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Hi again,

I have just started reading the Gaunts Ghost novels and read about the founding of the regiment, which included a review by Gaunt and Munitorum Officials before they are officially "given over" to the Astra Militarum.
I also know from the Codex and Wiki that the size of regiments varies wildly between ~ 500 and 100.000, the latter being relativly rare (the example is a Valhallan infantry regiment). The size is choosen in a way to have more or less equal fighting power between the regiments.
Last but not least I read that the tithe is usually expected to contain ~ 10% of the PDF forces of a planet.

I have a variety of questions, as I consider writing a bit of Story about the first founding of my homebrew regiment and would be grateful if the collective knowledge of Dakkadakka could help me out:

1. I might be blind to the text passage, but how often do these tithes come? Is this "10% of the PDF" meant as yearly, per decade, per generation? Is it fluctuating depending on the urgency of the wartheater or the whim of the Munitorum?
2. Who decides which type of regiment is mustered (in the sense of light/heavy infantry, armored, artillery etc.)? Is this choosen by the tithed planet or by munitorum officials?
3. Who decides how big the individual regiments have to be? Is there some kind of rough overview like "Superheavy: 3 Baneblades, 5 Support tanks + Crew and technical staff, Light infantry: 4000 + 100 heavy weapon" etc. which is adjusted by the Munitorum Clerk in charge?
4. Related to that: if a regiment shows in the field that its performance deviates from the expectations, are they split/fused to adjust? I mean the case that a line infantry regiment numbering 4000 shows to be half as efficient as the usual regiment this size, are they forced to fuse with another regiment?
5. Has anyone ever read in any novel what happens, when the review of troops upon the founding is deemed insufficient equipped? Would this mean the tithing fleet just loads in another 10 % of the PDF to adjust or is the planetary governor given a repriev to muster the difference within a year or something?
6. Is it common to "fill up" partly depleted regiments of a world first before founding new regiments when the next tithe comes? I mean: assume half of planets regiments from the first tithe are still kicking at half their manpower, would those first be filled up to full strength or would the second tithe be purely "fresh" regiments?
7. Judging from the example from the codex of a Tallarn armored regiment being reclassified as infantry regiment upon a succesful attack on foot after their fuel ran out I assume this happens too? So when a regiments equipment drastically changes during deployment, they can be reclassified (either after it lost all its tanks or the other way around captured enough to change from infantry to mobile infantry)?

I think the important thing to remember is that the Imperium is a big place, with a large variety of planets. The Imperial Guard is so unbelievably vast that the way things are done will vary wildly too. So basically your story can make sense regardless of which way you go. Any discrepancies can be explained away by "clerical errors" and such as well, since as we know the bureaucracy of the Imperium is known to make errors from time to time


Having said that I'll take a stab at answering some of your questions. Remember that this is my relatively uninformed opinion, I am certainly no expert on 40k lore:



1. I might be blind to the text passage, but how often do these tithes come? Is this "10% of the PDF" meant as yearly, per decade, per generation? Is it fluctuating depending on the urgency of the war theater or the whim of the Munitorum?


I remember reading somewhere that a planet's PDF is made up of roughly 10% of the planet's population. Therefore if a tithe takes 10% of the PDF that means that about 1% of the entire planet's population is taken away in one fell swoop. Along with all the weapons, vehicles, etc... required to equip those men and women accordingly. In my mind this means that tithes are a pretty big deal and don't come around that often. I think a planet giving up such a large proportion of its resources every year would not be sustainable.

As you say I think it also depends on how close the planet is to a war zone. The closer it is the more pressure will be put on the planet to contribute to the war effort.

2. Who decides which type of regiment is mustered (in the sense of light/heavy infantry, armored, artillery etc.)? Is this choosen by the tithed planet or by munitorum officials?

I think it depends on what the planet has available. If they produce a lot of tanks then maybe an armoured or artillery company. If it has limited resources then maybe an infantry company.


3. Who decides how big the individual regiments have to be? Is there some kind of rough overview like "Superheavy: 3 Baneblades, 5 Support tanks + Crew and technical staff, Light infantry: 4000 + 100 heavy weapon" etc. which is adjusted by the Munitorum Clerk in charge?

There is a basic structure for how companies are formed in older 40K fluff, not sure about these days. As for the size of the regiment (ie how many companies make up a regiment), I would say it depends on how many troops are tithed. I can imagine that a Hive World will produce much larger regiments than a feudal world.

4. Related to that: if a regiment shows in the field that its performance deviates from the expectations, are they split/fused to adjust? I mean the case that a line infantry regiment numbering 4000 shows to be half as efficient as the usual regiment this size, are they forced to fuse with another regiment?

Regiments do merge with others. I have only seen this happen when one or both regiments takes casualties. Still, I think it's possible that when a fresh regiment arrives at a war zone it could be immediately merged with another one if that is deemed to be the best course of action.

5. Has anyone ever read in any novel what happens, when the review of troops upon the founding is deemed insufficient equipped? Would this mean the tithing fleet just loads in another 10 % of the PDF to adjust or is the planetary governor given a repriev to muster the difference within a year or something?

I haven't read anything specific on this, though from what I have read the Imperium takes the tithe very seriously. If a Governor is unable to meet the commitment I think this would definitely be grounds for replacing that Governor. I'm not sure how the shortfall is made up though.

6. Is it common to "fill up" partly depleted regiments of a world first before founding new regiments when the next tithe comes? I mean: assume half of planets regiments from the first tithe are still kicking at half their manpower, would those first be filled up to full strength or would the second tithe be purely "fresh" regiments?


No, I don't think this happens. The previous regiments will just be merged with each other (assuming they're in the same warzone) or will be merged with another regiment. It's just too impractical to restock regiments with troops from their own planet, due to the unreliability of warp travel.

7. Judging from the example from the codex of a Tallarn armored regiment being reclassified as infantry regiment upon a succesful attack on foot after their fuel ran out I assume this happens too? So when a regiments equipment drastically changes during deployment, they can be reclassified (either after it lost all its tanks or the other way around captured enough to change from infantry to mobile infantry)?

I don't see why not. I imagine this is quite rare though.

When talking about IG regiments, it's helpful to have an understanding of history. If you look at most armies prior to WWII, there would be all kinds of variety within national armies at roughly the regimental level. In WWI, german regiments from different regions had slightly different unifirms, while Austro-Hungarian regiments spoke close to a dozen different languages. In the US civil war, which only lasted 4 years, while Union and Confederate regiments all relied on the same drill manual and (in theory) were armed the same, in practice you had a wide array of uniforms, arms, equipment, and language. Further, CSA regiments were topped up with new recruits, while Union regiments were founded fresh and merged when too small.

All of this is just a way to say that in 40k, a far future feudal space empire, there's not going to be a ton of uniformity. Back in 3rd edition, regiments were said to trend towards roughly 3000 men, for ten companies of 300, for the simple reason that the most common troop ship carried that many men. Other fluff has implied that each founding involves one regiment, so maybe the regiments get bigger and smaller? or they stay the same size but the frequency of founding varies?

Let's take a swing at the questions:

1. I might be blind to the text passage, but how often do these tithes come? Is this "10% of the PDF" meant as yearly, per decade, per generation? Is it fluctuating depending on the urgency of the wartheater or the whim of the Munitorum?

Tithes are set based on the characteristics of the planet and their collection frequency is defined for each planet, but varies from planet to planet. Think how property taxes are based on the value of the propriety and if it's residential or industrial. It 100% increases when nearer a warzone.

2. Who decides which type of regiment is mustered (in the sense of light/heavy infantry, armored, artillery etc.)? Is this choosen by the tithed planet or by munitorum officials?

Much like other aspects of the tithe, this is probably in writing. OTOH, if conditions have changed, the fleet will pick up whatever they've made. At least one IG codex stated that each planet generally only raises one type of regiment (infantry, artillery, armored) to weaken them if they rebel, but I'm not sure this has been kept. It's likely that worlds not on the front line (cadia obviously craps out everything) might focus on a specirfic regimental type.

