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Yes, the numbers and proportions are going to vary enormously due to local circumstances and pressures.

Some worlds have been entirely drained of population by tithes- obviously these recruitments would have included a large number of female soldiers.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Spoiler:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Folk also need to keep in mind distinct planets like Catachan are very much the exception, not the rule.

The Imperium is said to contain roughly 1,000,000 worlds. And all of them will have some kind of population. From barely populated gas planet mining platforms, right up to Hive Worlds such as Necromunda, where there’s no way to conduct an accurate census, and even Hive Primus is roughly estimated to have a population well in excess of modern day Earth’s.

So the Imperium is just never, ever going to hurt for bodies. Ever. Yet, because of the scale of the treats it faces? It still cannot afford to be sniffy in who is recruited into the Imperial Guard.


And on that silly, silly argument about Upper Body Strength? I myself am a big sod. A strapping 6’2”. And whilst by no means beefcake, I’m possessed of reasonable strength. Certainly in terms of lifting, I’m stronger than my mate Chris. Or, to give him his proper name? Ninja Chris. For whilst a mere fart in a jar at 5’8” or so? He’s been into Wing Chun for…years.

We had a play fight once. I could barely lay a finger on him. Because training matters. You may well be able to bench press a planet with your peen, but if you’ve no combat training of any kind? Someone with combat training is still going to have an advantage.

Dodging matters. Going for the hurty bits matters. Being able to predict your opponent matters. Skill is important, and often a deciding factor.

In a play fight, a whole other scenario than relevant here, especially as soon as pointy bits get involved or blunt objects in which endurance and strength become deciding factors. Or whoever is faster with an sidearm.

Also you are so close with your initial argument and yet so far. The problem is one of distance logistics. It don't matter that the IoM can throw bodies at a problem on paper in theory. Because in practice it would first need to raise the army for that campaign especially if it is a newer campaign, then collect that army on a jump off point then wait on the navy to do the same thing beforehand and potentially wait on response of more independent forces like marines and more importantly mechanicus depending upon infrastructure and force requirements and then initiate the first battles.

Clausewitz explains that rather well, Time and force are a correlation. Hence why a lesser force with speed can even win at all incidentally an modus operandi a lot of factions use against the IoM as an aside and the sole reason why marines in their small numbers are even somewhat relevant in the setting at all.

Imperial logistics are a separate albeit related topic IMO. The true unreliability of warp travel in particular is highly debatable given the Imperium relies on regular and massive interstellar travel for its worlds to function on a regional and galactic scale. My personal thoughts are that warp travel is usually safe and predictable to fairly tight margins of error, but gets dramatically more dangerous if there are local inclement warp conditions (squalls and storms) or around major warzones (from the impact of death and violence on the warp). Clearly most ships reach their destinations in reasonable timeframes, and repeatedly do so for hundreds or even thousands of years in many cases (based on age of vessels).

 Haighus wrote:
Whilst I agree with your overall point, the only canon number I have ever come across for hive worlds lists approximately 32,000 out of the rough 1,000,000 worlds of the Imperium. About 3%. Still a vast population base though.

For the record, I don't think this would include planets like Verghast, where the biggest hive is barely more populous than modern Tokyo.

Urban Conquest from 2019 used that figure, though it also caveats that with the whole "The Imperium doesn't really know for sure" but as we agree, the wider point stands.
Verghast is listed as a Hive World but as with all things, there can be those that hit below the average. Vervunhive never really came across as particularly large as far as Hive cities go while Ferrazoica and Vannick were said to be smaller than their larger sibling. Verghast didn't seem to be quite as colonised as other Hive Worlds as well, likely due to the fact that they were in the Sabbat Worlds, and with a huge Chaos empire on their doorstep, the Imperium was likely a bit cautious of sending billions of people to a planet where they could very likely end up as soldiers or slaves of Chaos.

What numbers are you using for Armageddon subsector?

Helsreach and the Armageddon Codex I would assume. Armageddon has always been a very cool but very cursed warzone though and it's been long known that the numbers are very very iffy for a supposedly sub-sector scale war.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
One word regarding the "numbers game" though. On a big scale I completely agree with the posters that mentioned that the imperium does not hurt for - in this case - (wo)manpower. But on a localized scale the points that have been brought up regarding birth rates etc. might be relevant. I might be wrong but I think there were some situations in the fluff, where a localized crisis turned up and the local planets were tithed in a frequency, that it made a real dent in their population. So not "you have 100 billion people, just give us 1 Million every 5 years" and more "You have 100 Million, we'll need 1 Million every 2 Months for the next 10 years, since we cannot expect reinforcements from elsewhere soon". In such cases the planetary goverment should indeed have an eye on the sex balance of the soldiers they send off world, especially as those cannot be expected to return.

