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Since catachans live on probably what's one of the worst planets ever climate and danger wise... And guardsman die in droves by the hour... Why do the Catachan models have dog tags? I doubt that a.) anyone would collect their body let alone take their tags, and b.) chances are that person has no one at home to send them too, and no one in the command center cares.

Thoughts?

Because they are supposed to be reminiscent of Vietnam era soldiers. Nuff said.

Because they are an army based on/inspired by visual images of US Servicemembers serving in the Vietnam War, wherein a soldier' dogtags were used to identify casualties, make record of the dead, and other grim-but-necessary actions.

They fit the Rambo-esque ideal that served as the basis for the original sculpts. No other reason.

 docdoom77 wrote:
Because they are supposed to be reminiscent of Vietnam era soldiers. Nuff said.

This. Cadians probably wear dog tags too, just can't see them under their flak armor & uniform.

Take it easy.

-Red__Thirst-

They aren't dog tags, they're munitorium Casually Logistics Identification Tags. Yeah... they didn't think that acronym through.

Well, Catachans are probably not dying in droves by the hour, otherwise there wouldn't have been any Catachans left by M40.
And regardless, having an identification tag on your soldiers is always handy.

Waste of metal for lasguns!!!

Catachans.. the ones that manage to survive the crazy lethal land?

Im sure they earned it by living.

The cheap aluminium that goes into dogtags is, under no circumstances, suitable for ballistic use.

Probably for administrative purposes. To the Imperium, record keeping is very important even if no one will ever read them.

Catachans are a close knit band of brothers, unlike the the death korps or Orks they care if one of their buddies fall. But I think most imperial forces have tags, probably only feudal worlds wouldn't.

If your whole command structure is wiped out, sure no one cares about who died and who's still around, especially if they don't notify people elsewhere. Though...Maybe the people in the support persons following (IE: suppliers and family) want to know?

If you're a commander and lost part of your command but not all of it, you want to know who's around, who you lost, and how you're going to restructure. See the bit about support persons as well.

And...knowledge of who your soldiers are is generally useful.

Dog tags might seem useless if you see the IoM as a faceless organisation of bureaucrats that throws endless waves of soldiers against a threat, but it's not always as stupid as that. And even when it is stupid it has to keep records of the fallen so it can make new plans, ship in replacements and maybe new commanders.

If you don't know how many men you lost you can't determine how many more you need, you just double it every time until it works. And that's wasting the Emperor's resources for no good reason.

Who keeps the records of the MILLIONS who die every day?

The Adeptus Administratum.

Sounds tedious, but safe...

I wondered this, especially when you've got scenery like the Wall of Martyrs demonstrating how little care is taken of the average guard after death.
Some of the Tanith figures have them too, I figured because they're mentioned in the BL books. Maybe there's a bit of info on why tags exist in more of the BL fluff?

I'm gonna go with nobody having thought on the scale of it all very hard, amongst many similar ideas...
For example, according to several bits of fluff like the RPGs and uplifting primer, commissars are supposed to do the paperwork regarding your death and induction. I can't imagine anyone could actually write that quickly and perform any other fething function, like eating or sleeping.

StarHunter25 wrote:
They aren't dog tags, they're munitorium Casually Logistics Identification Tags. Yeah... they didn't think that acronym through.

Lol nice!

 chazz huggins wrote:
Catachans are a close knit band of brothers, unlike the the death korps or Orks they care if one of their buddies fall. But I think most imperial forces have tags, probably only feudal worlds wouldn't.

The Death Korps greatly cares if one of its men falls, except that they would celebrate it, rather than mourn.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I wondered this, especially when you've got scenery like the Wall of Martyrs demonstrating how little care is taken of the average guard after death.
Some of the Tanith figures have them too, I figured because they're mentioned in the BL books. Maybe there's a bit of info on why tags exist in more of the BL fluff?

I'm gonna go with nobody having thought on the scale of it all very hard, amongst many similar ideas...
For example, according to several bits of fluff like the RPGs and uplifting primer, commissars are supposed to do the paperwork regarding your death and induction. I can't imagine anyone could actually write that quickly and perform any other fething function, like eating or sleeping.

The amount of material used in dogtags is almost nothing. It doesn't take up any resources.
And commissars have plenty of time to do paperwork after a battle. Commissars are attached on a company level, so there is already hundreds of commissars in a single regiment. Plenty of guys to do paperwork.
This kind of registration and paperwork is essential to the proper functioning of the Guard. A commander needs to know how many soldiers are left in his batallion, how much experience they have etc.

I'll be honest, having only read BL and the Lexicanum, I have no understanding of the infinitely variable IG command structure, or how many people one man is responsible for (probably bears inspection in another topic as I have a variety of bafflements). I have however seen the "forms" replicated in those books and you'd be in for a long night if you had more than a dozen...
Personally I think they would do the desk work, but the scale is unrealistic due to the take-or-leave command structure exhibited in the fluff.

