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Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





Something I find annoying about the guard in the fluff is how rigid the writers are to regiments etc. I've just read Rynns world again and yes I do love it (especially Cortez) but every guard formation is either a company or a regiment which is so simplistic.

Obviously in real life formations of troops are usually made up of battalions within a regiment and a group of battalions is a brigade etc but I never ever see this stuff mentioned it's simply "the 672nd xyz regiment did this" it just seems like poor research to me. Even in dark Imperium they say there are 2 million men under arms and simply go on to say it's such and such amount of regiments.
   
Made in us
Douglas Bader






They do exist. You just aren't seeing the fluff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, keeping the regiment as the largest permanent formation is an anti-heresy measure, so that if a single unit goes traitor it will be limited in what it can accomplish. Formations above regiment level are primarily temporary battlefield arrangements, disbanded once the immediate purpose is done. They wouldn't collect history to be recorded.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/01/07 00:35:30


There is no such thing as a hobby without politics. "Leave politics at the door" is itself a political statement, an endorsement of the status quo and an attempt to silence dissenting voices. 
   
Made in us
Imperial Guard Landspeeder Pilot




On moon miranda.

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Something I find annoying about the guard in the fluff is how rigid the writers are to regiments etc. I've just read Rynns world again and yes I do love it (especially Cortez) but every guard formation is either a company or a regiment which is so simplistic.

Obviously in real life formations of troops are usually made up of battalions within a regiment and a group of battalions is a brigade etc but I never ever see this stuff mentioned it's simply "the 672nd xyz regiment did this" it just seems like poor research to me. Even in dark Imperium they say there are 2 million men under arms and simply go on to say it's such and such amount of regiments.
This largely comes from the IG fluff originally being written by people, specifically people in the UK with lots of history with the Regiment and Company in particular, who were really into history stuff for a Space Fantasy universe but with little knowledge or care for modern real world military organization of the last hundred years or so. When your mindframe is stuff like the Somme and Waterloo, that's largely where the focus lays.

Hence, why we have a huge focus on Regiments and Companies, and not so much stuff like Corps, Divisions, Battalions, Brigades, Fire Teams, etc that get sprinkled in only rarely.

The word "Regiment" in 40k is rather vague. It's used for formations of 1,000 men all the way up to 100,000 men, for the troops of entire planets and specific units. Tempestus Scions were once just "The Stormtrooper Regiment" (singular). In several codex books they have mentioned having billions of regiments in the Imperial Guard under arms, which is an odd way to measure troop strength in retrospect.

Basically, don't read too much into it, the authors just took a word and ran with it for everything and didn't too much care about the details behind realistic military organization.

Same way Space Marine command structures typically have a grand total of only 4 levels from basic squad member to Chapter Master (squad member to sergeant to captain to chapter master) with almost nothing in-between (stuff like Chaplains and Librarians generally being specialists rather than steps on the path to command), with the exception of the rarely-mentioned Lieutenant (who slips in and out of codex availability over the various editions)

IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT.

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The correct pronunciation is Imperial Guard and Stormtroopers, "Astra Militarum" and "Tempestus Scions" are something you'll find at Hogwarts.  
   
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New Zealand

Formations above regiment are established on an adhoc basis as needed by the Adeptus Munitorum. But they are not permanent formations and are disbanded afterwards.

GW being a UK company the regiments follow the british tradition not the continental tradition. Regiments were more recruiting areas and the number was the battalion number. That is why in the colonies they later had whole divisions in the regiment. The royal New Zealand regiment in WW2 eventually had 2 divisions (the 2nd and 3rd).

In 2nd edition guard regiments had only 3 companies. So they were only really battalions. The 840th Cadian regiment (who fought against the 13 Black Crusade) would actually be the 840th battalion in the Cadian regiment.

In the Tactica Imperialis background book they released a while ago mentioned about higher formations like divisions.
   
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Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

There are a couple of reasons it makes sense. For starters, each regiment is raised on a single world, which makes sense given that kit, doctrine, and even language will vary widely from one regiment to another. There is also lore which says that planets only raise one "type" of regiment (infantry, armored, artillery, etc) so that if they rebel, they can't utilize combined arms.

The 2nd/3rd edition lore set the size of an average regiment around 3000 men, because that's what fit on the most common transport. Logistics being king, it makes sense to keep that standard as much as possible.