That would be a very specific circumstance though, and pretty rare in the grand scheme of things while also being something the Imperium could fix simply by scooping up a bunch of spares from a nearby world and dumping them on that world.

 Haighus wrote:

Imperial logistics are a separate albeit related topic IMO. The true unreliability of warp travel in particular is highly debatable given the Imperium relies on regular and massive interstellar travel for its worlds to function on a regional and galactic scale. My personal thoughts are that warp travel is usually safe and predictable to fairly tight margins of error, but gets dramatically more dangerous if there are local inclement warp conditions (squalls and storms) or around major warzones (from the impact of death and violence on the warp). Clearly most ships reach their destinations in reasonable timeframes, and repeatedly do so for hundreds or even thousands of years in many cases (based on age of vessels).

Logistics are not separate and even if warptravel is in calm areas predictable, f.e. this little snippet from the lexicanum:https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warp_jump

Estimating the length of a Warp Jump, at least for the Imperium, is extremely difficult and inconsistent. As the Warp is ever-shifting, determining the length of a jump is difficult for even even semi-fluctuating passages. The Questio Logisticus branch of the Administratum is dedicated to this difficult task.[11]

One example is given for travel between the Hive World of Proxx and the Mining World of Hephastian. These planets are separated between dozens of light years and a standard voyage in the warp will take one to six weeks. However some voyages have been recorded as taking 1,200 years and another in as little as two minutes. 32% of the voyages have yet to reach their destination.

And that is not even going into communication.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gert wrote:

That would be a very specific circumstance though, and pretty rare in the grand scheme of things while also being something the Imperium could fix simply by scooping up a bunch of spares from a nearby world and dumping them on that world.

The numbers for that, once again, don't add up.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Overread wrote:
The Imperium has worlds chocking with population in levels of extreme overpopulation that we'd consider madness. Even after 10,000 years of trench warfare, they've survived and sustained the greater part of the Imperium. Clearly population and breeding are not a concern at all.

Indeed when you consider the sheer mind-breaking horrors of warfare in the setting; anyone who can hold a gun and hold the line is wanted. Bodies are more important than your genetic make-up. So long as you're not so mutated that you're considered a mutant to be purged. Even then there are several breeds of mutant that are still used by the Imperium every day - eg Rattlings and Ogryns


Again the Imperium army isn't fussy at the large scale. It just wants bodies for the meat-grinder. It will take them from worlds like Catachan, where the average person is physically superior to what we have on Earth; it will take them from Hive worlds like Necromunda, where the toxic lifestyle means many will likely have lungscarring and other imperfections. Despite their resilience they are likely less than they could be. The trenches don't care, the lasgun doesn't care, the Xeno doesn't care; nore does the mutant nor the heretic (though the heretic likely would want your shoes because they are better than the rags and ruin they have)

That is just not true, just as it is not true that you can run an economy effective centrally for the sheer amount of data even with a far more effective information system and cooperative nature that is the pricing mechanism on a world, neither can you run a military at a galactic scale in a way that would make it matter that you have population farms due to the logisctial irreliability of the warp.

The fact that i have to explain this shows a severe lack of logistical knowledge to the point that the whole discussion is basically moot. Having to have a population farm and having that in reach of a reliable enough warp route severly cuts down your whole argument to the point of nonsensical considering even internal sector travell ranges from sluggish to loterry like chances to basically impossible to phenomena understood or not understood.

Why do you think all planets are mandated to field PDF's? Because the IoM knows that its logistics are dead without decentralised structures, and these decentralised structures have not the luxury in many cases to draft willy nilly into reproduction capable individuals of the species else there's not much left depending upon enemy, and the reaction time for the guard is due to that alone horrific, NVM that production often also is localised for basic equipment aswell, hence why recruiting without regard is most certainly not something done unless the situation has become anyways a loss on that particular locality.

You also see that when the IoM goes to the offensive and ammasses armies, those are indeed drawn from population farms / centers but their weight is basically a continuous stream, ala flood gates and then yeah, it doesn't matter. Problem is the IoM rarely goes to the offensive in such a manner and often the offensives are so delayed due to logistical issues again that the localised nature of combat around planets makes their effectiveness questionable endeavours in itself. Which is also the reason why the tau did win their little strife with the IoM.

