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So one day during the christmas holidays I spent a day reading about every single subsector and listed planet on lexicanum including the current conflicts going on in these subsectors. Now I know it only covers a very small fraction of the actual amount of imperial worlds, fair enough, but looking at the subsectors, not planets, it seems pretty much everyone of them is embattled. If this is the case, then from where do these massive imperial reinforcement fleets come from? And how can the Imperium raise gigantic crusading fleets? I mean I get its all grimdak, but surely at least ONE subsector barring Sol and Ultimar must be having some breathing room, otherwise nobody would be able to afford to send reinforcements to anyone else!

You're reading way too much in to it, I think.

GW always emphasizes the wars over the peaceful parts.

Not all worlds are war-torn hellholes.

A Hive World has a massive population, numbering in the hundreds of billions. It would be easy to recruit a few millions soldiers from such a world and even to outfit them from their own hive manufactories.
Fleets are a bit tricky but at the same time I imagine the fleet building worlds are a touch more prolific than we think.
That said even embattled worlds still produce weapons and ammunition. Armageddon, for example, merely turned its production inwards and carried on building.

A lot of those conflicts may have already ended in Universe.

Poly Ranger wrote:
Now I know it only covers a very small fraction of the actual amount of imperial worlds

Answered your own question, no?

Appreciate the immediate feedback :-). Yeh I get that certain worlds are not embattled but surely they will reinforce their own subsector first and foremost, so if all the subsectors are under threat, where do the 'out of sector' reinforcements come from?
I like the idea mentioned ^ that peaceful sectors have not been focused upon (read: ever mentioned) and this must be where they are coming from. Also Hive Worlds would of course be able to raise massive reinforcements, you must be correct about the proficiancy of the fleet building worlds because otherwise I can't imagine there being enough to reinforce near by subsectors as well as their own.

Only the warzones and are usually mentioned. All the nice, pleasant peaceful imperial worlds are not grimdark enough and thus rarely mentioned.
It is a wargame after all.
And the worlds and subsectors listed in Lexicanum are not even all worlds ever mentioned in 40k. And even all worlds ever mentioned in 40 would only be a very tiny fraction of the IoM. The IoM occupies pretty much the entire Milky Way. It is huge.
Not all subsectors are constantly under threat, many of them are probably very peaceful.
Also, fleets are managed on Segmentum level I believe.

Aye. When the fluff says "there's only war" it's not quite as literal as that. For every manufacturing world churning out lasguns and Leman Russ tanks there's dozens of supply worlds producing what that factory needs - raw materials, food, workers...

The IoM is a million worlds, spread out along the galaxy. A thousand marine Chapters of a thousand marines each would be lost in the background noise if everywhere was a warzone.

The Imperium claims the entire Milky Way... however, it has only a million worlds (give or take) in it, and so actually comprises only a very, very small percentage of the total size of the galaxy.

Planets who tithe soldiers to the Imperial Guard do not get to choose where they are sent. If Planet A in Sector 123 can raise 5 Regiments, and there is a need for them on Planet 4 in Sector XYZ, then that's where they are going, even if it's a hundred thousand light-years away.

The only reason stated worlds/systems always seem to be in conflict is because the only ones GW mentions are the ones in conflict.

Basically nothing is known about civilian life in 40k despite the huge resivor of fluff and stories, astonishingly enough.

All good explanations! Thanks guys!

They think carefully in some situations too. Some wars call for specialised troops and so exceptions are made when reinforcements are gathered.

The *actual* problem with Imperial reinforcements isn't where they come from, it's when do they arrive? The warp is crazy unpredictable and ships travelling together can arrive hours, weeks or even years apart. It may not happen frequently but it does happen. Imagine an Imperial fleet rushing to the aid of a planet, only to find out due to a strong warp current the supply vessel got there 2 weeks before the space/air support carrier. Good luck establishing a space presence with a food and munitions ship. Or the reverse, where all your troops arrive but without the supply ship. Nothing will kill an army faster than a lack of food and munitions (except perhaps a virus bomb ) This is one of the strengths of marines- a strike cruiser is a complete package.