It's super confusing, because GW uses the term Regiment in both it's traditional meaning, a unifited unit of troops made up of companies that fights together, and the more modenr meaning, to mean a cohort bound by a common training style and doctrine, which does not necessary fight together.
   
Made in us
Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot






Iowa

 Vaktathi wrote:
Rogerio134134 wrote:
Something I find annoying about the guard in the fluff is how rigid the writers are to regiments etc. I've just read Rynns world again and yes I do love it (especially Cortez) but every guard formation is either a company or a regiment which is so simplistic.

Obviously in real life formations of troops are usually made up of battalions within a regiment and a group of battalions is a brigade etc but I never ever see this stuff mentioned it's simply "the 672nd xyz regiment did this" it just seems like poor research to me. Even in dark Imperium they say there are 2 million men under arms and simply go on to say it's such and such amount of regiments.
This largely comes from the IG fluff originally being written by people, specifically people in the UK with lots of history with the Regiment and Company in particular, who were really into history stuff for a Space Fantasy universe but with little knowledge or care for modern real world military organization of the last hundred years or so. When your mindframe is stuff like the Somme and Waterloo, that's largely where the focus lays.

Hence, why we have a huge focus on Regiments and Companies, and not so much stuff like Corps, Divisions, Battalions, Brigades, Fire Teams, etc that get sprinkled in only rarely.

The word "Regiment" in 40k is rather vague. It's used for formations of 1,000 men all the way up to 100,000 men, for the troops of entire planets and specific units. Tempestus Scions were once just "The Stormtrooper Regiment" (singular). In several codex books they have mentioned having billions of regiments in the Imperial Guard under arms, which is an odd way to measure troop strength in retrospect.

Basically, don't read too much into it, the authors just took a word and ran with it for everything and didn't too much care about the details behind realistic military organization.

Same way Space Marine command structures typically have a grand total of only 4 levels from basic squad member to Chapter Master (squad member to sergeant to captain to chapter master) with almost nothing in-between (stuff like Chaplains and Librarians generally being specialists rather than steps on the path to command), with the exception of the rarely-mentioned Lieutenant (who slips in and out of codex availability over the various editions)

What annoys me is that we don’t have a solid number on how big a Scion regiment can be. I’m trying to piece together tidbits, but it’s hard going.

If the truth can destroy it, then it deserves to be destroyed. 
   
Made in gb
Dakka Veteran





Some good responses thankyou. Being military myself it's just strange to me is all as I imagine a regiment traditionally being about 2000ish at full strength with 3 battalions plus support staff etc, but then I haven't really taken into account the fact that there is no defined regimental size in 40k.

When I see fluff and it says "the campaign to take xyz world was undertaken by 60 regiments" or something to that effect I can't understand why they don't just say the amount of men instead of 60 regiments it's strange.
   
Made in gb
Fixture of Dakka






 Polonius wrote:
There is also lore which says that planets only raise one "type" of regiment (infantry, armored, artillery, etc) so that if they rebel, they can't utilize combined arms.


A given regiment will usually be dedicated to infantry, tanks, artillery or what have you, and some worlds may lean towards a cetain type of regiment, but I've never seen anything saying that's mandated; there are examples of Catachan armoured regiments for example, or tallarn light infantry, armoured, superheavy armoured and two kinds of Rough Rider regiments, or Krieg siege, assault, armoured and superheavy armoured and artillery regiments.

IIRC, a "regiment" is supposed to be a general quantum of military might; a unit of accounting for the bureaucracy of the Adeptus Terra. In practise, this doesn't always work out, and occasionally the crews of an armoured regiment end up defending a trench line.

If you want to pick and choose from different editions, Space marines have Marines, Veterans (squad 2ic), Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, Lieutenant Commanders and Commanders/Chapter Masters. For the Guard, in the game background there's Troopers, sergeants, Lieutenants and Captains represented in the rules, and then Colonels in charge of regiments and Generals and Warmasters in charge of larger formations (IIRC, Colonel Schaeffer, Lord General Creed and Warmaster Macharius are the only characters of such high rank to get rules). Various novels have added Corporals, Majors and other ranks.

In theory, Space Marine Chapter Masters are equivalent in rank to a planetary Governor (the old term was Imperial Commander); I think this may be equivalent to the Imperial Guard rank of Lord General.

My headcanon is that the ranks represented in the army lists are what the Departmento Munitorum specifies, but that the organisation of different planets' regiments may use different names and/or add intermediate levels of organisation.