I wasn't really talking about logistics though?
I was making a point that after 10K years of warfare the Imperium is generally very healthy in terms of population output as a whole. Yes some sectors will have less and some will have more; but by and large the body of humanity has maintained a very high population level. Not as high as Orks or Tyranids in breeding; but also not a dwindling number like Eldar. And yes if they had not been at war, and if it wasn't half insane in how its run the population numbers would likely be way better.


My point was that the armies of the Imperium care more about the quantity of their troops than the quality at the large scale.
I wasn't really making any reference to specific population farms being the cornerstone of the war effort; nor about the logistics. If anything my point supports yours in that if most Imperial worlds have at least a healthy population growth then most worlds can and will provide for the tithe to support their local sectors. I also wasn't really getting into the individual war sectors and such because you can be certain that Generals within sectors will favour tithes from worlds that are known to produce quality; whilst being suspect of those that produce more basic rank and file troops.

And what generates quantity for this war that the IoM is fighting? Force and time.

Logistics (time) and production (force).

Confronted by a 32 % failrate at transportation leads to an focus on localisation of ressource production, and defense leading to a decentralised core force that is the PDF.
Leading to a matter of local sustainability ability and one can see that on how the departo munitorum is built.

Which then makes it a question of reproduction. 3% of the worlds in the IoM are hives. The rest? So no, recruiting the reproductivly more bottleknecking sex is actually a hinderance on a logical level as it always was. Unless we enter areas that become so grimdark that they ape reality.

NVM that population drops on planets that produce raw materials and food dropping output due to population would have devastating knock-on effects especially since the IoM will want to lower routes for transports of material due to potentially being able to calculate a jump without the need for a navigator which are another bottleknecking factor.

 Gert wrote:

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:
Real-world standards apply up to the point where they explicitly do not apply.

If we use your measures, joke would be us attempting to discuss ANYTHING. Might as well shut down the background section of the site since, apparently, logic need not apply.

Hey, I'm not the one that picked the worst possible example. You chose to use the extremely silly killer planet populated by action heroes as your example, and I'm debating that choice.

But even if you had picked a world like Cadia, Tallarn, Mordian, or Armageddon, then you'd still be wrong because the Guard doesn't recruit based on standards that a modern army would use. The Guard recruits people who are human enough to hold a Lasgun.
There will be exceptions such as Vostroya where all firstborn sons must serve as punishment for their choice to remain neutral during the Horus Heresy but for everywhere else it's "Can you hold a gun? Congratulations, you are hired".
That's the Total War mentality of the Imperium. Size, shape, skin tone, or special body parts don't matter because the Guard cannot afford to turn away soldiers.

Total war mentality may lead to some females in the Imperial Guard, but the issues I had already noted before still mean that at least 95% of the Guard would be male.

Barring potential cultural factors (which would not develop in such a hostile galaxy), men are simply better recruits. Even PDF under full mobilization (10% - 25% of total planetary population, going by historical examples) would not field female regiments en masse.

Historically, societies that went for total war mobilization (West in the two world wars) punted men to the frontline and women to the factories.

And physical strength alone is not the only area where men are better than women. And if Catachan really is a Death World (and we know it is), then any notion of a "massively equal society" should have led to their extinction long time ago.

Again, it's a massively silly planet and the whole idea of it maintaining a pre-industrial population size has been discussed and debated many times as being very silly. The canon population of Catachan is half that of Bejing for crying out loud.
Nothing on that planet makes any sense whatsoever.

I know. But just because you have to throw some logic out doesn't mean you should throw ALL logic out.

Cadia literally had all-female regiments.

You're wrong. Get over it and move on.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

Imperial logistics are a separate albeit related topic IMO. The true unreliability of warp travel in particular is highly debatable given the Imperium relies on regular and massive interstellar travel for its worlds to function on a regional and galactic scale. My personal thoughts are that warp travel is usually safe and predictable to fairly tight margins of error, but gets dramatically more dangerous if there are local inclement warp conditions (squalls and storms) or around major warzones (from the impact of death and violence on the warp). Clearly most ships reach their destinations in reasonable timeframes, and repeatedly do so for hundreds or even thousands of years in many cases (based on age of vessels).

