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I know during an extended battle they will take weapons or ammo from other dead Space Marines, but my question more refers to large scale, post-battle salvaging.

After a battle is over do the Space Marines go back to collect the bodies of their dead brothers and then keep the old armor(if it isn't destroyed) or weapons? There are relic items for each chapter that would surely be reclaimed if at all possible, but do they care about going back for random Brother Joe's bolter and helmet or does the Apothecary take the gene-seed and leave the rest to the vultures(or whatever alien equivalent is on the planey)? Are there servitors that head down to the planet after a battle to clean up, do they call in the Mechanicum to come in and scavenge useful bits, or do they just leave the mess for the new planetary government to deal with when they get there?

Each chapter has different practices for what they do with the bodies, but they for sure recover fallen wargear. Power Armour becomes relics to the chapter when bits and pieces of it are worn by marines who do heroic things, after all.

 Mud Turkey 13 wrote:
I know during an extended battle they will take weapons or ammo from other dead Space Marines, but my question more refers to large scale, post-battle salvaging.

After a battle is over do the Space Marines go back to collect the bodies of their dead brothers and then keep the old armor(if it isn't destroyed) or weapons? There are relic items for each chapter that would surely be reclaimed if at all possible, but do they care about going back for random Brother Joe's bolter and helmet or does the Apothecary take the gene-seed and leave the rest to the vultures(or whatever alien equivalent is on the planey)? Are there servitors that head down to the planet after a battle to clean up, do they call in the Mechanicum to come in and scavenge useful bits, or do they just leave the mess for the new planetary government to deal with when they get there?

Absolutely. Many suits of power armour are repaired and used by other space marines, while some (which either cannot be repaired or are extra special) are kept as relics.

I guess servitors and chapter serfs would do most of the work, with techmarines to supervize. I don't think they'd be happy to let people outside the chapter touch their stuff, except for techpriests, maybe.

Look to your battle gear and it will protect you
--We guard it with our lives
Your armor is your Soul, and your Soul's dedication its armor
--The soul of a warrior is the shield of humanity
Honor the craft of death
--Only the Emperor is higher in our devotion
Honor the battle gear of the Dead
--We ask only to serve

--Part of the Catechism of Worship

Nice! Thank you all for the information!

The fluff is kinda contradictory here. As you said, on one hand, you have relics thousands of years old, on the other, dumb thing about apothecaries is them supposedly ruining armour of the fallen every time to extract seed (instead of just opening it or something), then you have melta and plasma destroying gear with such ease you wonder how there any relics left after a century, never mind millennium. Unless said 'relics' are just tiny fragments of original plate left bolted onto brand new one.

And yes, most chapters does salvage everything (and I don't see why people above assume it's being done by serfs), bodies to bury, gear to repair, if only because the stuff is really expensive and you don't want to be in AdMech debt. In fact, some chapters are hated for salvaging the battlefields of other chapters to loot everything that was not nailed down.

I'm sure I read in BL books during extended battles the suits of armour become mix and match as they replaced broken pieces with good ones from fallen allies.

 tumblebomb wrote:
I'm sure I read in BL books during extended battles the suits of armour become mix and match as they replaced broken pieces with good ones from fallen allies.

Yes, they are (you can even see it on tactical squad photo) but the problem is with supposedly 'intact', relic plates thousands of years old as seen on various captains and honor guard squads. Or weapons dating back to Heresy, especially relic chainswords that somehow were never parried by enemy power weapons. Funnily enough, for being more elite than other SM, Deathwatch and Grey Knights both sport gear that could have been made recently, no need to hand-wave stuff away.

 Tiennos wrote:
I guess servitors and chapter serfs would do most of the work, with techmarines to supervize. I don't think they'd be happy to let people outside the chapter touch their stuff, except for techpriests, maybe.

Pretty much this as far as I know. Space marines have legions of servitors and serfs to do non-combat work. They simply aren't part of the game because they aren't taking part in battles.

An effort to salvage? Marines are scavengers, reclaiming every last bit of technology they can from fallen comrades. They'll even sacrifice good men for the purpose of reclaiming disabled vehicles. After all, new marines can be made as long as you have enough geneseed in storage, and every marine carries the stuff for two new ones. They could make a lot of new marines if they didn't fight for a couple centuries, but getting them wargear takes work.

So yes, they will loot battlefields.