3. Who decides how big the individual regiments have to be? Is there some kind of rough overview like "Superheavy: 3 Baneblades, 5 Support tanks + Crew and technical staff, Light infantry: 4000 + 100 heavy weapon" etc. which is adjusted by the Munitorum Clerk in charge?

I imagine this is a sharp negotiation between the planetary governor and the Munitorum staff on board the fleet that comes up pick up the tithe. Again, I'm imagining the original tithe paperwork, as updated for each governor, is the basis for this negotiation. The Munitorum needs the regiment, but the governor doesn't want his palace bombed from space, so they'll work something out.

4. Related to that: if a regiment shows in the field that its performance deviates from the expectations, are they split/fused to adjust? I mean the case that a line infantry regiment numbering 4000 shows to be half as efficient as the usual regiment this size, are they forced to fuse with another regiment?

I'd imagine not, they would just be relegated to duties they could perform, be it econd line, fatigue, or simply as cannon fodder.

5. Has anyone ever read in any novel what happens, when the review of troops upon the founding is deemed insufficient equipped? Would this mean the tithing fleet just loads in another 10 % of the PDF to adjust or is the planetary governor given a repriev to muster the difference within a year or something

My headcanon is that if a review of the tithe shows them to be insufficient, the Munitorum simply inducts the governors palace guard and any other elite forces.

6. Is it common to "fill up" partly depleted regiments of a world first before founding new regiments when the next tithe comes? I mean: assume half of planets regiments from the first tithe are still kicking at half their manpower, would those first be filled up to full strength or would the second tithe be purely "fresh" regiments?

I think the lore is fairly consistent that they do not. Regiments just get worn down to a nub.

7. Judging from the example from the codex of a Tallarn armored regiment being reclassified as infantry regiment upon a succesful attack on foot after their fuel ran out I assume this happens too? So when a regiments equipment drastically changes during deployment, they can be reclassified (either after it lost all its tanks or the other way around captured enough to change from infantry to mobile infantry)?

Anything can happen. I don't think there is a central database of IG regiments, so once you've landed in your warzone, it really only matters what the in theater command thinks. If they think you're infantry, you're gonna be infantry.

One thing to bear in mind is that the first Gaunt's Ghosts book is 20 years old and has seen many 40k lore changes since it was first published. Anyway, I'll see if I can help.
1 - The Imperial Tithe I believe is yearly (within acceptable standard deviations of time for such a large empire). However, the tithe is not always a founding of a regiment. It's usually the product of the planet in question i.e. agri-worlds produce foodstuffs and manufactorum worlds usually produce standard equipment ranging from lasguns to tractors. Many worlds are exempt from regiment tithe because it is more vital that they produce arms, equipment, and rations like how workers in WW2 could get exemptions if they worked in a vital industry.
2 - The Munitorum decides generally what category a regiment will fall under. If a tank regiment is needed a tank regiment will be raised. However, if the people of a planet have specific skills, like the Tanith stealth or the Kanak Skull Takers barbaric ferocity, then they will use these skills in regiment raising. You could train a Kanak barbarian to use a tank but it's easier to just give them a gun and point them at the enemy.
3 - A regiment's size will depend on planetary population. A small population will usually have a small PDF so it would then raise a small regiment. Overall the Munitorum is not stupid and raising a regiment of 10k men from a planet with a population in the low millions would be a bad choice.
4 - If a regiment underperforms they are usually either beaten into shape, literally, or their officers are executed and replaced. However, it's difficult to say what underperforming means in context to such a vast and varied organisation. A newly founded regiment from a safe rear line world isn't going to be as effective as a Cadian regiment for example. Discipline is almost entirely enacted at the field level between commissars and their charges. Regimental fusions are extremely rare and AKAIK never in the case of poor regiment merging with a good one.
5 - A founding is such an important event that the chances of not having troops fully equipped is rare and even if they are the Munitorum will just send them more either in transit to a warzone or when they arrive.
6 - Unless the homeworld is ash (RIP Tanith), then replacements are common enough. If there is a regiment with only half its remaining strength but those remnants are now "veterans" then the Munitorum isn't just going to let them die out. New recruits who can gain skills and experience will be sent to reinforce the depleted force. The Guard is from the future but it still adheres to most basic military concepts. I think the biggest problem in books is that we never see regiments more than once, the exception being in Gaunts Ghosts with the recurring regiments. The Cadian 8th was on the frontlines with Creed for years and undoubtedly took casualties but didn't just get wiped out, it obviously got replacement soldiers.
7 - I think that example was more meant as a funny bit of lore. As Polonius said, most decisions are down to warzone command. Your regiment might be known for it's skills with demolitions but you're still infantry and if command needs an infantry battalion to hold a point then they might choose you, even if you are awful at defence.

Re: Question 6 - There is absolutely precedent for reinforcing existing formations instead of simply smashing new ones together. The Cadian example was already mentioned, but the more grandiose one are the Vostroyans. They havent raised a new regiment in ten thousand years, instead they've reinforced (or in the case of a regiment being killed to the last man, completely reinstated) their original regiments wholesale with each successive tithe of soldiers to the Munitorum.

Edit: the following was written before Gerts post and therefore does not take that into account

Thanks so far.

Regarding the "only one regiment is mustered": I played around with the numbers and realized that at least in the first founding it should be a lot of regiments for an average world. I imagined my homebrew system as having ~ 500 Million inhabitants, ~10 of which can be counted as PDF (they have a martial, tribal tradition). So 10% of the PDF came down to 5 Million troopers. So even if we take the uppermost limit from the Codex (100.000 soldiers), this would come out to 50 regiments in the founding. When you look at that it gets pretty crazy thinking what number of Regiments an average Hive-world should muster when they provide more normal sized regiments numbering in the few thousands. Lets take a hive world with 20 Billion population (pretty low for a hive world) and a PDF force of 5% of its population (so 1 Billion) that would mean 100 Million soldiers as tithe... assuming ~3000 per Regiment you would look at 33000 regiments (which lets especially the regiment numbers of Cadia look comically low... One should more often read about the "55.628th Cadia" and the like)


Back on Topic I'll give an example what I was thinking up, just so that you can point me to logical errors: The Imperial Governour gets ordered "You have to prepare 10% of your PDF/1% of your population (whichever is higher) for the Imperial Guard. Lets say that comes down to 5 Million (which is the case in my own fluff). Additionally he gets the order that those should be comparativly elite, so the equipment and training should be above average of what the PDF of the planet has. Also "combined forces" are strongly discouraged. The exact organisation of those regiments will be decided upon the review.
So the tithe fleet arrives and (example from my fluff) find 5 Million very light infantry (my homebrew system is predominantly in a tribal/feudal development stage). Everybody has a lasgun and a flakarmor equivalent, every squad has a grenade launcher or flamer. They also have half the tanks/APCs of the planet (mostly Salamander Scouts, Sentinels, Tauros and Hellhounds, no artillery to speak of), even if that's still to few to be more as a small support force. So far one can say the governor has heeded the order, as that is indeed much better than the average PDF and not much more could have been expected by the industrial capacity of the world. Nonetheless it is perfectly clear that these regiments have to be much bigger than a Cadian regiment to achieve the same performance. So upon reviewing the Munitorum Clerk orders that what tanks they have will be put into 10 small armored regiments à 5000 personell (relatively big, because the vehicle are so light), the rest will form up into 99 light infantry regiments à 50.000 (he goes for a high number assuming the performance will be low). => this also makes them sufficiently "not combined arms" for the Imperium to be satisfied.
They get deployed and the clerk follows up on their performance. If they perform better than expected, the next regiments tithed will be smaller than that. If they perform worse, they will be made bigger.

As you mentioned regiments are run down until they are either "expanded" or being fused together. And assuming some of these regiments capture enough Sentinels and light tanks to function more as a "light armored" regiment, the army command they are attached too just makes a note that they can be used like that if needs be

Any gapping logic errors in that?

