambers, creator of BFG.

The Rogue Trader numbers again if you read my earlier post, is completely out of whack with all other sources, ranging from Andy Chambers to a range of BL novels (all of which were most in keeping with Andy Chambers's scale).

Even a large Lunar class cruiser such as one with the BFG refit of Reinforced Hull increasing its size to 10 damage points, would hit at most around 16,000 crew per Andy Chambers' scale.

16.000 has been mentioned as the airforce-guys at a Dictator-line cruiser methinks.

Go READ my earlier post at the link given instead of just speculating wildly. There is a direct quote giving the crew of a Dictator class and it is almost 13,000. Whether it includes air crew or not is up for debate, but even so, it is nowhere near the grossly inflated numbers given in the RPGs. Another quote in that same post gives the crew size of an Avenger class grand cruiser. Andy Chambers gave a scale of 1,500-2,000 crew per damage point, with transport capacity of 1/3 to 1/2 their crew size.

For a battleship, which as 12 damage points in BFG, that means a crew size of about 24,000, and a transport capacity of 8,000-12,000. In other words, by the size given of 8,000 in the 4th edition IG Codex, a battleship could transport about 1 infantry regiment by itself.

I read your link, I just ain't sure if it fits as that was a personal note from the author, and you know the adage of GW, no doubt.

Did you also read the range of quotes from BL novels that were in keeping with that scale? Those novels spanned a range of publication dates, showing there was an internal consistency that lasted for years. Also the more recently published Relentless novel has a crew of 10,000 for the cruiser.

All of this is in keeping with Andy Chambers's scale, with some individual variation per ship. But they are all within the same general range, and nowhere near the 7x inflated sizes given by FFG.

Incidentally another piece by Andy Chambers gives the crew per lance turret:

http://www.wolfedengames.com/battlefleetgothic/lances.htm

Finally in the OFFICIAL BFG Armada supplement, it gives the Armageddon battlecruiser which had an additional 3,500 crew to man the power relays and additional turrets. These ships were essentially upgraded Lunar class cruisers. This additional crew was stressed to be a big deal, which it wouldn't if one were using the inflated FFG numbers. If you have a crew of 16,000 then having 3,500 more is a 22% increase in crew size (i.e. a big deal). If one had an FFG crew of 95,000 then it is a 3.6% increase which hardly sounds like something to stress out over.

 Galdos wrote:
The army will outnumber the navy. That is how it has always worked for every military force in history and I see no reason why it would be any different here.

Airforce is combined with Army. Marines dont exist in the IoM

you're forgetting the Sphess.....MAREENS

Asmodai Asmodean wrote:

 Galdos wrote:
The army will outnumber the navy. That is how it has always worked for every military force in history and I see no reason why it would be any different here.

Airforce is combined with Army. Marines dont exist in the IoM

you're forgetting the Sphess.....MAREENS

I was just trying to focus on the Navy and Imperial Guard debate. but yes there is also those guys.

As others have stated with a few specific exceptions the Guard has no air support of its own and has to rely on the Navy.

The Astartes have Starships, Void / aircraft and ground troops - the only other organisation that is likely to be able to do this on any signficant scale is the Mechanicum who have all three as well.

On the OP - really difficult to say but I would think that the Guard and all its suport elements would outnumber the Navy personnel signifcantly even with such structures as starbases..............

The navy. Exterminatus.. Nuff said?? City destroying bombs, lasers, the power to eradicate starsystems, quench suns.. Valkyries, Vendettas, Thunderbolts, bigger stuff too! They sure as hell couldn't conquer a planet, but they can destroy one with a button-push..