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Indeed.

I've edited the above 2 posts.

Even if you're jesting please don't use homophobic slurs, there's no need. Thanks.

Can we use ***?

DakkaDakka wrote:

Ok, point noted.

KamikazeCanuck wrote:@Reznov. I did not ask any question hence the lack of question mark. I know why Vraks went the way it did you seem to be mistaken. A "swift strike" wasn't possible because anti-air defenses were so strong that not only was it a no-fly zone it was a no-orbit zone. It wasn't even safe for ships to be on one side of the planet.
A blockade was actually turned down without much thought. When it came down to it the final question for the munitorium was would we rather spend 10,000,000 guardsmen for a 10 year war or 10 Guardsmen for a 100 year siege. They went for the former and it was an easy choice.
This all goes back to the original point that the IoM's cheapest and most plentiful resource is human life. The munitorium isn't shy about spending that resource. A person isn't even as valuable as a lasgun. 40k: it's grim and it is dark.

Huh, now I understand. Thanks for clarifying your position. Thats my position all along. The Munitorium doesn't care cause they're bureaucrats while on the ground things can be different and don't follow the rules laid down by the Munitorum.

Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:Nice story snippet Corporal_Reznov...its a pretty elegant proof of tyranid intelligence.

Would be nice to see forgeworld or GW make a anti-nid IG force, flamers and hazmat suits, poison gas arty shells and all sorts of bug killin stuff, would show the IoM reacting to one of its greatest threats, get proactive for once.

But GW and FW will never do that cause Grimdark . Seriously, to me the bets way of defeating the Nids is via Space-battle.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

It's still a resource, and they still take steps to preserve it, even if it's less important than equipment (in theory.) I mean if they really didnt give a damn about people, why do they bother with the logistics of feeding them, medical care, etc? They should just wire them up with explosives, give them a gun and bayonet and send them out into the enemy, right?

Exactly. Connor's got a thread on the link I've posted before showing IG being equipped with food, water and stuff like that

Brother Coa wrote:
And recovering from that kind of catastrophic event is pain in the a**. And not every Guard Commander is Chenkov, we said that like 1.000.000 times.

It never sticks cause people like beating down on the Guard.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

Seaward wrote:
Humans are the closest thing they have to an unlimited resource. There are billions upon billions upon billions of them.

It's still a resource, and they still take steps to preserve it, even if it's less important than equipment (in theory.) I mean if they really didnt give a damn about people, why do they bother with the logistics of feeding them, medical care, etc? They should just wire them up with explosives, give them a gun and bayonet and send them out into the enemy, right?

Because an expendable soldier with a gun will kill more enemies than one with an explosive. Not to mention that explosives can go off early and harm your own lines. They spend money on feeding and training them so that they don't die quite as pathetically as civilians. Now I don't know about anyone else, but the munitorum really does not spend a lot to feed them, hence why they mainly eat pretty horrible food, and gives them the bare minimum to effectively do their job.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

As for it working against Orks and Tyranids? Sure, it'll work against Orks, as Orks are rarely united in the numbers humans can be. There are more Orks in the galaxy, but that doesn't matter if they're not all coordinating with each other - which they're not.

What is a typical WAAAGH? Millions of orks? Big ones like Armageddon get into the billions? How often do you see "millions" of guardsmen amassed for one conflict, much less billions? cooperation is only part of it. They have to find and ferry those forces to where they fight, nevermind the logistics and support elements. Orks actually have an advantage here with their mobile ecosystems and regenerative abilities - their logistical requirements are actually less strenuous than for a human force.

Billions of troops were dropped to help on Armageddon, of course being that Armageddon was an important planet the imperium bothered to actually spend their most valuable resource, space marines in the war. Further, they didn't just send a single chapter, but at least 3 and if I remember there is always at least 1 chapter still fighting on Armageddon. When it gets to the point where the Imperium has to send valuable resources to a conflict, you have moved beyond the abilities of the guard.

I would also argue that IG do not start out inherently coordinated, especially since they tend to scratch build forces on an ad-hoc basis and then expect them to sort themselves out on the way. Again that whole "its hard to micromanage via astrotelepathy and warp travel" problem. Orks still reproduce faster than humans, develop faster, and on average are physically stronger and tougher.

Orks 90% of the time don't even know what system they will end up to fight in. The munitorm which decides which troops go where will often know about a threat and centrally co-ordinate all the troops that need to get to the warzone. It is a logistical challenge to be sure, but that is why monolithic organizations like the munitorm and administratium exist. Troops from hundreds of different systems can be brought in to fight a single war, while orks breed faster and carry their ecosystem with them they don't get reinforcements the same way the imperium does. For that matter the only reason Gazguls second attack on Armageddon was so successful was because of the telliportas in the roks that were constantly bringing in fresh orks.

Connor MacLeod wrote:

As for Tyranids, very little works against them.

Some things work better than others. ATtrition against the Tyranids is not one of them.

Actually attrition is so far the ONLY strategy that works against Tyranids. In the wars against the tyranids the imperium would spend billions of lives fighting to fleet on a world and forcing the fleet to spend as much biomass in the fight as possible. Then when the war was lost, they would exterminatis the plant, depriving the tyranids of the means to replenish their biomass spent fighting. This form of fighting is very costly for the imperium, but so far its the only strategy that reliably works.