Regarding captured equipment, the only forces using Imperial gear are usually R&H forces who almost exclusively follow Chaos. When man becomes tainted so does machine so using captured ex-Chaos equipment gets you a pistol to the back of the head.
Another thing to remember is that to raise troops a regiment can take from the population of the world they are stationed on. It usually helps if they have just defended it from invasion and can count on gratitude from the locals or ideas of becoming a heroic Guardsman.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I played around with the numbers and realized that at least in the first founding it should be a lot of regiments for an average world. I imagined my homebrew system as having ~ 500 Million inhabitants, ~10 of which can be counted as PDF (they have a martial, tribal tradition). So 10% of the PDF came down to 5 Million troopers. So even if we take the uppermost limit from the Codex (100.000 soldiers), this would come out to 50 regiments in the founding. When you look at that it gets pretty crazy thinking what number of Regiments an average Hive-world should muster when they provide more normal sized regiments numbering in the few thousands. Lets take a hive world with 20 Billion population (pretty low for a hive world) and a PDF force of 5% of its population (so 1 Billion) that would mean 100 Million soldiers as tithe... assuming ~3000 per Regiment you would look at 33000 regiments (which lets especially the regiment numbers of Cadia look comically low... One should more often read about the "55.628th Cadia" and the like)

Um, no. Just no. Achieving 10% of population in the army is simply impossible, at least if you want to have functioning economy. Soviet Union planned to have around 5 million troops on standby (note, that involved reservists and conscripts, aka people who were still working till wartime) out of population of 250 million - so 2%, and even that eventually collapsed their budget and economy. Even nazis barely achieved 5%, and that was in "Soviet tanks encircling Berlin" situation (plus tons of slave labour replacing soldiers and even that had nazi economy screeching to a halt), not "planet needs to be stable and functioning down the line). 10%? Forget it.

Next, hives. Yes, theoretically hives should have big manpower pool, but vast majority of it simply can't be tapped. These are poor, uneducated people scraping by, contributing nothing to economy, meaning their usefulness for raising and upkeeping armies is pretty much zero. It's as if you looked at 10 mln slums of Mumbai and concluded that on paper they should create bigger army than say Austria or Belgium. Not gonna happen. Yes, hives have big armies, but nowhere near even 1% of the population. More like 0.05%. They are going to have big police forces but they are going to be worse in quality than even the worst PDF.

I also find the 3000 soldiers figure rather dumb. It really should be 10000 to 20000, size of modern division. Otherwise, they would be far too weak and unable to absorb casualties to perform any sort of war of attrition. Funnily enough, some specialist divisions are smaller (like paratroopers, for one) so it's likely someone saw low number of some specialist regiment and assumed they are all the same size. 500000 regiments are also comically dumb (like all attempts of *cough* Abnett *cough* Kelly *cough* Cruddace *cough* ADB *cough* to describe any sort of real war) because a colonel will never be able to manage that many troops and the chain of command in it is going to disintegrate in seconds in any possible engagement (there is a reason we have four/five star generals + staff and dozens of lower ranking generals and their staff to manage them in RL). But then again, these are people who think army consisting of 10000 platoons and a colonel (with literally zero officers above sergeant) can somehow function

 Gert wrote:
Regarding captured equipment, the only forces using Imperial gear are usually R&H forces who almost exclusively follow Chaos. When man becomes tainted so does machine so using captured ex-Chaos equipment gets you a pistol to the back of the head.

Unless you're Logan Sue in certain gak series. Then you can openly walk with khornate axe around the chapter of SM literally designed to detect such things without them saying anything, murder people who can literally see the future with said axe ""surprising"" them, spread Chaos taint around dozens of planets and do other complete nonsense completely unpunished

Regarding the size: I tried to orient myself towards historic numbers with
1st: eastern and Western Germany or France in the cold war having close to 1% of their population under arms (both Germanies having another percent as reserves)
2nd: WW2 Germany having above 9.5 Million soldiers in 1943 (near 10% of the population)
3rd: the current North Korean army having 1.3 Mio (~5%) + another 4.7 Mio in reserves (+18%)
4th: the Ashanti empire (similar in development stage to most of my homebrew plane): 200.000 of 3 Mio (6.7%)

Judging that living in the Imperium in the 42nd Millennium seems to me more like WW2 Germany or Northkorea than like the relatively civil cold war Western Europe I went more for the higher numbers and assumed feudal/feral societies should in times of war count around 10 % as "defense force". Ans from the fluff Cadias militarization rate should far surpass even North Korea.
It might be to high but from these numbers it should be at least 1% as cold war Germany was really much less militarized than the Imperium is described.

Regarding the regiments size: I think it is important to separate regiment (one organised "battle group" of some companies) from regimento (Tallarn) the latter including all separate regiments. I also assume (that's my opinion) that the very big regiments are those, that do not have that much of a well developed command organisation. More things like 100.000 conscripts under some dozen officers that point them in the right way (the Valhallan example from the codex) / 20.000 penal guard with their handlers or in my case 50.000 tribal warriors in their clans under the leadership of a handful of charismatic officers that get dropped of in the warzone with orders to wrack havoc as they see fit. In the case of feral/feudal planets even the elite of the world might Not be that well trained to be used much else.

Bit of course I might be wrong, that is just my Avenue of reasoning for the assumed very high numbers.

thing is, modern armies have all those echelons of command above regiment for a REASON. most of the writers for 40k either dont know or dont care about that, but put simply, one human commander cant juggle more than 3-5 subordinates, so for every 3-5 soldiers of a given rank, you need to have a boss dedicated to controlling those guys. this holds true at every echelon of command form fire team (3-5 individual soldiers under a corporal) to army group (3-5 field armies under a field marshal). A "regiment" of 30 companies all looking to one colonel would un unmanageable, too much of a bottleneck into that one man to actually control things. The only way he could do it was group the companies into "Battalions" of 3-4 companes, then those battalions into "brigades" of 3-4 battalions. the colonel might not use those exact words, but he'd have to re-create those command levels to have a "regiment" (which would be a division in modern parlance) that he could actually control and fight with. Its worth pointing out that these pyramidal command structures are to a degree self forming, in that historical armies that used different command structures often ended up evolving into one that was built around units of 3 to 5 sub units, often a temporary field "expedient" measure that gradually became permanent


100,000 conscripts under a tiny officer core is not a army, nor is it effective. at best its a waste of rations, because you cant do anything with them. you can't even hold a trenchline with that because their arent enough officers and NCOs to actually get them into the trenches, ensure they are actually fed, watered and have ammo, and wont just run away or surrender the first time an enemy shows up on the off chance he has some food for them. the logistics of keeping 100,000 men in the field in a condition to fight are sufficiently difficult that modern armies routinely struggle with it.

your 50,000 tribesmen will likely spend most of their time worried about getting food, water, the warm sleeping mats near the fire, etc. their tribal leaders will me mostly concerned about ensuring that their mens needs are met, otherwise the tribes will find a leader who CAN meet those needs and follow him instead. drop them onto a warzone without a proper logistics, they stop being a meaningful force in a few days, at best, and just go to ground and live off the land, each other, or your conventional guardsmen. congrats, you;ve now flooded the battlefield with cultists. well done.

OK, defintily an interesting conversation as far as I'm concerned. I would like to try and puzzle this together (as tone transfers poorly to writing I would like to mention that I'm open to your critic and appreciate if you point me to logic errors in my thought).

First of again regarding the absolute number of PDF forces. Irbis wrote:

Yes, hives have big armies, but nowhere near even 1% of the population. More like 0.05%

I just had a quick look at Wikipedia regarding the size of the current earth armed Forces which came down to 20.4 Million. Mind that these are the standing armies, so do not include reserves, paramilitary, national guard or militias. The world population currently numbers around 8 billion, so we have 0.25% standing military.
Searching around a bit I also found the "10% of the population is PDF" number El Torro mentioned here:

I remember reading somewhere that a planet's PDF is made up of roughly 10% of the planet's population.

it's in the Lexicanum under Cadia:

The Planetary Defense Force, known as the Cadian Interior Guard, was also counted among one of the best military organizations. This is because one out of every ten Cadians, regardless of their skills, was assigned to the Interior Guard, resulting in some of the best soldiers spending their entire military career on Cadia.