 Kojiro wrote:
The *actual* problem with Imperial reinforcements isn't where they come from, it's when do they arrive? The warp is crazy unpredictable and ships travelling together can arrive hours, weeks or even years apart. It may not happen frequently but it does happen. Imagine an Imperial fleet rushing to the aid of a planet, only to find out due to a strong warp current the supply vessel got there 2 weeks before the space/air support carrier. Good luck establishing a space presence with a food and munitions ship. Or the reverse, where all your troops arrive but without the supply ship. Nothing will kill an army faster than a lack of food and munitions (except perhaps a virus bomb ) This is one of the strengths of marines- a strike cruiser is a complete package.

I think this is horribly exhaggerated. It CAN happen but i dont think its a common thing. I struggle to see the imperium alive at all if this where the case.

I did say it may not happen frequently, not that it was common.

Separation of a fleet is one thing but not knowing exactly when they'll arrive- even if they stay together- would make a coordinated military operation hellishly difficult. Even if it *doesn't* occur you can't know that until after you've launched. You'd be plotting moves with a 'probably arrive here at X' at best.

Its the same thing with any military operation. its always an estimated time frame. The key is to have them arrive between an amount of time (time frame) with all the reinforcements. And they probably prepare the journy so that they are going to be ahead of time. Battles have always lost when supplies and reinforcements arent constantly being ferried. (dein bein fu for example). So supplies have to be constant and sure or every battle they fight would end in defeat.

So i acknowledge it happens sometimes but i doubt it happens often. If almost ever. like super rare.

Well I doubt we'll find hard numbers on the frequency, except to note that it's been mentioned repeatedly through the various editions and I can't recall it ever being referred to as a freakishly unlikely occurrence.

In real space, points and speeds are fixed. You have to go X distance at Y speed- you know pretty well when you'll arrive. The warp however doesn't have a fixed progression of time, let alone distance or speed of travel. If ships can emerge *centuries* late (or as is called rare events- before they are even called in!) the margin of error is astronomical compared to real world movement.

Poly Ranger wrote:
So one day during the christmas holidays I spent a day reading about every single subsector and listed planet on lexicanum including the current conflicts going on in these subsectors. Now I know it only covers a very small fraction of the actual amount of imperial worlds, fair enough, but looking at the subsectors, not planets, it seems pretty much everyone of them is embattled. If this is the case, then from where do these massive imperial reinforcement fleets come from? And how can the Imperium raise gigantic crusading fleets? I mean I get its all grimdak, but surely at least ONE subsector barring Sol and Ultimar must be having some breathing room, otherwise nobody would be able to afford to send reinforcements to anyone else!

War zones, or states of unrest do not mean complete and total fubar everywhere. The Roman Empire, even in the Pax Romana, was always fighting somewhere. Even when a sector is under attack, it doesn't mean that everything is under attack at the same time and at the same level. One planet in a solar system might go 20 years before the front shifts to them (even inside of a single planetary system). That's enough time to raise, train, equip, and send out an entirely new army from that planet.

So, cascade that across the galaxy, and sectors could raise and send reinforcements themselves. Conversely, sector a might not be as bad as sector f, so pull from f to support a. Look at our own history as a take on it. The Battle of the Somme killed something like 1 million men. Yet the Allies and the CP could still raise men and equipment to keep fighting.

40k fluff is generally very full of holes and not really nearly as great as people like to make out (it's pretty rubbish actually in much the same way Battletech is rubbish, but still enjoyable when you disengage certain aspects of logic), but it does tend to get the idea that war cannot be happening everywhere all at once all at the same time all at the same level. We do see in the novels/books bits about soldiers getting downtime on a planet that hasn't been overrun, or even in part of a planet that isn't completely annihilated. Books talk about factories shipping equipment to other parts of the same planet that a fight is happening on, etc.

A planet is big, to cover it in it's entirety would frankly be silly stupid, even from 40k's silly stupid +2 perspective. You couldn't remove that much body waste, provide that much food, etc. So realize that there is plenty of opportunity for reinforcements.