Humans are a nearly inexhaustible resource, hell just those hive worlds alone would be repopulating the 10% taken in the tithe every year probably even increasing the net population. Orks may 'breed' faster, but you greatly underestimate the breeding power of a single hive world. Our planet's population growth is increasing every year, and we have a fraction of the number of people that exist on hive worlds. Humans breed at an exceptional rate. Given the number of worlds under rule of the imperium, that rate reaches terrifying levels. All the orks in the universe might breed faster, and there might be more of them, but with them constantly fighting amongst themselves they regulate their own populations pretty well.

As humans are a plentiful resource for the imperium it is far more eager to spend it than spend more valuable resources. That said though they don't waste anything. They would rather get the job done as cheaply as possible, however, a protracted campaign that eliminates the productivity of a world for a long time has a higher cost than applying overwhelming force and ending the campaign as quickly as possible. Guardsmen are cheap, and if a billion dead guardsmen will get a forge world producing again, or a farm world shipping food again, the imperium sees it as a net bargain.

(small little thought, from a tabletop perspective, guardsmen are cheaper than orks, and a guard player can actually field more individual models than an ork player.)

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
Because an expendable soldier with a gun will kill more enemies than one with an explosive. Not to mention that explosives can go off early and harm your own lines. They spend money on feeding and training them so that they don't die quite as pathetically as civilians. Now I don't know about anyone else, but the munitorum really does not spend a lot to feed them, hence why they mainly eat pretty horrible food, and gives them the bare minimum to effectively do their job.

Actually they do if you read the thread I mentioned. It has mention of equipment to make hot food and clean water. Also their soldier's, bad food is generally a part of that life along with one's wives or husband cheating on you while away on a campaign .

Guardsmen are cheap, and if a billion dead guardsmen will get a forge world producing again, or a farm world shipping food again, the imperium sees it as a net bargain.

(small little thought, from a tabletop perspective, guardsmen are cheaper than orks, and a guard player can actually field more individual models than an ork player.)

This is pretty much true. As per this:

Deathwatch rpg: Rites of Battle pg 247 wrote:Some Imperial Guard commanders call for Exterminatus
whenever a battle is lost, or an alien stronghold found. If the
Imperium can wield the awful power to destroy worlds, they
reason, why not simply use that power to destroy the worlds
of the enemy? They little apprehend how rare and precious
habitable worlds can be in a crowded galaxy, nor that the High
Lords of Terra would gladly sacrifi ce a billion Guardsmen
to save a single habitable world from Exterminatus. Every
victory won at the cost of a destroyed world is valueless, a
transient gain bought for an inconceivable long-term loss.
Exterminatus is the ultimate sanction, only brought to bear as
a weapon of last resort.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

In truth the Imperial Guard are both the professional army and canon fodder at the same time. They're the ones who defend and capture the worlds of the Imperium, the are the one's who get reinforced with supplies and more troops by the Imperium etc.

Don't you guys dare use '15 hours' as an example of logistics seeing as for all intents and purposes the world where Bucheroc is located has been forgotten that it ever existed by the Imperium.

dbsamurai wrote:Guardsmen are regularly thrown into the meatgrinder, because in large part their job is to stall for evac of the civies, or to provide a solid defense for space marines (that whole 10 men to a space marine thing).

A better way of providing a solid defence or delaying the enemy is to dig in and create trenchworks & defensive positions. This has numerous benefits;
1. Presents a solid 'wall' to the enemy of lines of defensible positions which, even if the first falls there are others to back them up
2. To attack a defended position it's reckoned you need to outnumber each defender by 3-5:1. For a fortified position increase that to 6+. If you have 1,000,000 Orks assaulting 2 Guard Regiments each of 200,000 Guardsmen holding trenches and siegelines then odds are in the favor of the Guardsmen - trenches are sited where the best lines of fire are offered to the defenders so a race that uses horde tactics, going flat out at the enemy and ignoring cover, are immediately at a disadvantage - lasguns, hellguns, heavy bolters, autocannons, lascannons, heavy stubbers, plasmaguns, meltaguns, grenade launchers, flamers - they'd need to seriously outnumber the defenders to get through that storm of fire, not to mention Vultures & Valkyries dropping munitions on them from above whilst Marauders make bombing runs and artillery hammers from the gunline far behind the trenches.
3. Morale. You have fresh troops, they've had training from when they were raised as a Regiment, training on the journey to the warzone but they've never stood and fired at an enemy in anger. What's the best way to make sure they don't run? Put them in defensive positions where they feel reassured by the defences/position, from the massed numbers of their comrades nearby, with a clear killing ground in front of the firestep.
4. Troops can be moved where they're needed quickly. With the numerous communication, slit & reserve trenches there would be, bodies of troops can be moved up and down them to reinforce the frontline where they are needed, quickly. If one part of the trenches come under more pressure than can be handled more troops can be moved forward to that position.
5. Cover. Within the protection of trenches, bunkers, dugouts and so on, a Guardsman will have a greater chance of surviving enemy attacks. Whilst he's reloading he can duck behind a parapet, no longer displaying a target to the enemy. Then, when he/she is ready, they can pop back up and open fire once again. Artillery often has little effect against well prepared trenches/dugouts. Prior to 1 July 1916 (first day of the Somme) British artillery hammered German lines, launching 12,000 tons of ordnance to little effect. Amazing what a bit of digging can do for your survival.