Logistics are not separate and even if warptravel is in calm areas predictable, f.e. this little snippet from the lexicanum:https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warp_jump

Estimating the length of a Warp Jump, at least for the Imperium, is extremely difficult and inconsistent. As the Warp is ever-shifting, determining the length of a jump is difficult for even even semi-fluctuating passages. The Questio Logisticus branch of the Administratum is dedicated to this difficult task.[11]

One example is given for travel between the Hive World of Proxx and the Mining World of Hephastian. These planets are separated between dozens of light years and a standard voyage in the warp will take one to six weeks. However some voyages have been recorded as taking 1,200 years and another in as little as two minutes. 32% of the voyages have yet to reach their destination.

And that is not even going into communication.

I think this deserves its own thread.

Gonna have to dig out my 8th ed rulebook because that 32% claim on Lexicanum is wild if it is a general failure rate.

Edit: thread here for the direct logistics discussion of warp travel: https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/812273.page#11615484

 Kanluwen wrote:
Cadia literally had all-female regiments.

You're wrong. Get over it and move on.

Yes, because we all know that Cadia is a standard Imperial world...

 Haighus wrote:

I think this deserves its own thread.

Gonna have to dig out my 8th ed rulebook because that 32% claim on Lexicanum is wild if it is a general failure rate.

Before i looked it up i assumed a failure rate of ca. 10% because 9/10 shipments of whatever arriving would be imo required to maintain hive and forgeworlds production output unless significant warehouses for stockpiling are a norm, something we never really saw f.e. in the hive spire cut we got.

The latest numbers of Hive Worlds sit between 10 and 25% of all Imperial worlds in Ubran Conquest from 2019, not 3% and the average population of those worlds sits at around half a trillion (taking a rough check of the worlds with known populations), with the particularly populated ones going much higher. For example, Vigilus had an estimated population of around one trillion six hundred seventy billion (that's 1.67 x 10 to the power of 12) people, prior to the War of Beasts and War of Nightmares of course.

If we take a nice round 5x10(11) people living on planet Gribble, and let's say that 1% serve in PDF (which I'm using, as 0.27% of the current population of Earth are employed in "similar" roles and it seems only fair given that the Imperium loves soldiers). That gives us 500 million PDF soldiers. If 10% of those go to the Guard, say twice a year then that's 1 million new Guardsmen for the meat grinder. That is 0.000002% of the population of Gribble.
Now, I don't know about you but as long as the birth rate on Gribble exceeds 0.000002% of the population yearly, I think they'll be fine. Even if there was a big drive to get more Regiments pumped out (which is unlikely if we're using those figures as that 0.000002% gives us almost as many soldiers from one planet that were deployed to the entire Armageddon sector), it would take years of intense recruitment for there to be any serious dent in the population of Gribble.
Now if the Imperium loses Gribble, then yeah there would be a problem but as of right now, Gribble is safe and sound, barring the crime, poor standard of living, sump monsters, mutants, cults, and probable radiation poisoning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AldarionTelcontar wrote:
Total war mentality may lead to some females in the Imperial Guard, but the issues I had already noted before still mean that at least 95% of the Guard would be male.

Pulling percentages out of your rear doesn't make your point any more valid.

Barring potential cultural factors (which would not develop in such a hostile galaxy)

Absolute tosh. The Imperium has a massive variety of cultures because it is absolutely huge. One system could be ruled by an aristocratic caste modeled on the Renaissance French while one system over is ruled by tribal warlords.
That's the whole point of the universe being a sandbox, if you want to have your world only produce Regiments staffed by women then you can do that. If you want a world that was ravaged by calamity and women hold the protected position of mothers and leaders while the men are soldiers and workers, you can do that too. As long as you aren't causing hassle for real people then do as you want but don't tell people they can't if it isn't hurting anyone.

Historically, societies that went for total war mobilization (West in the two world wars) punted men to the frontline and women to the factories.

Do you mean like Britain where the population was extremely small so there wasn't a choice? Or Germany where there were massive cultural restrictions on women serving until poop hit the fan and the Red Army was knocking on the bunker doors?
The Imperium is not like the Western allies nor is it similar in its treatment of women to the Axis powers.

Will men be more likely to sign up? Maybe, we can't say for sure because the culture of the Imperium promotes service to the Emperor above all else.

I know. But just because you have to throw some logic out doesn't mean you should throw ALL logic out.