 Kojiro wrote:
Well I doubt we'll find hard numbers on the frequency, except to note that it's been mentioned repeatedly through the various editions and I can't recall it ever being referred to as a freakishly unlikely occurrence.

In real space, points and speeds are fixed. You have to go X distance at Y speed- you know pretty well when you'll arrive. The warp however doesn't have a fixed progression of time, let alone distance or speed of travel. If ships can emerge *centuries* late (or as is called rare events- before they are even called in!) the margin of error is astronomical compared to real world movement.

Yes but its the same minor passage, but i have to ask. Does it make sense that an empire facing wars on all fronts (including their homes), does not make use of mercs and is in constant need of supplies and so on to run could even last a week if even 1 in every 10 ships/fleets arrived way too late? heck even 1/100 is huge considering the amount of ships just feeding the production worlds. That empire would not last.

In my opinion it is rare.

Hey, the empire is vast. I manage about 50 places (and 200 more on alert) on my nightshift rounds as a guard, and I sometimes forget things. Or my superior forgets to tell me about things. Check out how badly humans can bugger up a simple emergency number call on Earth before you start thinking about failure in 40K. They must do something right most of the time to make the place last 10K years after the Emperor made a bad date.

 purplefood wrote:
A Hive World has a massive population, numbering in the hundreds of billions. It would be easy to recruit a few millions soldiers from such a world and even to outfit them from their own hive manufactories.
Fleets are a bit tricky but at the same time I imagine the fleet building worlds are a touch more prolific than we think.
That said even embattled worlds still produce weapons and ammunition. Armageddon, for example, merely turned its production inwards and carried on building.

Isn't there a story about the Steel Legion driving tanks off of assembly lines directly into combat without any paint? And something about them fighting orks inside the still operating factories?

 Happygrunt wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
A Hive World has a massive population, numbering in the hundreds of billions. It would be easy to recruit a few millions soldiers from such a world and even to outfit them from their own hive manufactories.
Fleets are a bit tricky but at the same time I imagine the fleet building worlds are a touch more prolific than we think.
That said even embattled worlds still produce weapons and ammunition. Armageddon, for example, merely turned its production inwards and carried on building.

Isn't there a story about the Steel Legion driving tanks off of assembly lines directly into combat without any paint? And something about them fighting orks inside the still operating factories?

That exact thing (bar orks etc) happened in stalingrad. The factory workers drove the tanks into the battle and so on. Factories changed hands several times a day sometimes.

So it really doesnt surprise me that GW has used that story in their books.

 Swastakowey wrote:

 Happygrunt wrote:

 purplefood wrote:
A Hive World has a massive population, numbering in the hundreds of billions. It would be easy to recruit a few millions soldiers from such a world and even to outfit them from their own hive manufactories.
Fleets are a bit tricky but at the same time I imagine the fleet building worlds are a touch more prolific than we think.
That said even embattled worlds still produce weapons and ammunition. Armageddon, for example, merely turned its production inwards and carried on building.

Isn't there a story about the Steel Legion driving tanks off of assembly lines directly into combat without any paint? And something about them fighting orks inside the still operating factories?

That exact thing (bar orks etc) happened in stalingrad. The factory workers drove the tanks into the battle and so on. Factories changed hands several times a day sometimes.

So it really doesnt surprise me that GW has used that story in their books.

That is so cool!

 Swastakowey wrote:
Its the same thing with any military operation. its always an estimated time frame. The key is to have them arrive between an amount of time (time frame) with all the reinforcements. And they probably prepare the journy so that they are going to be ahead of time. Battles have always lost when supplies and reinforcements arent constantly being ferried. (dein bein fu for example). So supplies have to be constant and sure or every battle they fight would end in defeat.

So i acknowledge it happens sometimes but i doubt it happens often. If almost ever. like super rare.

I saw this and something spoke to me about it. I cracked my BRB open.; an excerpt from page 405;

"By way of example, note the log book of the Proxxian traders that operate in the Nephilim sector. ... the route is classified as a semi fluctuating passage, the most stable type. Typical voyages range between 1 and 6 weeks but more extreme voyages have taken as much as 1200 years or as little as two minutes. Some 22% of expeditions as of yet have not arrived at their destination - although given the time disparity one can only estimate what percentage have been lost our are still en route. In distance this is relatively a short voyage; ... the numbers only grow worse with longer journeys. "

Sounds like 1/5 ships doesn't make it... this has been your daily dose of Grimdark.