It's when the Guard go on the offensive to retake ground that the 'meatgrinder' may be employed or if the terrain is not suitable for digging trenches/siegeworks/defensive positions or if a sudden advance will wrong-foot the enemy. Depends on the tactical & strategic situation but on the whole, trenches are a damned good idea.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:
It's when the Guard go on the offensive to retake ground that the 'meatgrinder' may be employed or if the terrain is not suitable for digging trenches/siegeworks/defensive positions or if a sudden advance will wrong-foot the enemy. Depends on the tactical & strategic situation but on the whole, trenches are a damned good idea.

This is not completely true seeing as fluff has show us sabotage down by special forces, IG snipers, Elysian Drooptroops, Orbital strikes, Air Strikes and tank assaults.

War consumes lives. This I assume is a very simple concept to everyone.

I'm trying to work out exactly what your point is there, but I will try.

So the standard infantrymen should stand in the open until the support elements such as specialised troops, aerial support, armoured units are in place, whilst those infantrymen are being shot and blown apart and assaulted by the enemy? It does take time to plan, prepare & co-ordinate an assault and it would be best to have your men in defensive positions until they can carry out their assault where they can live in moderate safety. If the enemy then attack they've got defensive positions from which they can fight rather than being stuck in the open where the enemy can destroy them. If digging trenches minimises your casualties & maximises the enemies then it's certainly worthwhile.

As an aside, on the topic of Guardsmen being viewed as resources, the first rule of attrition is to make sure you bleed the enemy more than he bleeds you. Yes Guardsmen are viewed as resources to be spent to defeat the enemy but it's how they are spent thats important - just throwing away your troops will lead to defeat.

Sparks_Havelock wrote:

dbsamurai wrote:Guardsmen are regularly thrown into the meatgrinder, because in large part their job is to stall for evac of the civies, or to provide a solid defense for space marines (that whole 10 men to a space marine thing).

A better way of providing a solid defence or delaying the enemy is to dig in and create trenchworks & defensive positions. This has numerous benefits;

...

It's when the Guard go on the offensive to retake ground that the 'meatgrinder' may be employed or if the terrain is not suitable for digging trenches/siegeworks/defensive positions or if a sudden advance will wrong-foot the enemy. Depends on the tactical & strategic situation but on the whole, trenches are a damned good idea.

Trenches are nice, they have many uses, but part of the problem facing a guard army is that quite often it is not a realistic tactic. Hell even in today's modern warfare, trenches are not really realistic.
Part of the problem is that trenches take time to setup, and while the guard have the manpower and some specialized regiments have the ability to do it quicker than usual, it is still very time consuming and you cant exactly dig trenches while you are being shot at.
With transportation being what it is, we can right now pretty much fly around the world in less than a day. Transport logistics means that moving troops and resources around has never been easier, as a result of this very few fights happen in areas where you can dig trenches. (most fights happen in cities.) Add to that, that the time it may take to dig those trenches might be more than it takes for the enemy to get to you.

Lastly, except in lucky circumstances when the guard arrive they are on the back foot. It would have taken them who knows how long to get to the planet during which the PDF has tried, probably in vain, to keep the galaxies nasties at bay. As such, most guard will be dropping into a hostile war-zone and will have to establish a beachhead so the rest of the guards logistics can land. In those situations you pretty much have the nastiest of meat grinders and you preferably want someone like a company of astartes to do it for you.
In a galaxy of war like 40K, most fights will take place in cities and will rarely be pure defensive hold the line types of fights with the options of trenches. To my understanding the Guard act more as a slowly advance through the cover of the ruined city, slowly pushing the enemy back until the day is won.

[quote=Sparks_Havelock]I'm trying to work out exactly what your point is there, but I will try.

So the standard infantrymen should stand in the open until the support elements such as specialised troops, aerial support, armoured units are in place, whilst those infantrymen are being shot and blown apart and assaulted by the enemy? It does take time to plan, prepare & co-ordinate an assault and it would be best to have your men in defensive positions until they can carry out their assault where they can live in moderate safety. If the enemy then attack they've got defensive positions from which they can fight rather than being stuck in the open where the enemy can destroy them. If digging trenches minimises your casualties & maximises the enemies then it's certainly worthwhile.

As an aside, on the topic of Guardsmen being viewed as resources, the first rule of attrition is to make sure you bleed the enemy more than he bleeds you. Yes Guardsmen are viewed as resources to be spent to defeat the enemy but it's how they are spent thats important - just throwing away your troops will lead to defeat.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:

Flak armour is quite good for autoguns and protecting from non-direct hits but other than that your just trolling.

