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So this has been bugging me for a while now...

The space marine companies within a chapter are numbered 1 through 10 and, in the beginning of a marines career, they go from 10th, to 9th, to 8th, etc. and first company is the veteran company. But 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th companies are all battle companies so does one progress through them as well? Does 2nd company have more experience than the rest? And is 5th the 'noob' company? Or are they all equals, carefully managed and independent armies, with promotions going to the 1st company with recruits drawing directly from 6th?

Several sources in the fluff seem to give the feel that the former is true with captains being promoted through the companies and lower numbered companies accomplishing more epic deeds. It can get a bit confusing.

Captains seem to be promoted from ten to one. However it isn't concrete. I think the tenth company captain may be one of the more experienced because he must look after the scouts who are harder to use because they aren't fully trained. Also the second company captain of the Ultra marines may take over after Calgar.

For Marines there are specialist compaines like the devastator company etc. Aslo the Dark angels have the Ravenwing who are specialists with their commander looing likely to keep his role there.

The 1st Company captain won't necessarily take over the chapter after the death of the chapter master. It's more likely since he is the captain of the 1st company and everything but not certain.
The 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th companies are rarely deployed as a single formation. They tend to be detached to other companies to provide additional support.
All captains are equal but there are some cases of one captain having seniority or some other kind of command trump card over another captain. Usually the 1st company captain is the most experienced (Apart from maybe the 10th)
That said, barring the 1st company there isn't a difference between tthe 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 5th companies in terms of relative rank or seniority.
I don't think captains are promoted from 10th to 1st. If you're the captain of the 7th company it's unlikely you'd get promoted to captain of the 4th company. The captains tend to be promoted from the senior sergeant role or if there are no suitable marines in the company they will look outside the company. A first company veteran may be asked to become captain of the 3rd for example.

I've never seen anything to indicate captains are promoted from 10 to 9 to 8 to 7....The only couple of instances where I remember SM being promoted to captains was out of their own company(one of the BA companies, and one of the UM companies).