Taking Ibris good points and considering that 10% are more fitting for fortress worlds like Cadia I adjusted my own fluff towards 2% of the population being PDF in "peacetime" (roughly what would have been the situation in cold war western europe if the reserve were called upon) and tending in the direction of 5-10% only if immediatly at war on their world like Armageddon (which would be more or less in line with WW2 Germany or current North Korea). I also increased the planets population.
Since my homebrew planet is in a warzone it should have been repeatedly tithed in the last years. Upon first founding it had 500 Million population, which would come down to 10 Million PDF and 1 Million IG recruits per tithe. Meanwhile 100 years have passed to 100.M42, raising the population to 2 billion, so now ist 4 Million per tithe So I think my figure of 5 Million in total kicking around in the galaxy still sounds sensible



Now going to the regiment sizes:
Iblis wrote:

I also find the 3000 soldiers figure rather dumb. It really should be 10000 to 20000, size of modern division. Otherwise, they would be far too weak and unable to absorb casualties to perform any sort of war of attrition. Funnily enough, some specialist divisions are smaller (like paratroopers, for one) so it's likely someone saw low number of some specialist regiment and assumed they are all the same size. 500000 regiments are also comically dumb (like all attempts of *cough* Abnett *cough* Kelly *cough* Cruddace *cough* ADB *cough* to describe any sort of real war) because a colonel will never be able to manage that many troops and the chain of command in it is going to disintegrate in seconds in any possible engagement (there is a reason we have four/five star generals + staff and dozens of lower ranking generals and their staff to manage them in RL). But then again, these are people who think army consisting of 10000 platoons and a colonel (with literally zero officers above sergeant) can somehow function

while xerxeskingofking mentioned:

100,000 conscripts under a tiny officer core is not a army, nor is it effective. at best its a waste of rations, because you cant do anything with them. you can't even hold a trenchline with that because their arent enough officers and NCOs to actually get them into the trenches, ensure they are actually fed, watered and have ammo, and wont just run away or surrender the first time an enemy shows up on the off chance he has some food for them. the logistics of keeping 100,000 men in the field in a condition to fight are sufficiently difficult that modern armies routinely struggle with it.

First of I have to say: That max 100.000 figure (not 500.000) is from the codex, not from me. Seeing that the average lifespan of a guardsman at some warfronts is not that big, that logistics seem to be that much trouble I'm still in a mind to believe that those big regiments of mostly "human wave" type do fit the setting.
But leaving that aside we might as well go through it to get some more believable numbers for my fluff. So lets assume 1 Regiment = 1 Division (at least in the case of Infantry). Again from Wikipedia I found those numbering between 6.000 and 25.000 personell (as Ibris mentioned). Sticking to the fluff that less well equipped/trained regiments are sized bigger lets stick to the 20.000 range for a light infantry division and 10.000 for what I described as "light armored devision" (Hellhounds, Sentinels, Tauros, Salamanders) the latter including logistic personell, etc.
So the 1 Million from the first founding might be put into 5 light armored (50.000 in total) + ~48 light infantry divisions/regiments. Rising to 20-25 light armored + 200-250 infantry regiments by 100. M42.
Does this line of thought Sound sensible to you?


On that note: if we take those calculations and apply them to Cadia for example we would have 80 Million PDF, so ~8 Million soldiers per Tithe (probably a bit more since the PDF seems to be additional to their IG contribution), transfering to 8000 x 10.000 personell regiments per Tithe.
And Hive worlds numbering in the hundreds of Billions like Praetoria, even if they "just" have 0.25% Military like our current earth would have PDFs in the range of 250 Million to 2.5 Billion => EDIT: 25-250 Million per Tithe => 25.000-250.000 regiments (rough ballpark) per tithe. So I still stick to the point that Regiment numbers like "24231st Praetorian" fit the fluff well.

I think the one thing we can all agree on is that writers play fast and loose with numbers everywhere in Warhammer. That and an inability to define what they mean by "regiment" and "founding".
The Tanith were founded with three regiments that became one post the planet dying. So the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Tanith regiments became the Tanith "First and Only". They all had an officer corps and Gaunt was overall commander. So if all had gone to plan then it would have been Gaunt at the top with his "command squad", with three Colonels under him plus their senior and junior officers.
For all the memes about nobody ever getting supplies in 40k, it's more the case of armies running out of supply due to overconfidence, poor planning, and a superiority complex rather than not having any in the first place *cough*Operation Barbarossa*cough*.
I think the best way to go about thinking about regiment sizes is to:
A) Don't because there is a limit to the human brains capacity for large numbers.
B) Make a regiment as big or small as you want. 40k has a very fluid background and there could be a million reasons as to why a planet with a population of 22 billion only raises 2k troops for the guard or a planet with only 7 billion raising 2 million troops.

 Gert wrote:
I think the one thing we can all agree on is that writers play fast and loose with numbers everywhere in Warhammer. That and an inability to define what they mean by "regiment" and "founding".
The Tanith were founded with three regiments that became one post the planet dying. So the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Tanith regiments became the Tanith "First and Only". They all had an officer corps and Gaunt was overall commander. So if all had gone to plan then it would have been Gaunt at the top with his "command squad", with three Colonels under him plus their senior and junior officers.

close, but not quite. Gaunt was never supposed to be the overall commander of the Tanith, he was just the assigned Commissar, all three regiments each had a full command staff...that didn't survive the fall of Tanith, and Gaunt doled out a bunch of field promotions to create a new command staff.

For all the memes about nobody ever getting supplies in 40k, it's more the case of armies running out of supply due to overconfidence, poor planning, and a superiority complex rather than not having any in the first place *cough*Operation Barbarossa*cough*.

thats.....a complicated situation. the germans 100% did not have the logistic and transport system to sustain a campaign to Moscow .....and they knew it. General Wagner, head of the german quartermasters, predicted some time before the invasion that they would outrun thier supply system a little bit east of Kiev.....which is exactly what happened, forcing halts, slowing down the advance, etc. The offical german plan was to basically have won the war by that point....and when they didnt they were screwed.

Seeing that the average lifespan of a guardsman at some warfronts is not that big, that logistics seem to be that much trouble I'm still in a mind to believe that those big regiments of mostly "human wave" type do fit the setting.

while accepting that this is all fantasy and real life problems don't actually matter.....

the problem with what your describing is that, unless the war is happening on the home planet of the tribesmen, and they literally march out of their homes onto the battlefield to die for the emperor (or die trying), then you still have to deal with the logistical problems, as they start the moment you remove a recruit form civilian life. Now, conscripts dont need much in the way of luxuries, but they still need food, a bed, some direction as to where to go, etc. So, you still need a significant "tail" to support them.


but, thats reality, and 40K isnt real (thank god), so feel free to totally ignore that. or work it into the narrative if you feel it would add to it.