So what you're saying is that their armor is great as long as you don't shoot it? I give in, that right there is the definition of amazing armor lol . Every army has AP5 weapons in bundles, guardsman armor is pathetic. Again, its like the so called "flak" armor they gave soldiers in veitnam. It wouldn't stop a bullet, it wouldn't protect them at all. It's little more than a chest plate and a helmet. They're supposed to be expendable it's why they don't give them SM scout armor. Compare to the Tau, there's even an excerpt in the 4th edition codex:

"unlike the Imperium of Man, the Tau empire cannot draw on limitless manpower, so the strategy of attrition is unknown to them"

the imperium has limitless manpower, they don't care if their troops have good armor, they just want fearless soldiers (stubborn blob squads anyone?) who they can tell to go die to save the workers of the imperium (you know, the important people who feed the vast quadrillions of the empire). In addition, equipping such a vast army is expensive, so the most they can afford is armor that the standard guns in most armies can punch right through. It's why carapace armor is rare and always has been.

Further, they know that the billions upon billions of imperial guardsman out there will likely never face more than orks (who have a 6+ armor save) and renegades (mostly civies who wear clothes), so they don't care that their armor can't stop anything, because most of the things they're expected to face are shootas and las weapons.

dbsamurai wrote:
So what you're saying is that their armor is great as long as you don't shoot it? I give in, that right there is the definition of amazing armor lol . Every army has AP5 weapons in bundles, guardsman armor is pathetic. Again, its like the so called "flak" armor they gave soldiers in veitnam. It wouldn't stop a bullet, it wouldn't protect them at all. It's little more than a chest plate and a helmet. They're supposed to be expendable it's why they don't give them SM scout armor. Compare to the Tau, there's even an excerpt in the 4th edition codex:

I meant that it was good for taking Lasgun and auto gun shot and making them survivable. It obviously can't tank anti-armor and explosives in direct hits but against shrapnel its fine. Also where did you get the idea that 40k flak armor is the same as RL earth armor cause they have the same name. Then why do 40k 'Lasers' not act like RL lasers?

"unlike the Imperium of Man, the Tau empire cannot draw on limitless manpower, so the strategy of attrition is unknown to them"

Actually recent fluff shows that the Tau have learned the concept of attrition and are now using human auxiliaries for this purpose.

the imperium has limitless manpower, they don't care if their troops have good armor, they just want fearless soldiers (stubborn blob squads anyone?) who they can tell to go die to save the workers of the imperium (you know, the important people who feed the vast quadrillions of the empire). In addition, equipping such a vast army is expensive, so the most they can afford is armor that the standard guns in most armies can punch right through. It's why carapace armor is rare and always has been.

Further, they know that the billions upon billions of imperial guardsman out there will likely never face more than orks (who have a 6+ armor save) and renegades (mostly civies who wear clothes), so they don't care that their armor can't stop anything, because most of the things they're expected to face are shootas and las weapons.

That is the function of the army is it not, to save the civilians or are you just mocking the IG while praising the Tau?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here is what Dark Heresy core rulebook has to say about Flak armor:

Dark Heresy rpg: Core rulebook pg 144 wrote:Flak Armor

Comprised of layers of ablative and impact-absorbent material,
flak armour is effective against small arms, shrapnel and
proximity blasts. Flak armour counts as AP 5 against any
hit from a weapon with the Blast quality, provided the
wearer was not on the spot where the blast originated.

On an armor table in the next page it mentions this:

Flak Armour

Flak Helmet=Head

Flak Gauntlets=Arms

Light Flak Coat Arms, Body, Legs

Flak Vest=Body

Flak Jacket=Arms, Body, Legs

Flak Cloak=Body

Guard Flak Armour=All

Rogue Trader rpg mentions this:

Rogue Trader rpg: Cor rulebook pg138 wrote:Flak Armour

The most common type of armour in the galaxy is Flak
Armour as it is standard issue to the countless millions of
Imperial Guardsmen. Many layers of ablative and impact
absorbent material go into making each suit, enough to
deflect or negate most low-level attacks such as small arms,
shrapnel and proximity blasts. Solid hits from high impact
weapons can generally negate it, but given that it is relatively
lightweight, cheap to produce, and dependable in most
combat situations many veterans keep using it even when
offered better. As long as the wearer is not on the target spot
of the blast, Flak Armour counts as AP 5 against damage from
weapons with the Blast quality.

Fluff sources has statements that IG can sometimes mix armor to have things other than just flak.

Seaward wrote:Four months of training really isn't a lot.

US Marine training is 12 weeks. Long enough to send your boys to war competently aparantly. And that's 4 months of Guard training. After already being PDF soldiers.

Seaward wrote:Honestly, I don't know why Guard players fight tooth and nail against the notion that the Imperial Guard, by and large, adopts the tactic of throwing enough meat into the grinder to eventually make the gears seize. You can still play your army as the humane, cares-about-their-troops type, because there are certainly examples of those, too.

Because it's a ridiculous notion?

Corporal_Reznov wrote: I meant that it was good for taking Lasgun and auto gun shot and making them survivable. It obviously can't tank anti-armor and explosives in direct hits but against shrapnel its fine. Also where did you get the idea that 40k flak armor is the same as RL earth armor cause they have the same name. Then why do 40k 'Lasers' not act like RL lasers?