Those aren't dog tags, they are medals for being the craziest, survivingest catachans that made it off planet and into the imperial guard!

ps they are dog tags.

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I wondered this, especially when you've got scenery like the Wall of Martyrs demonstrating how little care is taken of the average guard after death.
Some of the Tanith figures have them too, I figured because they're mentioned in the BL books. Maybe there's a bit of info on why tags exist in more of the BL fluff?

I'm gonna go with nobody having thought on the scale of it all very hard, amongst many similar ideas...
For example, according to several bits of fluff like the RPGs and uplifting primer, commissars are supposed to do the paperwork regarding your death and induction. I can't imagine anyone could actually write that quickly and perform any other fething function, like eating or sleeping.

In the real-world military, that duty falls to the CO of the Company. He/She is the one that files the paperwork and writes the letters of condolences to the families of the fallen.

The Vietnam war motif is pretty spot on I think.

Easiest explanation

StarHunter25 wrote:
They aren't dog tags, they're munitorium Casually Logistics Identification Tags. Yeah... they didn't think that acronym through.

To some I am known as the Commander of the Casualty Logistics Identification Tags

 Psienesis wrote:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
I wondered this, especially when you've got scenery like the Wall of Martyrs demonstrating how little care is taken of the average guard after death.
Some of the Tanith figures have them too, I figured because they're mentioned in the BL books. Maybe there's a bit of info on why tags exist in more of the BL fluff?

I'm gonna go with nobody having thought on the scale of it all very hard, amongst many similar ideas...
For example, according to several bits of fluff like the RPGs and uplifting primer, commissars are supposed to do the paperwork regarding your death and induction. I can't imagine anyone could actually write that quickly and perform any other fething function, like eating or sleeping.

In the real-world military, that duty falls to the CO of the Company. He/She is the one that files the paperwork and writes the letters of condolences to the families of the fallen.

Right. And in the 40k world I imagine that the new position of Commissar probably takes over that job. Or at least compiles the letters and sends them to the CO to sign.

Anyways, I also imagine that 99% of the operations carried out by the Imperial Guard follow pretty much the exact same format that our armies today follow. That is- General --> Brigade --> Battalion --> company --> Platoon --> Squad OPORDs, followed by movement to objectives and actions on, closing with withdrawal and reports to higher. Of those reports, bar the objective completed one, the LACE report is the most important for follow on ops, of which C for Casualties is a significant part.

It would be foolish to think that that Guard doesn't care about who dies and where. I imagine it would be like us today not caring. It's still a professional military, with all the same duties and responsibilities as ours.

Agreed. My main point being, it's not an impossible task for a single human or, in worst case scenarios, a small number of them, to process such tasks. Being that it's a task for the Administratum, I imagine the forms are pre-printed, the officer (or Commissar or clerk or whoever) just fills out the blank lines (name, dates of service, planet of origin, place of death, cause of death, etc) and rubber stamps it.

I think the point is, that these men are in warzones when they are wearing the dog tags. Most guard regiments are shipped off their homeworld never to return. If you are lucky, you are fighting a crusade in your own system and have a chance of returning.

If you are not, Well, who knows were the gakkin' hell you are in this turned over galaxy. You'd be lucky if they even tell you where you're headed before your drop ship opens the bays to who knows what.

When men fall on these worlds, someone has to write a letter home, make a note in the books, and make sure someone isn't posthumously sentenced to a summary execution for desertion.

The catachan models, other then being based on Rambo, have the dog tags because they are the men fighting off world, they earned those dog tags by fighting from birth to the point where they're able to point their lasgun at the enemies of mankind and pull the trigger.

They are the strongest, most clever, and scrappiests sons of gun that ever graced the training field. Someone has to know who they are when the post battle clean up happens.

 Psienesis wrote:
Agreed. My main point being, it's not an impossible task for a single human or, in worst case scenarios, a small number of them, to process such tasks. Being that it's a task for the Administratum, I imagine the forms are pre-printed, the officer (or Commissar or clerk or whoever) just fills out the blank lines (name, dates of service, planet of origin, place of death, cause of death, etc) and rubber stamps it.

Actually, doesn't the book, Fifteen Hours deal with this? There's a fella sat in the Imperial equivalent of a call-centre typing out endless streams of numbers that're piped into his headset, and I think those numbers are coordinates and serial numbers for dead guard.
It's a long, long time since I read it. But I think even he doesn't care what the numbers mean any more.

Whilst it's not impossible in practise, I meant with my post, that from the areas of background I've encountered, it's thoroughly unclear whether a single commissar is looking after fifteen guys or two thousand people at a time (I guess that'd be the regimental commissar), and not every squad even has one. So if you accept that on face value, you could have someone having to fill out one form in an afternoon, or in theory, six hundred.