The army lists from 1st edition Epic grouped units into Detachments (roughly platoons), Companies, Battalions and the Regiment was the largest formation in the list. This was carried over into some concept work for late 1st edition / 2nd edition marines suggesting a Chapter was divided into three battalions (3 companies per battalion with the Scout company left separate), but that didn't make it into the background.
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




Rogerio134134 wrote:
Some good responses thankyou. Being military myself it's just strange to me is all as I imagine a regiment traditionally being about 2000ish at full strength with 3 battalions plus support staff etc, but then I haven't really taken into account the fact that there is no defined regimental size in 40k.

When I see fluff and it says "the campaign to take xyz world was undertaken by 60 regiments" or something to that effect I can't understand why they don't just say the amount of men instead of 60 regiments it's strange.

Because they don't want to give exact numbers.

A regiment can be anything from a few thousand troops (scions, heavy infantry regiments) to almost 40,000 men (Valhallan conscript regiments). A "regiment" does not denote any particular size of formation because that differs wildly based on world of origin and fighting doctrine. A "regiment" simply denotes a semi-autonomous group of soldiers (usually raised from a single world and trained together) with a unified command structure (led by a "Colonel" or equivalent rank).

For large regiments, they sometimes get broken down into "Battalions", which are further broken down into "Companies", then into "Platoons". All of these names don't denote any particular strength because they mean different things to different planets. For example, a krieg "company" from a line infantry regiment is almost 600 men strong, while a "company" from a harakoni warhawk infantry regiment is like 250 men max. There is no "standardization", the only thing that stays consistent between worlds is the hierarchy from lowest to highest:

platoon > company > battalion > regiment

Regiments can be grouped into brigades or divisions as needed by Imperial high command, but it usually takes an officer of general rank or higher to coordinate everything because the regiments usually have wildly differing doctrines.

This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2019/01/07 15:52:07


 
   
Made in fr
Stalwart Tribune





Interestingly, armies in the grim dark future are reminiscent of the classic Roman legions in their organisation:
- 8 men formed a squad (contubernium), led by a decanus
- 10 squads formed a centuria, led by a centurio.
- 6 centuriae formed a cohort , led by the most senior of the six centurios.
- 10 cohorts (plus auxiliaries) formed a legion, led by a legatus
(Numbers changed with military reforms during Rome's history, but the basic organisation stayed mostly the same)

As a result the Romans, like the Imperium, had only a few ranks in their armies (Legatus > Centurio > Decanus > Legionary). If you want to make a parallel with SM lieutenants, a centurio had an optio, who acted as a second-in-command rather than lead specific troops (and add a few honorific ranks like standard bearers for good measure).
So imperial armies may not have the equivalent of brigades, divisions and such, but their organisation doesn't feel all that strange. They're relatively small and mostly independent from each other, so they don't need a whole lot of subdivisions.

Of course, that doesn't excuse writers getting lazy and only talking about a regiment when they should be talking about a platoon, but it's not completely absurd, at least.
   
Made in ca
Painlord Titan Princeps of Slaanesh





Hamilton, ON

Just call them whatever you want them to be.

My army has Batalona (Battalions), Roty (Companys), Polk (Regiments), Brigada (guess?), Armiya (Armies), Front (again, guess) etc. etc.

In fact, I wanted my Commander to be a Komandir Batalona (mostly because KomBat sounds badass) so I just made a battalion in my army the equivalent of a company in a more orthodox force and hand-waved it away by saying my dudes were "unorthodox" in their composition..

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Wrathful Warlord Titan Commander






germany,bavaria

The Background has closer ties to the Product they want to sell than ever before.....

But, back in 3rd Edition the Imperial Guard Codex had many examples of different Units and Organizations:

From an example how to pick the Size of a Formation => ( alphabetical order )
- Army
- Battalion
- Battery
- Brigade
- Cohort
- Company
- Corps
- Division
- Front
- Patrol
- Phalanx
- Regiment
- >Eskadron/Schwadron< ( non english source used, sorry )
- Squad
- Team

So yes, GW may have known there is more than Regiments and companies.
[Thumb - Orga Imps 3rd ed 007.jpg]


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Rogue Daemonhunter fueled by Chaos






Toledo, OH

oh man, I forgot about that table!
   