They behave the same too. as you noted in your quote, it's desined to stop flak, IE blasts. Well given the propensity for armies (such as my beloved blood angels, or my beloved IG) to carry a variety of explosives that are AP5 (flak missiles, flak grenades, in fact anything named flak) it's clear that the so called flak armor is not very good at stopping flak weapons.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Actually recent fluff shows that the Tau have learned the concept of attrition and are now using human auxiliaries for this purpose.

recent fluff shows we've incorporated guardsmen into the armies as auxilieries from whatever IG heathens defected. we don't throw them away (says so in the Tau codex again when discussing storming a location "stormers are not cannon fodder, it is up to the sqauds providing covering fire to identify enemy firebases and eliminate them before the assualters suffer too many casualties")

Corporal_Reznov wrote:That is the function of the army is it not, to save the civilians or are you just mocking the IG while praising the Tau?

I'm mockin the fact that everyone doesn't seem to understand that it's a real life tactic. when defending a location the best tactic to do is keep throwin bodies forward until you run out of men or you don't need to hold it anymore. Just look at the battle of stalingrad.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:
The most common type of armour in the galaxy is Flak
Armour as it is standard issue to the countless millions of
Imperial Guardsmen.given that it is relatively
lightweight, cheap to produce, and dependable in most
combat situations many veterans keep using it even when
offered better.

Fluff sources has statements that IG can sometimes mix armor to have things other than just flak.

and yet it still offers next to no protection. It's like all guard equipment: cheap and easy to maintain. It's GW's excuse for why IG sereants (despite being ostensibly more valuable than the men they lead) keep using las weaponry.

I love how everyone's getting mad over their tactics, when these have been legitimate military tactics for milennia. Throw bodies at the problem till it dies. It worked for the persians (even after circling the greeks they still threw bodies at them for a full day before they could kill 300 dudes). It worked in WWI (hey britain and america, lets throw bodies at the germans until they give up!) it worked in the civil war of america (hey north, we outnumber them 5 to one, so lets march straight into their cannons!), it worked in WWII (hey russians, the germans are pushing us back on every front...throw bodies at them in stalingrad until winter comes!), and it works now. All the veitnamese had to do was keep throwin bodies at us until sentiment turned, all the iraqies are doing is throwing bodies at us, killing one or two of our monumentously courageous men and women every day until the fat cats in power say "eh screw it" and give up. When you have nothing but bodies and the people to replace them, it's the simplest and most effective tactic in terms of defense (which is sadly pretty much the entire MO of the IG...cadia defends the eye of terror for example)

Brother Coa wrote:

SylvanaSekNadin wrote:
Of course what complicates whether any guardsman will see some of the other nasties in the universe is that most guardsmen will not live to see anything other than a single enemy, and almost all will not see more than 2. Remember, a guardsman's equipment is worth more than the trooper, so quite often they will be thrown into meat grinder battles because they are just that expendable.

A bit of maths, if you will. There are 32,380 Hive Worlds in the Imperium. The average population of these worlds is around 200 billion each. We put these together and we get 6.476E15 (6,476,000,000,000,000,000 or 6.476 quintillion or 6.476 billion billion) people on Hive worlds ALONE.

I feel expendable after this calculations....

I also read somewhere that one out of 1000 people are psykers. If 1000 psykers are fed to the Golden Throne every day, that means that the process will exhaust itself (If the psyjkers remained finite) in 17 billion years. That is insignificance, ladies and gentlemen.

Romer wrote:

Seaward wrote:Honestly, I don't know why Guard players fight tooth and nail against the notion that the Imperial Guard, by and large, adopts the tactic of throwing enough meat into the grinder to eventually make the gears seize. You can still play your army as the humane, cares-about-their-troops type, because there are certainly examples of those, too.

Because it's a ridiculous notion?

Ya it's suppose to be ridiculous. The IG is ridiculous. It's part of there charm. If you take that away, they really don't have anything to them.

dbsamurai wrote:
They behave the same too. as you noted in your quote, it's desined to stop flak, IE blasts. Well given the propensity for armies (such as my beloved blood angels, or my beloved IG) to carry a variety of explosives that are AP5 (flak missiles, flak grenades, in fact anything named flak) it's clear that the so called flak armor is not very good at stopping flak weapons.

I believe you mean Krak or frag grenades.

recent fluff shows we've incorporated guardsmen into the armies as auxilieries from whatever IG heathens defected. we don't throw them away (says so in the Tau codex again when discussing storming a location "stormers are not cannon fodder, it is up to the sqauds providing covering fire to identify enemy firebases and eliminate them before the assualters suffer too many casualties")

Other recent fluff say otherwise but I know you'll just ignore them.

I'm mockin the fact that everyone doesn't seem to understand that it's a real life tactic. when defending a location the best tactic to do is keep throwin bodies forward until you run out of men or you don't need to hold it anymore. Just look at the battle of stalingrad.


and yet it still offers next to no protection. It's like all guard equipment: cheap and easy to maintain. It's GW's excuse for why IG sereants (despite being ostensibly more valuable than the men they lead) keep using las weaponry.

