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Overall, what's more effective?

Putting ten guys in one Rhino with a special weapon and maybe a combi weapon or splitting into combat squads and deploying only five marines in the Rhino and the other five with a heavy weapon in your backyard?

Depends on the mission. If playing maelstrom then extra OS is good. If playing kill points then 10man squad may be better.
Also you can deploy both combat squads in the rhino and unload as different units. If you split them you can gang up on other units as if they are a unit of ten anyway (barring one squad failing a charge and another succeeding), and you can also save half a squad by absorbing a charge with 5 to save the other. Also it can make the opponent have to 'overkill' a 5 man squad.
Do you have other backfield scorers? If not then a heavy weapon squad may be a good idea backfield. If not then (say) 90pts is a lot for a single lascannon shot.

Poly Ranger wrote:
If playing maelstrom then extra OS is good.
...
If not then (say) 90pts is a lot for a single lascannon shot.

Yep. If you're playing a mission with lots of objectives (malestrom), then having an extra OS unit in your backfield is inherently valuable, and the extra heavy weapon is just a perk (it lets them participate in the battle somewhat instead of just sitting around not shooting at anything). If you're playing a gametype where having lots of backfield objective holders is not important, then the inherent inefficiency of the tac squad heavy weapon become apparent.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Depends on the mission. If playing maelstrom then extra OS is good. If playing kill points then 10man squad may be better.
Also you can deploy both combat squads in the rhino and unload as different units. If you split them you can gang up on other units as if they are a unit of ten anyway (barring one squad failing a charge and another succeeding), and you can also save half a squad by absorbing a charge with 5 to save the other. Also it can make the opponent have to 'overkill' a 5 man squad.
Do you have other backfield scorers? If not then a heavy weapon squad may be a good idea backfield. If not then (say) 90pts is a lot for a single lascannon shot.

At the moment the rest of my troops are aggressive Crusaders in LRCs, so not really geared for holding objectives.
In either case, the Rhino squad would be focused on holding objectives, hopefully away from major combat.

[Ultramarine]
10 marines with both the special and the heavy. Is that not what the Codex states? Keep them together or split as tactics dictate. But having both available grants the flexibility required of all loyal sons of the Emperor!
[/Ultramarine]

OK, fluffy-bunny stuff aside, I still field my tacs with both. For some, like the MM/M c-melta squad, you want to get that heavy upfield. Ultramarine CT also gives you two options to mitigate the snap-fire when you move, both the tac and dev doctrines let you re-roll. So while not optimal, you aren’t completely wasting your time. Imperial Fists can make the same argument with HBs. And the turn after you bail from your rhino, you might not need to move the heavy. The days where Brother Twitchy takes a step to the left and the whole squad counts as moving are behind us.

You do pay the points for things you might not be using at 100% efficiency. But you get a more flexible force.

If I want to take an objective, I like to have more then 5 guys to do the job. It’s not that hard to remove 5 MEQ from the table. So if their primary job is to take and hold, put the full squad in the box and roll forward. You give up early game firepower to do this, but gain late game durability. Like most marine choices, a lot depends on the balance of your list. If you have enough guns to blow your opponent off the table, you don’t need much to score.

 Nevelon wrote:


If I want to take an objective, I like to have more then 5 guys to do the job. It’s not that hard to remove 5 MEQ from the table. So if their primary job is to take and hold, put the full squad in the box and roll forward. You give up early game firepower to do this, but gain late game durability. Like most marine choices, a lot depends on the balance of your list. If you have enough guns to blow your opponent off the table, you don’t need much to score.

Good point on the extra durability of the full sized squad. That might just be the best answer, to trade shooting for extra protection.