Made in us
Longtime Dakkanaut




EDIT: Nevermind, misread the post.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2019/01/07 20:27:46


 
   
Made in pl
Longtime Dakkanaut





Rogerio134134 wrote:
Something I find annoying about the guard in the fluff is how rigid the writers are to regiments etc. I've just read Rynns world again and yes I do love it (especially Cortez) but every guard formation is either a company or a regiment which is so simplistic.

Obviously in real life formations of troops are usually made up of battalions within a regiment and a group of battalions is a brigade etc but I never ever see this stuff mentioned it's simply "the 672nd xyz regiment did this" it just seems like poor research to me. Even in dark Imperium they say there are 2 million men under arms and simply go on to say it's such and such amount of regiments.

Actually, you kinda did poor research. Brigade-centric organization is quite a new thing, designed to make army 'leaner' (read, supposedly keep the same firepower while paying less soldiers and using less resources, not that it really worked). Before that, you had armies composed of regiments and divisions, and if you tried to make your army look more 'archaic' (see also Leman Russ, Land Raider, etc etc) going with regiments is one way to do that. What bothers me is that they don't use corps and armies with their dedicated higher level units, but I guess 'crusade' is the 40K equivalent of larger force.

 Vaktathi wrote:
Same way Space Marine command structures typically have a grand total of only 4 levels from basic squad member to Chapter Master (squad member to sergeant to captain to chapter master) with almost nothing in-between (stuff like Chaplains and Librarians generally being specialists rather than steps on the path to command), with the exception of the rarely-mentioned Lieutenant (who slips in and out of codex availability over the various editions)

Didn't they have more levels in HH? When they actually needed them?

 Polonius wrote:
There are a couple of reasons it makes sense. For starters, each regiment is raised on a single world, which makes sense given that kit, doctrine, and even language will vary widely from one regiment to another. There is also lore which says that planets only raise one "type" of regiment (infantry, armored, artillery, etc) so that if they rebel, they can't utilize combined arms.

What lore? IIRC, even planets with small population, like Catachan, raise all kinds of regiments. Cain alone served with artillery, tank, and mechanized Valhallan regiments...
   
Made in gb
Cackling Chaos Conscript





Oxfordshire

Rogerio134134 wrote:
Some good responses thankyou. Being military myself it's just strange to me is all as I imagine a regiment traditionally being about 2000ish at full strength with 3 battalions plus support staff etc, but then I haven't really taken into account the fact that there is no defined regimental size in 40k.

When I see fluff and it says "the campaign to take xyz world was undertaken by 60 regiments" or something to that effect I can't understand why they don't just say the amount of men instead of 60 regiments it's strange.

Remember the Imperium is in a permanent state of total war, so the appropriate parallel would be to look at WWI/WWII-era regiments not those of a peacetime volunteer army. The London Regiment c1918 comprised 34 battalions by itself against a total of 40 line infantry battalions today. (Count the six batallions of the Middlesex Regiment (Duke of Cambridge’s Own) and you’d technically have the same number!)

   
Made in cz
Mysterious Techpriest






Fortress world of Ostrakan

It kinda makes sense, as in 40k, regiments are raised from a single world, perhaps even from a single region or a city. Regiments are then formed into brigades, divisions etc based on the current state of the front line in a grand scale.

Spoiler:
In the British Army, for most purposes, the regiment is the largest "permanent" organisational unit. Above regimental level, the organisation is changed to meet the tasks at hand. Because of their permanent nature, many regiments have long histories, often going back for centuries: the oldest British regiment still in existence is the Royal Jersey Militia, established in 1337 although historically the Jersey Militia are referred to as a regiment it is disputed that they are in fact a corps. The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), formed in 1572, was the oldest infantry regiment. It now forms part of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment.[9] - Wikipedia


IIRC, Regiment is also the largest unit with a single specialisation and given how regiments in 40k work, each regiment has a specialisation, be it heavy armour, line infantry, artillery etc. That means an armoured regiment has several companies consisting of nothing but tanks (or armoured vehicles in general, be it a Hellhound, Salamander or some other design), with a one or more support or logistic companies that are not (should not be) engaged directly in combat.