I love how everyone's getting mad over their tactics, when these have been legitimate military tactics for milennia. Throw bodies at the problem till it dies. It worked for the persians (even after circling the greeks they still threw bodies at them for a full day before they could kill 300 dudes). It worked in WWI (hey britain and america, lets throw bodies at the germans until they give up!) it worked in the civil war of america (hey north, we outnumber them 5 to one, so lets march straight into their cannons!), it worked in WWII (hey russians, the germans are pushing us back on every front...throw bodies at them in stalingrad until winter comes!), and it works now. All the veitnamese had to do was keep throwin bodies at us until sentiment turned, all the iraqies are doing is throwing bodies at us, killing one or two of our monumentously courageous men and women every day until the fat cats in power say "eh screw it" and give up. When you have nothing but bodies and the people to replace them, it's the simplest and most effective tactic in terms of defense (which is sadly pretty much the entire MO of the IG...cadia defends the eye of terror for example)

I never said that this wasn't valid or not that doesn't happen. What I've been saying is that its not the only tactic of the IG. They can do armored tank assaults, Urban fighting, paratroopers etc. Not merely march towards enemy fire.

Also, it does offer protection from autoguns, lasguns and shrapnel but not direct explosives but nice ignoring that.

SylvanaSekNadin wrote: Trenches are nice, they have many uses, but part of the problem facing a guard army is that quite often it is not a realistic tactic. Hell even in today's modern warfare, trenches are not really realistic.

This is because our so called modern "wars" hardly qualify as war compared to what has happened in history.

The numbers of troops involved in entire modern wars are sometimes smaller then the estimated casuality list in WW1 or even earlier. Some of the battles Julius Ceaser won against the Gauls had Gaul casualities in the hundreds of thousands.


We don't have the massive fighting forces of 2 nations fighting each other. We have small military forces being deployed against insurgents that are hiding in a civilian population we don't want to harm.

Yes, small. The forces being used on our current battlefields are puny compared to what has happened before. Numbers in the hundred thousands to occupy an entire country and face off with insurgents that arn't maintaining a battleline of their own.


If a full scale war ever breaks out, Trench warfare will return in some areas of fighting. Particularly in flat areas with little to no cover for the infantry soldier. In this situation, a series of trenchs with footmen hiding in them will provide a massive stumbling block for an army trying to claim ground.

Tanks are hindered because of the danger of man portable anti-tank weaponry and the trenchs are good at keeping infantry away.

Trenchs also arn't seen today because all the fighting is done in mostly Urban enviroments. places where you already have cover and don't need to make your own.

We are also fighting in places were we arn't going out to take and hold ground. its mostly "go on patrol for 4 hours and then return to base". Its not the land grab that WW2 and WW1 were.

Romer wrote:

Seaward wrote:Four months of training really isn't a lot.

US Marine training is 12 weeks.

LOL. No, it isn't. Not even close. Nice try with the Wikipedia, though.

Seaward wrote:

Romer wrote:

Seaward wrote:Four months of training really isn't a lot.

US Marine training is 12 weeks.

LOL. No, it isn't. Not even close. Nice try with the Wikipedia, though.

Then how long is it?

Also you made a post earlier that said the Imperium considered Armageddon important enough to deploy the marine is not really true. Marine's are autonomous within the Imperium, they decide for themselves where and how to fight.

Corporal_Reznov wrote:Then how long is it?

Depends on your job.

Also you made a post earlier that said the Imperium considered Armageddon important enough to deploy the marine is not really true. Marine's are autonomous within the Imperium, they decide for themselves where and how to fight.

That wasn't me who said that, no.

Seaward wrote:
Depends on your job.

Understood.

That wasn't me who said that, no.

My mistake then. Sorry.

dbsamurai wrote:

Corporal_Reznov wrote: I meant that it was good for taking Lasgun and auto gun shot and making them survivable. It obviously can't tank anti-armor and explosives in direct hits but against shrapnel its fine. Also where did you get the idea that 40k flak armor is the same as RL earth armor cause they have the same name. Then why do 40k 'Lasers' not act like RL lasers?

They behave the same too.

No they don't. Flak Armor has in addition heat absorbers for Laser and Plasma shots witch our modern armor doesn't.
And metals put into that armor is not kevlar, but as I can remember from some book Iridium, Paladium, Platinum... And those metals are one of the toughest in known universe.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

dbsamurai wrote:It's like all guard equipment: cheap and easy to maintain. It's GW's excuse for why IG sereants (despite being ostensibly more valuable than the men they lead) keep using las weaponry.

Pulse Rifle is expensive to manufacture and hard to maintain, yes?
Then what would you arm your Fire Warriors with if you had them like Imperial Guardsman in numbers?
The reason every Guardsman don't have Plasma Gun or Bolter is their numbers, sometimes even Lasguns are not enough to equip every one of them.
And with facilities that manufacture those far, far away... Guardsman must learn to maintain it on the field.

dbsamurai wrote:They behave the same too. as you noted in your quote, it's desined to stop flak, IE blasts. Well given the propensity for armies (such as my beloved blood angels, or my beloved IG) to carry a variety of explosives that are AP5 (flak missiles, flak grenades, in fact anything named flak) it's clear that the so called flak armor is not very good at stopping flak weapons.