If you want to apply logic, don't pick the worst example possible. But even then your point is utter nonsense because none of the issues that we see with a modern armed force stuck with the limitations we have today in terms of genetics, population size, and technology exist in the 40k universe. Logic can be applied in very specific circumstances but using modern or even historical examples of militaries to prove your point is worthless because they are nothing alike.

 Gert wrote:

Spoiler:

Not Online!!! wrote:
And what generates quantity for this war that the IoM is fighting? Force and time.

Logistics (time) and production (force).

Confronted by a 32 % failrate at transportation leads to an focus on localisation of ressource production, and defense leading to a decentralised core force that is the PDF.
Leading to a matter of local sustainability ability and one can see that on how the departo munitorum is built.

Which then makes it a question of reproduction. 3% of the worlds in the IoM are hives. The rest? So no, recruiting the reproductivly more bottleknecking sex is actually a hinderance on a logical level as it always was. Unless we enter areas that become so grimdark that they ape reality.

NVM that population drops on planets that produce raw materials and food dropping output due to population would have devastating knock-on effects especially since the IoM will want to lower routes for transports of material due to potentially being able to calculate a jump without the need for a navigator which are another bottleknecking factor.

The latest numbers of Hive Worlds sit between 10 and 25% of all Imperial worlds in Ubran Conquest from 2019, not 3% and the average population of those worlds sits at around half a trillion (taking a rough check of the worlds with known populations), with the particularly populated ones going much higher. For example, Vigilus had an estimated population of around one trillion six hundred seventy billion (that's 1.67 x 10 to the power of 12) people, prior to the War of Beasts and War of Nightmares of course.

If we take a nice round 5x10(11) people living on planet Gribble, and let's say that 1% serve in PDF (which I'm using, as 0.27% of the current population of Earth are employed in "similar" roles and it seems only fair given that the Imperium loves soldiers). That gives us 500 million PDF soldiers. If 10% of those go to the Guard, say twice a year then that's 1 million new Guardsmen for the meat grinder. That is 0.000002% of the population of Gribble.
Now, I don't know about you but as long as the birth rate on Gribble exceeds 0.000002% of the population yearly, I think they'll be fine. Even if there was a big drive to get more Regiments pumped out (which is unlikely if we're using those figures as that 0.000002% gives us almost as many soldiers from one planet that were deployed to the entire Armageddon sector), it would take years of intense recruitment for there to be any serious dent in the population of Gribble.
Now if the Imperium loses Gribble, then yeah there would be a problem but as of right now, Gribble is safe and sound, barring the crime, poor standard of living, sump monsters, mutants, cults, and probable radiation poisoning.

The problem is not hiveplanet grible but agriworld "binzen" supplying kelp for Food to gribble with a population of say 100 Mio people facing down the barrell of a chaos marine onslaught of the purge.

the soldiers in gribble only matter if the iom pushes back in an offensive but until that is under Way the PDF of binzen has to hold the line. Now assume that binzen loses 20% of it's population which is nothing considering the purges whole shtick is genocide through bio-chemical warfare. How do you maintain the productivity or achieve a rebound of population to increase productivity to pre invasion levels preferably without straining logistics and shipping of atleat 2 loads of replacement humans Off gribble.

Despite having raw numbers, the quantity of humans available to fight are clearly relatively limited - the Imperium had to strip forces from the Eastern Fringe to defend against the 13th Black Crusade for example (leaving the Tau free to mount their Fourth Sphere expansion), rather than just recruiting sufficient troops locally.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Despite having raw numbers, the quantity of humans available to fight are clearly relatively limited - the Imperium had to strip forces from the Eastern Fringe to defend against the 13th Black Crusade for example (leaving the Tau free to mount their Fourth Sphere expansion), rather than just recruiting sufficient troops locally.

Tbf, that might be the result of bottle necks caused by lack of equipment, time to train, etc. There may theoretically have been plenty of able human bodies; just not sufficient time to get rifles in their hands or sufficient ships to transport everyone.

 Wyldhunt wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Despite having raw numbers, the quantity of humans available to fight are clearly relatively limited - the Imperium had to strip forces from the Eastern Fringe to defend against the 13th Black Crusade for example (leaving the Tau free to mount their Fourth Sphere expansion), rather than just recruiting sufficient troops locally.

Tbf, that might be the result of bottle necks caused by lack of equipment, time to train, etc. There may theoretically have been plenty of able human bodies; just not sufficient time to get rifles in their hands or sufficient ships to transport everyone.