But I agree that the word "regiment" is too overused and any higher organisation unit is usually lacking.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/01/10 09:19:26



Neutran Panzergrenadiers, Ostrakan Skitarii Legions, Order of the Silver Hand
My fan-lore: Europan Planetary federation. Hot topic: Help with Minotaurs chapter Killteam






 
   
Made in gb
Junior Officer with Laspistol





The Shire(s)

 Hawky wrote:
It kinda makes sense, as in 40k, regiments are raised from a single world, perhaps even from a single region or a city. Regiments are then formed into brigades, divisions etc based on the current state of the front line in a grand scale.

Spoiler:
In the British Army, for most purposes, the regiment is the largest "permanent" organisational unit. Above regimental level, the organisation is changed to meet the tasks at hand. Because of their permanent nature, many regiments have long histories, often going back for centuries: the oldest British regiment still in existence is the Royal Jersey Militia, established in 1337 although historically the Jersey Militia are referred to as a regiment it is disputed that they are in fact a corps. The Buffs (Royal East Kent Regiment), formed in 1572, was the oldest infantry regiment. It now forms part of the Princess of Wales Royal Regiment.[9] - Wikipedia


IIRC, Regiment is also the largest unit with a single specialisation and given how regiments in 40k work, each regiment has a specialisation, be it heavy armour, line infantry, artillery etc. That means an armoured regiment has several companies consisting of nothing but tanks (or armoured vehicles in general, be it a Hellhound, Salamander or some other design), with a one or more support or logistic companies that are not (should not be) engaged directly in combat.

But I agree that the word "regiment" is too overused and any higher organisation unit is usually lacking.


Exactly this- it only makes sense within the British context of what a regiment is. Regiments are largely a peacetime organisation within the BA- they represent a common heritage and culture to create a sense of cameraderie within the unit, which has a specific role and typically contains multiple battalions (although now most regiments are markedly shrunk in size or amalgamated with other regiments). As such, you get infantry, light infantry, cavalry/tank, paratrooper, etc. regiments. The regiments being permanent means they store the history of all their constituent formations, regardless of what units those formations were attached to during a campaign. Regiments don't have a fixed size, ranging from a single battalion to many battalions.

However, the British Army deploys battalions, not regiments, and has used brigades as the roughly equivalently-sized formation to regiments in battle since at least WWII. British brigades contain a number of battalions (usually three to four) which could be drawn from various regiments. This allows for greater flexibility of deployments and a degree of combined arms (although these were typically assigned from the divisional level).

If you look at this example, you have a brigade formed of 4 battalions and a brigade HQ. Two battalions are drawn from the Royal Tank Regiment, one from the 4th County of London Yeomanry (which had a single battalion), and one motor battalion from the Rifle Brigade (confusingly named- it is actually a regiment). The overall formation is composed of elements from three different regiments, but forms one approximately regiment-sized unit.

If you look at how Imperial Guard forces are deployed, they match this deployment style- an infantry force will have attached artillery and tanks support from different regiments. It is quite clear that typical Imperial Guard deployments are combined-arms brigades under ideal circumstances, not single-arms regiments. However, as the regiments are the permanent adminstrative structure, the battle honours and records are accorded to the regiment, not the brigade (or higher ad-hoc structures like armies). All regimental assets in an engagement would get credit though, so the 4th Krieg artillery regiment would be mentioned in the battle report of the 713th Valhallan light infantry regiment halting a renegade assault, even if it was one company of artillery supporting three companies of light infantry.

Therefore, a single regiment can be wildly inconsistent in size (1000 to 100000+ soldiers), yet still be broken up into companies and battalions and mixed into useful combined-arms formations on the front.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/01/24 23:44:50


 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
Made in gb
Morphing Obliterator






You can pretty much do what you want with numbers and names/terminology, as well as the culture, style and traditions, etc. For instance my homebrew is armoured/air cavalry, so uses Trooper > Section > Troop > Squadron > [Battalion] > Brigade. Since reactivation they form a part of 141st Armoured Cavalry Division (Etrurian) and took part in Damocles Gulf Crusade, First Tyrannic War and are currently in a major Chaos campaign (fighting my other homebrew! )

Homebrew Imperial Guard: 1222nd Etrurian Lancers (Winged); Special Air-Assault Brigade (SAAB)
Homebrew Chaos: The Black Suns; A Medrengard Militia (think Iron Warriors-centric Blood Pact/Sons of Sek) 
   
Made in au
Lone Wolf Sentinel Pilot







This maybe off topic, but how many soldiers are meant to make up a standard 40k guard regiment? To hold/ invade a planet the size of earth you'd need close to a billion soldiers. And it seems common for single regiments to be fighting on a planet at one time(maybe really small planets?). It seems the stuff I have been reading (Redemption Corps and Ultramarines Omnibus + killing fields) seems to be a grossly undersized affair manpower wise.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
I'd personally have a standard force capable of securing a medium sized planet by itself as an organisational structure. A legion maybe, yeah, I like the sound of that.
Then just divide that into maybe ten smaller forces. Cohorts say- lets stay classical.
This is my guess is imagine a fluff regiment is lol.