But leaving that aside we might as well go through it to get some more believable numbers for my fluff. So lets assume 1 Regiment = 1 Division (at least in the case of Infantry). Again from Wikipedia I found those numbering between 6.000 and 25.000 personell (as Ibris mentioned). Sticking to the fluff that less well equipped/trained regiments are sized bigger lets stick to the 20.000 range for a light infantry division and 10.000 for what I described as "light armored devision" (Hellhounds, Sentinels, Tauros, Salamanders) the latter including logistic personell, etc.

very rough rule of thumb, the americans in ww2 needed about 35,000-40,000 men in uniform to put a division of 15,000 in the field (the term is a "division slice"), but that number includes some Corps, Army and theatre assets that are combat units (namely heavy arty guns, etc), so taking that into account, and allowing for better efficiency form higher technology and ability to fudge the numbers by offloading jobs onto "civilian" workers, I'd say for every guardsman in a combat unit, allow for a second one in a rear area role.

light armoured assets would normally integrated into the divisions ( "organic to" is the modern jargon), as would the artillery and some heavy armour (a battalion of 30-40 leman russ tanks in each "div" would be about right). this was standard in ww2 for the US infantry (even the "leg" infantry without dedicated transports) On top of that would be specialised units like recon regiments that would be purely vehicles (or mounted troops), but only a few dozen vehicles. if your looking for a "massed but ill equipped horde" feel than skip the organic attachments and just have what little armour is available formed into a "cavalry" branch for screening, recon and flank protection, etc. maybe limit the Earthshakers and such and have the main fire support be just infantry mortars, sentinels (being pressed in to act as direct fire support role they arent really built for) and a few of the Wyvern quad mortar carriers.

And, or coruse, plently of rough riders, because they are still a thing and not just limited to the Krieg and the Atillans. Horses are actually a really good investment for a "poor" army, because they are moderately capable, can be fed on easy to acquire fodder, have not electronic signature that would show up on scanners, etc. they grant troops with no other mobility at least some mobility, and can do some heavy lifting in pulling the guns, the ammo stocks, etc around. you can even put stuff like heavy comms kit on them in saddlebags, and have a walking radio station with much more power and battery life than you can get out of a backpack set.

Gaunt was promoted to Colonel-Commissar by Slaydo on his deathbed, he absolutely was the CO of the Tanith regiments at least for the first three until they were in fighting shape and he could leave to command somewhere else.

@ Xerxeskingofking: How fitting: I have 20 rough riders and some elefants (counting as Sentinels) I forgot to mention. So it is basically what you describe. Calling it a cavalry regiment composed of riders and light vehicles is a cool idea, I will use that.
My intention is less the "hoardy" feeling but more what comes out when a planet is tithed that while eager just doesn't have the industrial capacity to produce that many tanks and heavy equipment as usual. I also noted that the hast majority of homebrew regiments are "the Imperiums finest", "legendary throughout the Astra Militarum" etc. and wanted to go another route.

Regarding your mention of combined arms: I took from the lore that this is strongly discouraged for IG regiments and that single infantry regiments thus usually do not have tanks and tank regiments usually so not have infantry. I thought the combined arms part is than later achieves by using different regiments together?

And as you mentioned 1 soldiers in the field = 1 guy in logistics: I took it that this is basically what all the bin army tithes are all about. A freshly raised regiment does not have to care for ist transport, because the navy (that is paid by someone else) does it. They do not have to care for food, as the Agri world have to give that instead of soldiers and some planets have to give administrative and logistic personell instead of warriors. Ans Prepaid and maintenance is mostly outsourcen to the Admech. Therefore I assumed that figure of "10% of the PDF" was really meant as purely soldiers.

Quick side note: from a fluffy perspective a regiment of logistic personell would be funny. "The Plutonian Pencilpushers"

The Guard is only its soldiers, supplies are handled by the Munitorum, and transport to warzones is handled by the Navy.
Guard regiments are supposed to be split into Infantry, Armour, Artillery. In the case of the Guard armour very much means Leman Russ tanks, you might see Chimeras but those are usually for engineers and Mechanicus support transport. Likewise, a Mechanised regiment will have Chimeras and support vehicles like Hydras or Hellhounds but no battle tanks. Guard regiments don't operate like modern divisions purely so that if they turn traitor they have no support from infantry/artillery. The combined arms element comes from regiments working together in cohort with Navy air support.

Thats what I thought. So my intended (fluff, ist a different thing on the tabletop of course) division into nearly pure infantry regiments and nearly pure "Cavalry" Regiments (with horses, birds, lizards and Sentinels) should fit better than mixing them.

TBF cavalry is just infantry on a mount so they probably don't even need to be separate regiments. Maybe they are a scouting force or some kind of upper-class from their homeworld kind of deal.

 Gert wrote:
Regarding captured equipment, the only forces using Imperial gear are usually R&H forces who almost exclusively follow Chaos. When man becomes tainted so does machine so using captured ex-Chaos equipment gets you a pistol to the back of the head.
Another thing to remember is that to raise troops a regiment can take from the population of the world they are stationed on. It usually helps if they have just defended it from invasion and can count on gratitude from the locals or ideas of becoming a heroic Guardsman.

Savlar Chem Dogs are well known for using captured equipment. From Lexicam
The Savlar Chem-Dogs are a Penal Legion of the Imperial Guard, composed of some of the most hardened criminals and desperadoes in the Imperium. Recruits are drawn from the prisons on the planet Savlar by the promise to allow them to keep anything they take from the battlefield, as well as the chance to get away from Savlar's highly toxic environment.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
And as you mentioned 1 soldiers in the field = 1 guy in logistics: I took it that this is basically what all the bin army tithes are all about. A freshly raised regiment does not have to care for ist transport, because the navy (that is paid by someone else) does it. They do not have to care for food, as the Agri world have to give that instead of soldiers and some planets have to give administrative and logistic personell instead of warriors. Ans Prepaid and maintenance is mostly outsourcen to the Admech. Therefore I assumed that figure of "10% of the PDF" was really meant as purely soldiers.

This is not true down at the unit level. Agi worlds do produce the food stuffs, but getting down the units is a whole other issue that often requires a supply chain that while not part of the regiments direct chain of command, is not something to simply be waved away as "someone else does this" The regiment is still responsible for getting supplies from the delivery down to the companys/platoons/squads and will have a supply section (known as S-4 in the US Army) that will have to deal with who needs what where and how to get it to them. And Admech support is usually directly attached (ie organic) to units that require it supplemented by unit maintenance, not really outsourced unless its special equipment or large numbers on a major campaign.

 Salted Diamond wrote:

This is not true down at the unit level. Agi worlds do produce the food stuffs, but getting down the units is a whole other issue that often requires a supply chain that while not part of the regiments direct chain of command, is not something to simply be waved away as "someone else does this" The regiment is still responsible for getting supplies from the delivery down to the companys/platoons/squads and will have a supply section (known as S-4 in the US Army) that will have to deal with who needs what where and how to get it to them. And Admech support is usually directly attached (ie organic) to units that require it supplemented by unit maintenance, not really outsourced unless its special equipment or large numbers on a major campaign.

reading the posts on this thread again, i have softened my stance a little, as a lot of jobs that would be "soldiers" in a m3 are not in m41. most of the Guard's g4/logistic* chain falls under Munitorum control and are technically civillian (A deliberate, policy choice, to limit the ability of troops to rebel). Even though by contemporary standards, the Munitorum would be "soldiers" under military discipline, the imperium wouldn't call them soldiers. That means almost all the supply chain behind a regiment isnt "soldiers", and while you might argue thats just hiding troops by changing names, its worth mentioning. Those same Munitorum drivers that one day drop off lasgun power packs to the PDF are the next day running iron ingots to a foundry. To a large degree, the organs of the Imperial State exist to support the army that protects it.

still, your right in that the regiment would still have a dedicated supply sub-unit, though it would be smaller than its M3 equivalent.

i;d imagine that the admech have both organic light aid detachments** in the unit, and independant, specialised workshops for more serious work like battle damage. the light aid units might just be 2 or 3 tech priests with a score of servitors as helpers, and a half dozen guardsmen as intelligent helpers.


*s-4, g4, same branch numbers, different naming conventions. America uses S for "staff", the UK and NATO use G for "ground" (and A for "air" and N for "Navy", i believe), with cross service branches are J for "Joint", and cross national branches are C for "combined", and ones that are both cross service and international are CJ for "Combined Joint", because bureaucracy.