Plus even though we've talked about how the Tithe might not necessarily get the best of the best; they do at least get trained troops. Training takes time and a totally untrained and inexperienced army is more of a liability than an asset.
Another thing to consider is that the Imperium might not have wanted green tithe troops from worlds and wanted more experienced troops that had battle experience.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The problem is not hiveplanet grible but agriworld "binzen" supplying kelp for Food to gribble with a population of say 100 Mio people facing down the barrell of a chaos marine onslaught of the purge.

the soldiers in gribble only matter if the iom pushes back in an offensive but until that is under Way the PDF of binzen has to hold the line. Now assume that binzen loses 20% of it's population which is nothing considering the purges whole shtick is genocide through bio-chemical warfare. How do you maintain the productivity or achieve a rebound of population to increase productivity to pre invasion levels preferably without straining logistics and shipping of atleat 2 loads of replacement humans Off gribble.

Yeah, if the Agriworld goes pop then other planets will suffer. Even if the world isn't taken the output will be greatly reduced.

But I'm going to let you in on a little secret, the Imperium doesn't really give a tinkers fig if 100 million people die of starvation on Gribble because more will come along later when the problems at Binzen get fixed, probably by taking people off of Gribble and moving them over to Binzen once the war is over. It won't take a few days but that's not how an interstellar empire works with regard to timescales. In ten years Binzen will be fixed, starvation will ease on Gribble and things will be back to normal. In those ten years, if Gribble can't produce its tithe then the Governor gets shot and a new Governor who will get the tithe sorted is installed. The chances of every single Regiment raised on Gribble prior to and during the invasion of Binzen all getting completely destroyed is unlikely so the troop numbers for the immediate threat aren't an issue.
Plus if Gribble is starting to starve, then the authorities can round up a couple of million people and send them off to fight or turn them into Corpse Starch.

Despite the mess that is the Administratum, the Imperium gets things moving because it has the population density and production capacity to do so. It's like late-game Stellaris where the only way to defeat a powerful empire is to atomise their planets. Unless you destroy the core worlds, they will bounce back.

 Lord Damocles wrote:
Despite having raw numbers, the quantity of humans available to fight are clearly relatively limited - the Imperium had to strip forces from the Eastern Fringe to defend against the 13th Black Crusade for example (leaving the Tau free to mount their Fourth Sphere expansion), rather than just recruiting sufficient troops locally.

While I agree that humans are a finite reserve, using the end of M41 is a bit unfair. The largest number of major wars fought by the Imperium for hundreds if not thousands of years with little time to recover in between. Three Tyrannic Wars all within a hundred-year span is the kicker IMO.

 Gert wrote:

What numbers are you using for Armageddon subsector?

Helsreach and the Armageddon Codex I would assume. Armageddon has always been a very cool but very cursed warzone though and it's been long known that the numbers are very very iffy for a supposedly sub-sector scale war.

Yep, those are the ones.

 Gert wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
The problem is not hiveplanet grible but agriworld "binzen" supplying kelp for Food to gribble with a population of say 100 Mio people facing down the barrell of a chaos marine onslaught of the purge.

the soldiers in gribble only matter if the iom pushes back in an offensive but until that is under Way the PDF of binzen has to hold the line. Now assume that binzen loses 20% of it's population which is nothing considering the purges whole shtick is genocide through bio-chemical warfare. How do you maintain the productivity or achieve a rebound of population to increase productivity to pre invasion levels preferably without straining logistics and shipping of atleat 2 loads of replacement humans Off gribble.

Yeah, if the Agriworld goes pop then other planets will suffer. Even if the world isn't taken the output will be greatly reduced.

But I'm going to let you in on a little secret, the Imperium doesn't really give a tinkers fig if 100 million people die of starvation on Gribble because more will come along later when the problems at Binzen get fixed, probably by taking people off of Gribble and moving them over to Binzen once the war is over. It won't take a few days but that's not how an interstellar empire works with regard to timescales. In ten years Binzen will be fixed, starvation will ease on Gribble and things will be back to normal. In those ten years, if Gribble can't produce its tithe then the Governor gets shot and a new Governor who will get the tithe sorted is installed. The chances of every single Regiment raised on Gribble prior to and during the invasion of Binzen all getting completely destroyed is unlikely so the troop numbers for the immediate threat aren't an issue.
Plus if Gribble is starting to starve, then the authorities can round up a couple of million people and send them off to fight or turn them into Corpse Starch.