Then divide that into army groups.
Then Armies
Then Corps
Then Divisions
Brigades.
Regiments.
Battaions
Companys.
Platoons.
Sections.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/18 13:35:44


   
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Junior Officer with Laspistol





The Shire(s)

 OldMate wrote:
This maybe off topic, but how many soldiers are meant to make up a standard 40k guard regiment? To hold/ invade a planet the size of earth you'd need close to a billion soldiers. And it seems common for single regiments to be fighting on a planet at one time(maybe really small planets?). It seems the stuff I have been reading (Redemption Corps and Ultramarines Omnibus + killing fields) seems to be a grossly undersized affair manpower wise.

40k armies are generally undersized- the only way to square that circle is to assume the use of terror tactics and indiscriminate firepower is widespread. Insurgencies don't often survive well if the invaders will readily commit genocide.

Therefore, I think the Imperial Navy is the more important branch by far- they can destroy whole armies from orbit whilst the Guard defend key points that cannot be simply razed. Space Marines definitely operate in this way- most of the work is done by the fleet with the actual Marines performing surgical strikes to assist the fleet and knock out key targets.

As to regimental sizes- some single Valhallan regiments have been noted as having over 130,000 troops, whereas very elite or veteran regiments can be lower than 1,000 strong, especially after a long campaign. Typical seems to be about 10,000 strong, as this is the rough strength of a Cadian regiment at muster. As the Cadian organisation forms a common template across the galaxy, ~10,000 is likely typical.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, most Imperial planets have low populations- similar to Earth today, or lower. This is Agri, Civilised, Feudal, Feral, and Death worlds, with Mining worlds also frequently being low population. These often have populations less than a billion. A single regiment of 10,000 probably is enough to defeat rebels on a medieval-tech level world, for example.

Only the Forge, Hive, Industrial and Fortress worlds are likely to routinely need huge forces to control or defend. It is for these that GW gets the numbers very wrong.

This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2019/02/18 13:51:49


 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
Made in fi
Confessor Of Sins




 Haighus wrote:
Only the Forge, Hive, Industrial and Fortress worlds are likely to routinely need huge forces to control or defend. It is for these that GW gets the numbers very wrong.


Yeah, good luck pacifying a Hive (without blowing it up) if it doesn't want to be pacified. If the defenders are even close to as fanatical as the attackers they won't even blink at sacrificing a hundred or a thousand times more people than the attackers brought. They don't care if the invaders are rounding up civilians for execution (or shelling cities), it's just less men and ammunition used on fighting the defending soldiers!

Sacrifice a thousand (or ten thousand?) men on killing a single Space Marine, it's OK - you have reinforcements, they don't.
   
Made in fr
Stalwart Tribune





More than one regiment can be deployed on a campaign, so it must happen sometimes that millions of troops are fighting a battle/war at the same time.

But I suppose that if it would really take a lot to pacify a world, it's much simpler to call exterminatus. At some point, sending billions of troops into a campaign that could last for years (and possibly fail) has to be more costly than simply erasing a world once and for all.
   
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The Shire(s)

Tiennos wrote:
More than one regiment can be deployed on a campaign, so it must happen sometimes that millions of troops are fighting a battle/war at the same time.

But I suppose that if it would really take a lot to pacify a world, it's much simpler to call exterminatus. At some point, sending billions of troops into a campaign that could last for years (and possibly fail) has to be more costly than simply erasing a world once and for all.

According to GW, millions do fight in the larger campaigns. However, for a "typical" Hive world like Minea with a population of 154 billion, you would expect armies in the low billions with total war mobilisations.

For a war like the Third war for Armageddon, billions of troops should be mobilised from the Hives. However, unless the Hive militia regiments are stupidly big (a million or more strong), the Imperial forces on Armageddon will only number a few million in a total war scenario.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
If algae farm paste with a little bit of your grandfather in it isn't Grimdark I don't know what is.
 