**not sure what the US term is, but a UK light aid detchment (LAD) is the mechanical engineers attached directly to the unit for routine maintenance, can do things like engine changes, yearly inspections and servicing, etc.

xerxeskingofking wrote:

Spoiler:

 Salted Diamond wrote:

This is not true down at the unit level. Agi worlds do produce the food stuffs, but getting down the units is a whole other issue that often requires a supply chain that while not part of the regiments direct chain of command, is not something to simply be waved away as "someone else does this" The regiment is still responsible for getting supplies from the delivery down to the companys/platoons/squads and will have a supply section (known as S-4 in the US Army) that will have to deal with who needs what where and how to get it to them. And Admech support is usually directly attached (ie organic) to units that require it supplemented by unit maintenance, not really outsourced unless its special equipment or large numbers on a major campaign.

reading the posts on this thread again, i have softened my stance a little, as a lot of jobs that would be "soldiers" in a m3 are not in m41. most of the Guard's g4/logistic* chain falls under Munitorum control and are technically civillian (A deliberate, policy choice, to limit the ability of troops to rebel). Even though by contemporary standards, the Munitorum would be "soldiers" under military discipline, the imperium wouldn't call them soldiers. That means almost all the supply chain behind a regiment isnt "soldiers", and while you might argue thats just hiding troops by changing names, its worth mentioning. Those same Munitorum drivers that one day drop off lasgun power packs to the PDF are the next day running iron ingots to a foundry. To a large degree, the organs of the Imperial State exist to support the army that protects it.

still, your right in that the regiment would still have a dedicated supply sub-unit, though it would be smaller than its M3 equivalent.

i;d imagine that the admech have both organic light aid detachments** in the unit, and independant, specialised workshops for more serious work like battle damage. the light aid units might just be 2 or 3 tech priests with a score of servitors as helpers, and a half dozen guardsmen as intelligent helpers.


*s-4, g4, same branch numbers, different naming conventions. America uses S for "staff", the UK and NATO use G for "ground" (and A for "air" and N for "Navy", i believe), with cross service branches are J for "Joint", and cross national branches are C for "combined", and ones that are both cross service and international are CJ for "Combined Joint", because bureaucracy.



**not sure what the US term is, but a UK light aid detchment (LAD) is the mechanical engineers attached directly to the unit for routine maintenance, can do things like engine changes, yearly inspections and servicing, etc.

I believe the US equivalent to a LAD would be the FSC (Field Support Company) That is where the mechanics and supply truck drivers for the battalion are located.

And there is lore about IG field mechanics doing repairs/modifications to get vehicles back in the fight that the Admech got rather upset about (at work so I can't reference exact) like Modifying damaged Laser Tank Destroyers into Thunderers and I believe that the Stormsword was originally a field mod of a damaged Shadowsword. These were done without Admech support nor approval. So that's more than just "intelligent helpers"

I remember vaguely that the regiment in the Ciaphas Cain novels had one out of 5 companies as logistics/sappeurs. I'm not totally sure about it, but it sounds sensible. Those were still troopers drilled in the use of lasguns, they were just not used at the front unless there really was no other way.

Regarding salvaged equipment: I think in a significant number of conflicts IG has to fight against rebellious "imperials", that at least partly use salvagable tech. It might be GSC as well as Renegades that have not yet come around to chaotify their vehicles or aren't even Chaos worshippers at all. On top of that you have material that was captured by rebels/GSC/Orks from Imperials and than captured back. Then you have stuff like lasguns found on dead allies or guns on destroyed vehicles that can be salvaged and last but not least non standard tanks captured from human settled worlds that have just been reintegrated into the Imperium. I know that those are difficult for logistics, but better to have a T55 with problems to get spare parts than having no tank at all.

In the end it's just my explanation dir adding any proxy tank I like.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I remember vaguely that the regiment in the Ciaphas Cain novels had one out of 5 companies as logistics/sappeurs. I'm not totally sure about it, but it sounds sensible. Those were still troopers drilled in the use of lasguns, they were just not used at the front unless there really was no other way.

Regarding salvaged equipment: I think in a significant number of conflicts IG has to fight against rebellious "imperials", that at least partly use salvagable tech. It might be GSC as well as Renegades that have not yet come around to chaotify their vehicles or aren't even Chaos worshippers at all. On top of that you have material that was captured by rebels/GSC/Orks from Imperials and than captured back. Then you have stuff like lasguns found on dead allies or guns on destroyed vehicles that can be salvaged and last but not least non standard tanks captured from human settled worlds that have just been reintegrated into the Imperium. I know that those are difficult for logistics, but better to have a T55 with problems to get spare parts than having no tank at all.

In the end it's just my explanation dir adding any proxy tank I like.

In the Siege of Vraks it does specifically talk about the Krieg Regiments salvaging and reconsecrating 1 or more minotaur for service in their siege company. So there is 100% past lore about units using (re)captured imperial equipment

 Salted Diamond wrote:

I believe the US equivalent to a LAD would be the FSC (Field Support Company) That is where the mechanics and supply truck drivers for the battalion are located.

And there is lore about IG field mechanics doing repairs/modifications to get vehicles back in the fight that the Admech got rather upset about (at work so I can't reference exact) like Modifying damaged Laser Tank Destroyers into Thunderers and I believe that the Stormsword was originally a field mod of a damaged Shadowsword. These were done without Admech support nor approval. So that's more than just "intelligent helpers"

ah, i think i see another difference here, related to the British army's structure. The FSC has a direct UK equivalent, just called "support company". Within it are all the G4, G6, and G7 elements for the battalion (G1, G2, G3, G5 and G7 fall under battalion HQ, which can be the size of a small company itself). However, most of those elements are form different branches of the army, and maintain their own identity within the unit. the LAD is effectively a platoon of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) attached to the battalion, the G4 guys are mostly Royal Logistic Corps(RLC), the admin clerks are Adjutant Generals Corps(AGC), etc. they keep their own cap badges and other branch of service marks, and maybe adopt the unit brigade patch at best.


Am i to understand that all those guys in a US battalion would be fully integrated, not semi-seperate as they are in a UK unit?


i'd argue that those "guard" refits are beyond the level of technical and mechanical ability you would get outside of the Admech (in the same way , and its likely the units tech priests are involved in the original conversions of them, even if the Admech chain of command frowns upon these modifications. After all, none of the imperial Adeptus are truly monolithic and homogenous, and hersey/innovation happens, they just disguise it as "recovered" knowledge.

 Salted Diamond wrote:

Savlar Chem Dogs are well known for using captured equipment. From Lexicam
The Savlar Chem-Dogs are a Penal Legion of the Imperial Guard, composed of some of the most hardened criminals and desperadoes in the Imperium. Recruits are drawn from the prisons on the planet Savlar by the promise to allow them to keep anything they take from the battlefield, as well as the chance to get away from Savlar's highly toxic environment.

Ok, this is direct from Codex: Astra Militarum:
"Much of their equipment is stolen from other regiments.."
"Rather than wait for re-supply they will often re-purpose old equipment. They have been known to strip weapons from vehicles and proceed on foot when fuel is low, or replace broken machinery parts with similarly shaped pieces of scrap. Though effective, such practices have seen more than a few Savlar officers executed for heresy by the Adeptus Mechanicus."
The Savlar might "salvage" and steal from the dead or fellow regiments but this behavior has their ranks filled with commissars, who are very unlikely to allow an Imperial soldier to walk around with a lasgun stamped with the mark of Chaos. A Penal regiment that was created to fill manpower problems on Armageddon isn't exactly the model Guardsman and won't be the model for most regiments. In the Ghost's series, a trooper accidentally picks up a Chaos lasgun, keeps it, and increasingly gets paranoid about it being cursed until he gets rid of it. He hides it from his officers and commissars because carrying a Chaos tainted weapon would get him executed.

This was something I put together ages ago when the Imperial Guard Regiment was introduced, it has a fair bit about the founding of Guard regiments.