FM Argos

Forgemaster Argos wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Its the same thing with any military operation. its always an estimated time frame. The key is to have them arrive between an amount of time (time frame) with all the reinforcements. And they probably prepare the journy so that they are going to be ahead of time. Battles have always lost when supplies and reinforcements arent constantly being ferried. (dein bein fu for example). So supplies have to be constant and sure or every battle they fight would end in defeat.

So i acknowledge it happens sometimes but i doubt it happens often. If almost ever. like super rare.

I saw this and something spoke to me about it. I cracked my BRB open.; an excerpt from page 405;

"By way of example, note the log book of the Proxxian traders that operate in the Nephilim sector. ... the route is classified as a semi fluctuating passage, the most stable type. Typical voyages range between 1 and 6 weeks but more extreme voyages have taken as much as 1200 years or as little as two minutes. Some 22% of expeditions as of yet have not arrived at their destination - although given the time disparity one can only estimate what percentage have been lost our are still en route. In distance this is relatively a short voyage; ... the numbers only grow worse with longer journeys. "

Sounds like 1/5 ships doesn't make it... this has been your daily dose of Grimdark.

FM Argos

Wow i stand corrected. That is rediculious. Its a wonder there are any space marines left at all with odds like that! Another of the huge amounts of fluff i shall ignore

Forgemaster Argos wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
Its the same thing with any military operation. its always an estimated time frame. The key is to have them arrive between an amount of time (time frame) with all the reinforcements. And they probably prepare the journy so that they are going to be ahead of time. Battles have always lost when supplies and reinforcements arent constantly being ferried. (dein bein fu for example). So supplies have to be constant and sure or every battle they fight would end in defeat.

So i acknowledge it happens sometimes but i doubt it happens often. If almost ever. like super rare.

I saw this and something spoke to me about it. I cracked my BRB open.; an excerpt from page 405;

"By way of example, note the log book of the Proxxian traders that operate in the Nephilim sector. ... the route is classified as a semi fluctuating passage, the most stable type. Typical voyages range between 1 and 6 weeks but more extreme voyages have taken as much as 1200 years or as little as two minutes. Some 22% of expeditions as of yet have not arrived at their destination - although given the time disparity one can only estimate what percentage have been lost our are still en route. In distance this is relatively a short voyage; ... the numbers only grow worse with longer journeys. "

Sounds like 1/5 ships doesn't make it... this has been your daily dose of Grimdark.

FM Argos

A 20% loss rate is completely stupid and would have to apply to space marines as well. If astartes lost their lives in 20% if warp travels they'd be gone in a year

A 20% loss rate is completely stupid and would have to apply to space marines as well. If astartes lost their lives in 20% if warp travels they'd be gone in a year

THANK YOU. i agree its crazy.

 Swastakowey wrote:

A 20% loss rate is completely stupid and would have to apply to space marines as well. If astartes lost their lives in 20% if warp travels they'd be gone in a year

THANK YOU. i agree its crazy.

Like I said, the fluff for 40k is not exactly all that great. Taken as an action/adventure in space, it can be enjoyable, but if you start looking at the fluff with any degree of basis it completely blows itself up with its inability to make any sense.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:

A 20% loss rate is completely stupid and would have to apply to space marines as well. If astartes lost their lives in 20% if warp travels they'd be gone in a year

THANK YOU. i agree its crazy.

Like I said, the fluff for 40k is not exactly all that great. Taken as an action/adventure in space, it can be enjoyable, but if you start looking at the fluff with any degree of basis it completely blows itself up with its inability to make any sense.

Yea i never read it really, most of the fluff i know is just random bits and bobs. I havent read the fluff in many of my books and so on. Most of my fluff is like 98% made up... so id have to agree.

Hey I don't write it, but hey, maybe most of that missing fifth show up... eventually.