Frag grenades/missiles: AP6
Krak grenades/missiles: AP4
Mortars: AP6

Against the blast of Frag grenades/missiles/fragmentation mortar rounds it appears that Flak armour does quite well.

I'm mockin the fact that everyone doesn't seem to understand that it's a real life tactic. when defending a location the best tactic to do is keep throwin bodies forward until you run out of men or you don't need to hold it anymore. Just look at the battle of stalingrad.

Stalingrad had a crucial strategic importance in that whoever controlled it had access to the oilfields, a resource both sides desperately needed - Germany wanted the fields because they had little to no access to petroleum, the Russians needed it because their oil production was so poor that the loss of some oil fields dented their production heavily. Thus both sides were desperate to maintain control of it.

When you're defending a location it's best to make use of cover, good fields of fire & shoot the enemy down as they approach. That way you have more chances to shoot the enemy down before they get to you and allows you to spring 'traps' and 'surprises', such as mines, explosives etc to injure & demoralise the enemy as they approach. Running out of men by throwing them forward repeatedly will lose you the battle - whats the point if you've got no-one left to defend your objective? If the Guardsmen get hammered during their advances they will not be so willing to advance and all the shouted orders down voxcasters will make no difference. Put your men into positions where they can gun the enemy down and their options for retreat are limited and you've got a far more viable tactic immediately.

and yet it still offers next to no protection. It's like all guard equipment: cheap and easy to maintain. It's GW's excuse for why IG sereants (despite being ostensibly more valuable than the men they lead) keep using las weaponry.

Autoguns/pistols, stub weapons, etc all fire big, heavy bullets, far larger than the 5.56mm/5.54mm bullets most commonly in circulation today. That flak armour can stop those large calibre autogun/pistol, stub pistol/revolver/stubber bullets is a testament to the materials they use in the 41st millenium. Also that lasfire, which deals large amounts of damage to human tissue readily enough, can be stopped by flak armour is quite impressive.

I love how everyone's getting mad over their tactics, when these have been legitimate military tactics for milennia. Throw bodies at the problem till it dies. It worked for the persians (even after circling the greeks they still threw bodies at them for a full day before they could kill 300 dudes). It worked in WWI (hey britain and america, lets throw bodies at the germans until they give up!) it worked in the civil war of america (hey north, we outnumber them 5 to one, so lets march straight into their cannons!)...

Thermopylae was actually fought with nearer 7000 on the Greek side, in a narrow defile which greatly limited the Persian advantage in numbers, so to get past they had no option but to keep marching forward and considering that melee was the primary form of combat how else are they going to attack? The North had trouble in the American Civil War because the Generals were useless - McClellan was so sure that Robert E. Lee outnumbered him that he deliberately held back troops to cover his army for when Lee's 'overpowering' attacks would materialise (they never did). He had several chances to win the war quickly, in 1861 outside Richmond, 1862 at the Second Manassas, 1862 at Antietam, yet he failed abysmally becayse of his fears. Don't forget that tactics of the time were massed musket/rifle fire at close range so troops had to march up close so that their weapons had a higher chance of hitting. Musket/rifle duels were often fought at ranges shorter than 100 yards, terrifyingly close but not quite as short a range as musket duels of early c18 - early c19. As for WW1, that was a war of attrition engineered by Generals who didn't have a clue what it was like being on the recieving end of rapid fire weapons, who still thought that cavalry could play a part and that war should be fought as it had been in the 1850s - lines marching up against each other to trade shots until one side, their side, obviously, is victorious. 'Going over the top' was one of the only options they had for attacking - when you have tens of miles of trenches you can't just nip round the flank and as they had no means of air transport they couldn't just go behind enemy lines. You have one option only which is to charge into the fire and hope enough of your men have survived to bayonet the enemy into submission. It didn't solve any problems at all, just massacred several generations of men on both sides and, at the time, awoke the world to the horrors of modern warfare.

A legitimate tactic it might be, but one when all else has failed, and a smart General husbands his forces to make sure he has weapons to bring to bear on the enemy at all times because a dead army is one that can't fight anymore.

Brother Coa wrote:

No they don't. Flak Armor has in addition heat absorbers for Laser and Plasma shots witch our modern armor doesn't.
And metals put into that armor is not kevlar, but as I can remember from some book Iridium, Paladium, Platinum... And those metals are one of the toughest in known universe.

I said it behaves the same it's not made of the same materials. when you compare it to the armies they're likely to engage it's about as protective as sending americans into Veitnam against AKs. In game terms (which is more accurate honestly than the fluff since it's honest stats we can confirm mathematically, as opposed to dozens of fluff books written in the entirety of 40k all by different authors with different ideas of how things work) the standard weapons of SM, Tau, DE, Eldar, Nids, and Crons all are great at cutting strait thru the armor (not tesla carbines gauss weapons), just like bullets and flak cut strait thru old veitnam flak armor. While yes they are very effective at stopping las weapons (which according to the fluff is the equivalent of modern assault rifles, a fact I site because its the only real analog to compare them to modern armor/weapon ratios), compared to what most guardsmen must fight, they offer no protection at all

Brother Coa wrote:
Pulse Rifle is expensive to manufacture and hard to maintain, yes?
Then what would you arm your Fire Warriors with if you had them like Imperial Guardsman in numbers?
The reason every Guardsman don't have Plasma Gun or Bolter is their numbers, sometimes even Lasguns are not enough to equip every one of them.
And with facilities that manufacture those far, far away... Guardsman must learn to maintain it on the field.