The Imperial Guard (based on material from WD 109 and the Codexes that followed)

The Imperium of Man is truly vast, spanning across the galaxy and covering more than a million worlds. To defend this massive star empire requires more manpower than a system could possibly provide, to say nothing of the vast interstellar distances involved. Throughout the galaxy wars are constantly raging, from small skirmishes to system wide invasions. Internal rebellions flare up and are crushed; Orks, Tyranids and other alien races attack on a thousand fronts; the forces of Chaos seek weakness in the systems bordering the Eye of Terror; research teams on dead worlds are assaulted by ancient relics of a long dead star empire; heretic prophets rise to brief glory and are destroyed; Eldar pirates and raiders strike isolated settlements; other ambitious younger races such as the Tau push out their borders and expand; new worlds are discovered (or in many cases re-discovered) by Rogue Traders, claimed for the Imperium, and pacified.
To counter these multi-axis threats the Immortal Emperor created the Imperial Guard, the hammer with which to enforce his will and defend his empire across the stars. The Guard’s primary purpose is to enforce the Immortal Emperor’s will across the galaxy and defend against all aggressors and traitors. The Imperial Guard makes up the vast bulk of the Imperial military machine; recruited from the planetary defense forces of the Imperium's millions of worlds; it is a huge military force of Humans and Abhumans. In the Imperial military if one was to describe the difference between the Adeptus Astartes and the Guard Regiments: the Adeptus Astartes is the sword point at the leading edge of an Imperial attack, and the Imperial Guard is the sledgehammer that crushes all before it.
No one knows the true size of the Imperial Guard, and only the huge Codex Exercitus, maintained on Terra by the highest ranks of the Administratum, contains the necessary data for such a calculation. There are some guesses and rumors - some say that if the whole of the Imperial Guard were paraded shoulder-to-shoulder they would cover the entire planetary surfaces of such-and-such a system, or stretch from Terra to such-and-such a star. As the Imperial Infantryman’s Uplifting Primer says, each guardsman stands “with billions of others in the greatest army that has ever existed, bathed by the brilliant light of the Golden Throne.”
Because of its enormous size, the Imperial Guard is also an incredibly diverse organization. To define the configuration of every company and platoon, to describe every variation in troop organization, equipment and tactics, would require a work many times the size of this article. Since so many worlds have their own traditions and varying levels of technology, there can really be endless variation. Of necessity, then, we will focus on the main operational unit of the Imperial Guard, the regiment. In this case the standard infantry regiment, which is the most common force deployed…why you ask? Because manpower is a coin the Imperium can spend like water.
________________________________________
IMPERIAL GUARD REGIMENTS

The main operational unit of the Imperial Guard is the Regiment. Precise numbers vary, but most Imperial Guard Regiments are raised with a strength numbering some 2,000-6,000 men. Each regiment is raised from a single home world, and the Imperial Guard trooper regards himself as belonging first and foremost to the Regiment rather than the Army to which it is assigned at its raising. This is a completely understandable consequence of the raising, after all the men of his regiment speak the same language; share the same traditions, etc. In all likelihood these comrades will be the last people from his home world an Imperial line trooper will ever see.
Regiments are identified by the name of their home world, and a number - for example, the 8th Necromunda Regiment is the eighth Regiment of the Imperial Guard to have been raised from the world of Necromunda during a particular raising. The Regiment inherits all the battle honors of its illustrious predecessors, even though none of her soldiers would have been present at them. This helps foster a feeling of superiority and esprit-de-corps as the Regiment trains in the bellies of the enormous transports on the way to the battle zone where it will serve. Officers are appointed at this time, their skill, training and experience dependent entirely upon the world that the regiment was raised from.
A Regiment is commanded by a Colonel (Senior Officer - rank may vary depending on Planet of origin) and often Regiments take on the personality of their commander. This personality is often reflected in unit nicknames, and Regiments take particular pride in being recognized in this manner. Regiments also take with them the culture and history of their home world and the battle honors of each previous regiment raised with the same number.
Military aficionados may have noted the lack of Battalions within the Imperial Guard organization. In the 20th century Battalions have often been used to differentiate operational combat units from their recruiting counterparts. In the 19th century the 2nd Battalions of British Infantry Regiments remained in England recruiting while the 1st Battalions fought overseas. The Imperial Guard does not recruit additional troops for the Regiment after it is raised, as they are sent to a war zone or planet far from their home world and any replacements. This is mainly due to the incredible cost of trying to ferry replacements from a home world. While White Shield units may be raised on a Garrison World like Cadia or conscripts might be pressed into service on a planet like Armageddon, there are generally no replacements for the loses incurred by Regiments as the attrition of time and combat thin their ranks.

COMPANIES
Regiments are divided into companies, which can vary widely in their size and composition. The company is the major tactical unit of the Imperial Guard. The heart of a company is composed of a varying number of platoons and various specialist units and machines are attached to the company as need, availability and individual preference dictate - vehicles, support weapons, ally contingents and the like. Companies are commanded by Captains (Junior Officer or Senior Officer- rank may vary depending on Planet of origin) and are often smaller versions of the Regiment in their manner and personality. When a battle plan is divulged down to the Regiment’s Colonel, he (or his staff) will assign specific objectives to the Company Commanders.

PLATOONS
The Codex Exercitus gives the standard configuration of an Imperial Guard Platoon as a Command Section and from two to six squads. A Command Section consists of a Junior Officer (normally either a Captain or a Lieutenant, again dependent on the Planet of Origin), and a small number of specialist troops such as (but not limited too) Medics, specialist and heavy weapons troopers, and perhaps an attached Sanctioned Psyker, in addition to rank-and-file Guardsmen. In addition any Heavy Weapons Squads will be under the direction of this Junior Officer, used to provide fire support for the line infantry whose job it is to take and hold ground.

INFANTRY SQUADS
A line infantry squad consists of one Sergeant and nine Guardsmen, and is almost always attached to a Command Section. (Many worlds have subordinate ranks under the Sergeant – Corporal being a common title; however for the purposes of our discussion and their authority in combat, Sergeant is the lowest rank we will look at in depth). The Sergeant leads his or her squad and is often called upon to make the final decisions as to the position of individual troopers to carry out the objectives given by his or her superior. Often these are the longest serving troopers from the Planetary Defense Force and often have acquired additional equipment and experience as compared to their charges.