   
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Battleship Captain




 Haighus wrote:
 OldMate wrote:
This maybe off topic, but how many soldiers are meant to make up a standard 40k guard regiment? To hold/ invade a planet the size of earth you'd need close to a billion soldiers. And it seems common for single regiments to be fighting on a planet at one time(maybe really small planets?). It seems the stuff I have been reading (Redemption Corps and Ultramarines Omnibus + killing fields) seems to be a grossly undersized affair manpower wise.

40k armies are generally undersized- the only way to square that circle is to assume the use of terror tactics and indiscriminate firepower is widespread. Insurgencies don't often survive well if the invaders will readily commit genocide.

Therefore, I think the Imperial Navy is the more important branch by far- they can destroy whole armies from orbit whilst the Guard defend key points that cannot be simply razed. Space Marines definitely operate in this way- most of the work is done by the fleet with the actual Marines performing surgical strikes to assist the fleet and knock out key targets.


This. A guard army attacking a planet doesn't need to fight open field engagements - only fighting in close to either industrial or civilian infrastructure you don't want to accidentally hit from orbit, or fortresses with anti-orbit guns that prevent a warship coming in to bombard it. In the case of a major hive city, of course, these are often one and the same thing...



For a war like the Third war for Armageddon, billions of troops should be mobilised from the Hives. However, unless the Hive militia regiments are stupidly big (a million or more strong), the Imperial forces on Armageddon will only number a few million in a total war scenario.

I don't think the hive defence forces have ever been referred to by scale. The only worlds whose PDF we have a meaningful size for are Cadia (pre being blown up...) which had 850 million inhabitants but 90% of them were at least 1st line reservists, and Vraks (which was able to put about 5 million soldiers in the field with full mobilization).


Termagants expended for the Hive Mind: ~2835
 
   
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locarno24 wrote:
 Haighus wrote:
 OldMate wrote:
This maybe off topic, but how many soldiers are meant to make up a standard 40k guard regiment? To hold/ invade a planet the size of earth you'd need close to a billion soldiers. And it seems common for single regiments to be fighting on a planet at one time(maybe really small planets?). It seems the stuff I have been reading (Redemption Corps and Ultramarines Omnibus + killing fields) seems to be a grossly undersized affair manpower wise.

40k armies are generally undersized- the only way to square that circle is to assume the use of terror tactics and indiscriminate firepower is widespread. Insurgencies don't often survive well if the invaders will readily commit genocide.

Therefore, I think the Imperial Navy is the more important branch by far- they can destroy whole armies from orbit whilst the Guard defend key points that cannot be simply razed. Space Marines definitely operate in this way- most of the work is done by the fleet with the actual Marines performing surgical strikes to assist the fleet and knock out key targets.


This. A guard army attacking a planet doesn't need to fight open field engagements - only fighting in close to either industrial or civilian infrastructure you don't want to accidentally hit from orbit, or fortresses with anti-orbit guns that prevent a warship coming in to bombard it. In the case of a major hive city, of course, these are often one and the same thing...



For a war like the Third war for Armageddon, billions of troops should be mobilised from the Hives. However, unless the Hive militia regiments are stupidly big (a million or more strong), the Imperial forces on Armageddon will only number a few million in a total war scenario.

I don't think the hive defence forces have ever been referred to by scale. The only worlds whose PDF we have a meaningful size for are Cadia (pre being blown up...) which had 850 million inhabitants but 90% of them were at least 1st line reservists, and Vraks (which was able to put about 5 million soldiers in the field with full mobilization).



We have lists for the number of regiments deployed on Armageddon at points in the war, and it is something like 200 regiments total of Armageddon regiments (mostly Hive militia regiments, with Shock troop and Ash waste militia regiments adding to this). Unless the militia regiments are colossal, this frankly isn't very many troops.

I think the tricky bit is working out how such small forces defend worlds when the Imperial Navy has been driven off! I suppose Imperial settlements could be built in such a way that they are massive force multipliers for defenders (above and beyond the usual 3:1 advantage in modern times, something more akin to the near-invulnerability of good medieval castles in their day whilst provisioned), so they can hold out against Ork waaaghs and the like at least long enough for a larger fleet to arrive.

 ChargerIIC wrote:
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Like virtually everything 40K, the AM fluff works at the micro and macro levels but falls apart in the messy middle. The 40K lens of a small band of desperate heroes against a massive backdrop is great - just don't ask questions about how it works.