As far as the Tau dex states pulse rifles are easy to make and maintain for the Tau empire, its why even shapers can take them and why they trade them to human settlements.
Also you're proving my point. they give the imperial guardsmen crap because they have to equip quadrillions of soldiers so they give them cheap reliable crap because it keeps costs down in the long run.

Imperial guardsmen are used to hold points or take vitally strategic locations, that is why battles like stalingrad and thermopolae are important comparisons. They're two armies going at it for incredably vital resources. Setting traps and remaining mobile are exactly what was employed (in both battles, though for thermoplae it was the naval portion) to ensure the invaders had to pay with dozens of bodies for every inch of ground they gave. The tactic works, and the fact that you have commanders like chenkov as idealized special characters demonstrates that such remorseless and wasteful tactics are a key componant of the Imperial Guard's beliefs (i.e, chenkov rose to such prominence DESPITE sending dozens upon dozens of battalions to their deaths BECAUSE such tactics were seen as effective and were thus added to the repetoire of the imperium). Personally I never use chenkov...he's a dick. I love air cav with plas vets more (it s more like halo) but realisticly it's far easier for humanity to just throw bodies at a problem than pay the billions of credits to produce enough valkyries and chimeras to effectively mechanize.

IG equipment is crap only in comparison to other races, and then it depends on which areas.

IG get quite a package of equipment, similer to what our modern soldiers get. Ration kit, some body armor, grenades, trenching tool, binoculars, personal vox system(for squad communications), and other little knick-knacks.

Grey Templar wrote:IG equipment is crap only in comparison to other races, and then it depends on which areas.

IG get quite a package of equipment, similer to what our modern soldiers get. Ration kit, some body armor, grenades, trenching tool, binoculars, personal vox system(for squad communications), and other little knick-knacks.

Quite right. The Imperial Guard might be inferior (somewhat) in terms of technology, but in overall reliability, they have the edge. That's why they can be compared to the Soviets.

dbsamurai wrote:
In game terms (which is more accurate honestly than the fluff since it's honest stats we can confirm mathematically, as opposed to dozens of fluff books written in the entirety of 40k all by different authors with different ideas of how things work) the standard weapons of SM, Tau, DE, Eldar, Nids, and Crons all are great at cutting strait thru the armor (not tesla carbines gauss weapons), just like bullets and flak cut strait thru old veitnam flak armor. While yes they are very effective at stopping las weapons (which according to the fluff is the equivalent of modern assault rifles, a fact I site because its the only real analog to compare them to modern armor/weapon ratios), compared to what most guardsmen must fight, they offer no protection at all

No it isn't and your the only one to think this way. All franchises that have ever been used in debates use fluff or cutscene visuals to determine their power not ingame nonsense, so just stop thinking like this please. Also codexes are written by several people too, not one person.

Hell if we go by your idea. Do you think that pivotal battle in 40k consist of 25 IG a 1 or 5 tanks or more likely full scale tank assaults consisting of 20 or even hundreds of tanks. I believe the new codexes have a situation where a Hive city was not invaded by troops and instead pounded to death. So how do we play that scenario?

Game terms are abstractions from fluff and suffer from balancing so that people can have fun and nothing more than that.

Imperial guardsmen are used to hold points or take vitally strategic locations, that is why battles like stalingrad and thermopolae are important comparisons. They're two armies going at it for incredably vital resources. Setting traps and remaining mobile are exactly what was employed (in both battles, though for thermoplae it was the naval portion) to ensure the invaders had to pay with dozens of bodies for every inch of ground they gave. The tactic works, and the fact that you have commanders like chenkov as idealized special characters demonstrates that such remorseless and wasteful tactics are a key componant of the Imperial Guard's beliefs (i.e, chenkov rose to such prominence DESPITE sending dozens upon dozens of battalions to their deaths BECAUSE such tactics were seen as effective and were thus added to the repetoire of the imperium). Personally I never use chenkov...he's a dick. I love air cav with plas vets more (it s more like halo) but realisticly it's far easier for humanity to just throw bodies at a problem than pay the billions of credits to produce enough valkyries and chimeras to effectively mechanize.

Blah blah blah.

[Sarcasm]IG can do nothing but CHARGE!! Chimera's, Tanks, Elysian droop-troops don't exist cause IG only Charge!!! Chenkov represent all IG commanders and to hell with YARRICK, GAUNT, CREED, CIAPHAS CAIN BECAUSE I SAY SO, IG can only CHARGE!!! IG snipers don't exist cause IG can only Charge!!! Air support and artillery don't exist, cause IG only CHARGE!!!


These guys below don't exist cause the Imperial Guard can only CHARGE!




[/Sarcasm]

General Krell, a Jedi General, of Star wars has a high reputation for wining battles despite the fact that the casualty rates of his clone soldier battalions are horrendous. Which he cause by ordering his soldiers into full frontal assaults for everything.