________________________________________
RECRUITMENT

When the realities of interstellar transport, supply, and logistics are considered the only reasonable option available to the Imperium was the Imperial Guard. While the Adeptus Astartes were available to the Immortal Emperor in small numbers they could not possibly be spread far enough to counter the multitude of threats. Each world in the Imperium is responsible for its own defense (The Lex Imperla de Munimenta Publica lays down that each planet shall raise and maintain a planetary defense force). These forces are equipped and trained at the expense of the Imperial Commander (Planetary Governor). From these forces are drawn a tithe of men who will be transported off-world as Imperial Guard Regiments.
Recruitment for the Imperial Guard creams off the elite of the planetary defense forces, according to a series of quotas set by the Administratum. Using a complex system of probability computations and battle forecasts backed up by the Imperial Tarot, the Administratum issues a requirement for troops, which is passed down to the Imperial Commanders of individual planets. The Imperial Commander can then formulate his population control policy for the next generation around the Administratum's requirement for Imperial Guard troops and his own requirements for labor.
Quotas are normally set each generation, but in times of great need, the Administratum may require a planet to supply two or more raisings from a single generation. During the wars of the Horus Heresy, for example, Necromunda was required to provide dozens of separate raisings, supplying the Guard with hundreds of millions of troops in total. Many hive worlds suffered similar burdens, while at the other end of the scale, many agricultural and feral worlds were almost entirely stripped of their meager populations, and had to be left for several generations in order for their populations to recover.
The Imperial Sector Lord Commanders then decide where these recently raised regiments will be deployed, whether together as a single unified force, or more commonly as individual or a handful of regiments to a single war zone or insurrection. This again is decided by the General Staff of each Sector assisted by massive banks of data, probability computations and in some cases gut feeling (such was thought to be the reason for the assignment of the 12th Necromunda to the Jungle World of Nazair in the First Logan Insurrection). An example would be during the Ork Waaagh in the Ryza System (M40), the 1st and 3rd Catachan Regiments were sent to fight in that war zone, while the 2nd was sent to support the Antipoli Crusade.
Methods of recruitment vary according to the world involved. On hive worlds it is common to draft entire street gangs into the planetary defence force. On feral and medieval worlds, the planetary defense force is recruited from the warrior caste by a series of trials and ordeals. On factory worlds those seen as possible union leaders, troublemakers, or other undesirables may find themselves recruited. Sometimes in an existing war zone, irregular forces have been known to be inducted into the Guard en masse and provided with Officers and members of the Commissariat.
The Regiment is shipped to its posting after it is raised, but does not receive replacements for losses. Because of the vastness of the Imperium, and its huge Human population, it is rare for the transport of personnel to justify the huge costs, risks and time-lags involved. This results in an ever shrinking force, initially this is offset by the fact that the survivors gain experience and thus fighting efficiency remains high despite the depletion of numbers. Eventually however, because of the lack of ongoing recruitment, Regiments will become severely depleted. In some cases, two or more Regiments serving on a world may be combined to form a new Regiment, which is given the name of the base world if its parent Regiments came from different home worlds.
Now some Regiments remain on their home world, especially on a Garrison World like Cadia and they may receive replacements from drafts from the Planetary Defense Force or other sources. As well during planetary conflicts recently recruited regiments may also remain on their home world. The Administratum would rather this be the exception rather than the rule, as large number of locally raised troops may give a Planetary Commander cause to declare independence, whereas a Governor with troops from other planets of questionable loyalty (that would be loyalty to the Governor and world and not to the Imperium) is less likely to consider setting up his or her own little empire.
For those with a penchant for history, the most reasonable parallel to the Imperial Guard regiment was the Union regiments of the American Civil War (1861-1865). Regiments were raised by state governments and then offered for Federal service for a period three years or less depending on the recruitment contract. During that time replacements for casualties were rarely provided (exception being the State of Wisconsin) and the Regiment would slowly dwindle in size (however not in fighting capacity due to the survivors becoming veteran soldiers) as the casualty lists grew due to battle, disease and desertion. Colonels and senior officers were appointed by the State Governor (often without previous military training) and the regiment then trained together until sent to an Army, where they would usually serve until being disbanded due to casualties (survivors generally being added to surviving regiments as a company, especially those from the same state) or at the end of their service. This does not necessarily make for the most effective or efficient form of Regiment, as often those with the most experience lead the fewest soldiers.
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TRAINING AND DEPLOYMENT

Recruits to the Imperial Guard are already partially trained by virtue of their service with the planetary defense forces from which they are recruited. They may also have skills and training acquired in their previous career (like hive gangers recruited into the Guard) Advanced training, weapon cross-training and various drills take place during the long voyage from the Regiment's home world to their posting. Since it is Imperial policy to post Imperial Guard units well away from their home world in order to minimize the risk of revolt, these voyages can take months or even years. By the time an Imperial Guard unit arrives at its destination, it is a highly-trained and cohesive force, ready for almost any eventuality.
The Imperial Guard is most often deployed into war zones or on planets where a garrison is required. War zone deployments usual result in the Regiment being posted to an Imperial Guard Army and fighting in a major campaign that may stretch over several worlds before conclusion. If the Army that the Regiment has been attached too is sent on a crusade, then the Regiment goes with it. Garrison postings are seldom the easy tasks they may seem, for often an Imperial Guard garrison has to conquer a world, or recapture it from Orks or other aliens, before they can garrison it. Less common postings include attachment to the entourage of a Rogue Trader, or posting to a Titan Order as Skitari support troops. After a Regiment has completed its original mission it may be re-tasked for another (if sufficient transport and personnel remain), although veteran Regiments are more likely to be sent on garrison postings.
A successful Regiment can look forward to being granted the over lordship of the planet to which they are posted. If the planet remains peaceful and meets all its quotas, the Colonel may in time be rewarded with the title of Imperial Commander and the governorship of the planet, while substantial land grants maybe made to Guard veterans who retire from active service due to old age. In due course of time, the Regiment will become hereditary nobility, almost indistinguishable from the now-peaceful native population. The descendants of the original garrison may well be recruited, first into the planetary defense force, and then into the Imperial Guard Regiments that are raised there.

CB

Thanks, that was definitly helpful.
All in all everything said here gives me a good idea how to proceed with my fluff

Vostroyans seem to break that rule.

I think the thing being forgotten in all of this is that the imperial guard are not based on modern or even WW2 regiments. They're based almost specifically on the British army recruitment patterns during WW1. They say regiments but really they mean brigades and just upscaling them to regiment size. I think this is where a lot of people seem to be misreading how the imperial guard are set up. Rather than using individual counties, they use planets instead. Essentially the "Valhallans" or the "Cadians" are the regiment in question, each numbered is a brigade. So the 8th Cadian or the 578th Tallarn is a brigade. Within each brigade there's also specific logistical companies to deal with the day to day.

The 40k Guard aesthetic is that of the "pals battalions", which were raised by recruiting drives all from the same area. These are the "planetary tithes" or conscriptions. It meant when a unit took casualties, little cards were sent home to entire rows of houses and each neighbourhood was ripped apart by the amount of dead. This changed after the Somme and the vast numbers of casualties, all from the same cities. One newsreader of the time talked about the PTSD they suffered years later from having to lie about the casualty listings to pretend that all was well on the front. It's meant to underscore the meaningless of life of as a soldier in the guard and each one is a likely casualty from a planet, but there's plenty more to be raised for the meat grinder.

 Olthannon wrote:
I think the thing being forgotten in all of this is that the imperial guard are not based on modern or even WW2 regiments. They're based almost specifically on the British army recruitment patterns during WW1. They say regiments but really they mean brigades and just upscaling them to regiment size. I think this is where a lot of people seem to be misreading how the imperial guard are set up. Rather than using individual counties, they use planets instead. Essentially the "Valhallans" or the "Cadians" are the regiment in question, each numbered is a brigade. So the 8th Cadian or the 578th Tallarn is a brigade. Within each brigade there's also specific logistical companies to deal with the day to day.

The 40k Guard aesthetic is that of the "pals battalions", which were raised by recruiting drives all from the same area. These are the "planetary tithes" or conscriptions. It meant when a unit took casualties, little cards were sent home to entire rows of houses and each neighbourhood was ripped apart by the amount of dead. This changed after the Somme and the vast numbers of casualties, all from the same cities. One newsreader of the time talked about the PTSD they suffered years later from having to lie about the casualty listings to pretend that all was well on the front. It's meant to underscore the meaningless of life of as a soldier in the guard and each one is a likely casualty from a planet, but there's plenty more to be raised for the meat grinder.

the guard is a heterogenous mix of several different militaries form several different time periods, but the practices of the British army in late19th/early 20th century are the strongest inspirations. this makes sense for a setting dreamt up by English people, who grew up on adventure stories set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. that, and those practices of geographically localised recruitment and naming mapped well on to the Imperium of Man as the lore was fleshed out properly in the early 90s.

the different regiements have different real world inspriations. the Catachan are the US and Vietnam, the Tallarn are Lawrence of Arabia, the mordians were early 20th century armies on parade, while the Pretorians were the late Victorian redcoats on campaign in Zululand. the Vostroyans are tsarist russia, while the valhallans are the Red Army at Stalingrad. the Steel Legion is ww2 germans in full blitzkrieg, while the Krieg are ww1 Germans with a heavy French influence.

the cadians are the the closest to "modern" armies, but they still are more of a "generic sci-fi military" (in line with colonial marines in Aliens, the UNSC in Halo, etc) than any specific modern army.

so, yhea, they borrow form ww1, but not just ww1. At least, until the whole "combat lifetime of 15 hours" one liner got taken out of context and blown out of proportion for MAXIMUM GRIMDARK.