The 2nd edition Imperial Guard Codex states that Regiments raised form a world at the same time can vary from a few hundred men to hundreds of thousands. So a Regiment could be the size of a modern day battalion or be larger than a corps. Later books offer the formation of Battle Groups by combining elements of different Regiments. They also speak of Army Groups composed of between two and hundreds of regiments. Its a breathtakingly flat organizational structure! And one that has been clearly conceived by somebody who has not graduated from a Command and Staff College. I work in a Division HQ and I am trying to imagine coming up with a workable plan and C2 process for up to 200 subordinate formations with no intermediate HQs. That's OK - I would write a realistic and boring tale that nobody would read. Keep the focus tight - look at the brave Commissar and the fifty people around him.

Of interest, at least one IG codex refers to Planetary Defence Forces employing Brigades, Divisions etc. Quite sensible, but one would think that in a structure paranoid about sedition by senior leaders we would discourage having a workable command structure for planetary governors. We would hobble those structures to prevent a governor turning his entire PDF but have sensible ones for composite expeditionary forces where the different Regiments probably can't even talk with each other, let alone plot.

Anyhoo.

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TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Of interest, at least one IG codex refers to Planetary Defence Forces employing Brigades, Divisions etc. Quite sensible, but one would think that in a structure paranoid about sedition by senior leaders we would discourage having a workable command structure for planetary governors. We would hobble those structures to prevent a governor turning his entire PDF but have sensible ones for composite expeditionary forces where the different Regiments probably can't even talk with each other, let alone plot.

Anyhoo.

PDF is under the command of the planetary governor in every IG book I have ever read. Even when the governor is seditious it often means that incoming IG regiments often fight with the traitorous PDF, or the PDF splits into factions.
   
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I think personally it goes well with Games Workshop's complete inability to grasp numbers in actual warfare, let alone global warfare or galactic warfare. (which to be fair is pretty common in sci-fi, look no further than starwars).

Same with a spacemarine chapter consisting of a thousand marines. Even ignoring innitiates and vehicle crews this force is so tiny that even, as genetically engineered super soldiers in the finest armour(which with the advent of the grey knights and custodes they clearly are not) with the best and most effective deployment options, the force strength would be negligible in a planetary war. They'd have to seriously be doing covert-ops just to minimise losses(which they can't afford because of the risk of loss of geneseed).

But marines are awesome and I'm not trying to bum them out.


During the Great Patriotic War, the Red Army conscripted 29,574,900 men in addition to the 4,826,907 in service at the beginning of the war.
Just pulled this off Wikipedia as I was reading this thread. And that was one country not a planet.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I agree that marines should be used for surgical strikes, except for when they're not. Look at the war on Ultramar. They attempted to hold ground against nids. Even with a couple thousand extra marines from sucsessor chapters I do not see this going well.

Besides Imperial fists and ultramarines basically function as frontline units (or garrison) on a regular basis.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Cadia only had 850 million people.765 of those were combatants of varying utility? Jesus, no wonder why it fell.

Maybe they should have stopped exporting their prime breeding population to other parts of the imperium for at tleast a generation or two. I mean it is a key fortess stopping the horrors of the warp from invading the imperuim.

I imagined it having something like at least 50billion. Maybe 3-400 billion. You have ultra-dense stratified housing. Squeeze'em in, ship'em out.

This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2019/02/19 10:05:24


   
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w1zard wrote:
TangoTwoBravo wrote:
Of interest, at least one IG codex refers to Planetary Defence Forces employing Brigades, Divisions etc. Quite sensible, but one would think that in a structure paranoid about sedition by senior leaders we would discourage having a workable command structure for planetary governors. We would hobble those structures to prevent a governor turning his entire PDF but have sensible ones for composite expeditionary forces where the different Regiments probably can't even talk with each other, let alone plot.

Anyhoo.

PDF is under the command of the planetary governor in every IG book I have ever read. Even when the governor is seditious it often means that incoming IG regiments often fight with the traitorous PDF, or the PDF splits into factions.


That's my point. The PDF have a workable organizational structure with brigades, division said etc. Based on the fluff that post-Heresy the Imperium wants to break things up to prevent sedition the PDFs should have fractured command stuctures. Instead it's the polyglot expeditionary forces that have unworkable span of control.

All you have to do is fire three rounds a minute, and stand 
   
 
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