Despite the mess that is the Administratum, the Imperium gets things moving because it has the population density and production capacity to do so. It's like late-game Stellaris where the only way to defeat a powerful empire is to atomise their planets. Unless you destroy the core worlds, they will bounce back.

I find blockade and targeted destruction of food and or minerals/ pops far more effective but that is MP vs SP. (and let's be honest stellaris AI is about the same as TW AI)

But aside this, you see 100 mio die on Gribble because of starvation, starvation though creates unrest, unrest causes sedition and rebellion. And that is with Binzen still producing at lowered capacity but still doing it's job and it will do it better sooner if population can replenish which is why female regiments will be a rarity on the PDF level already unless recruited specifically from hives with overpopulation problems. But what if Binzen suddendly dies, collapses rebells, etc? It's the same point with vraks, which provoked such an immense reaction because it was a waypoint and arsenal for movement of the army and or facilitating recruitment and that was a glorified weapons cache in the great sheme of things.

Not Online!!! wrote:
But aside this, you see 100 mio die on Gribble because of starvation, starvation though creates unrest, unrest causes sedition and rebellion. And that is with Binzen still producing at lowered capacity but still doing it's job and it will do it better sooner if population can replenish which is why female regiments will be a rarity on the PDF level already unless recruited specifically from hives with overpopulation problems. But what if Binzen suddendly dies, collapses rebells, etc? It's the same point with vraks, which provoked such an immense reaction because it was a waypoint and arsenal for movement of the army and or facilitating recruitment and that was a glorified weapons cache in the great sheme of things.

Again, these are all very specific "worst case" scenarios though and while things aren't exactly peachy in Ye Olde Imperium, the majority of worlds haven't just exploded into open warfare.
We're talking about normal recruiting, not "By the Emperor, the breadbasket for five systems has just been atomised and our planets are in open revolt".

And, even if one planet or solar system just went pop?

That’s one in a very conservative billion.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And, even if one planet or solar system just went pop?

That’s one in a very conservative billion.

Er, GW have been very consistent over the editions that the Imperium controls about a million worlds scattered across the galaxy. Not billions.

 Haighus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And, even if one planet or solar system just went pop?

That’s one in a very conservative billion.

Er, GW have been very consistent over the editions that the Imperium controls about a million worlds scattered across the galaxy. Not billions.

NVM that there are about estimated 300'000'000 in our galaxy. A "inhabitable" world is pretty rare in itself.


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 Gert wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
But aside this, you see 100 mio die on Gribble because of starvation, starvation though creates unrest, unrest causes sedition and rebellion. And that is with Binzen still producing at lowered capacity but still doing it's job and it will do it better sooner if population can replenish which is why female regiments will be a rarity on the PDF level already unless recruited specifically from hives with overpopulation problems. But what if Binzen suddendly dies, collapses rebells, etc? It's the same point with vraks, which provoked such an immense reaction because it was a waypoint and arsenal for movement of the army and or facilitating recruitment and that was a glorified weapons cache in the great sheme of things.

Again, these are all very specific "worst case" scenarios though and while things aren't exactly peachy in Ye Olde Imperium, the majority of worlds haven't just exploded into open warfare.
We're talking about normal recruiting, not "By the Emperor, the breadbasket for five systems has just been atomised and our planets are in open revolt".

no. We are not talking about worst case. About 3.5 % of any given population going into the streets can topple a government not even violence normaly apearing when hunger becomes an issue. The leeway the IoM has is far smaller than many people assume, it's the same with our own states.

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Haighus wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
And, even if one planet or solar system just went pop?

That’s one in a very conservative billion.

Er, GW have been very consistent over the editions that the Imperium controls about a million worlds scattered across the galaxy. Not billions.

NVM that there are about estimated 300'000'000 in our galaxy. A "inhabitable" world is pretty rare in itself.

Well, some of the Imperial worlds are terraformed, and some of them are not strictly habitable (being orbital installations or little more than moon bases).

Not Online!!! wrote:
no. We are not talking about worst case. About 3.5 % of any given population going into the streets can topple a government not even violence normaly apearing when hunger becomes an issue. The leeway the IoM has is far smaller than many people assume, it's the same with our own states.

And it's all entirely irrelevant to the points being discussed.

 Gert wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
no. We are not talking about worst case. About 3.5 % of any given population going into the streets can topple a government not even violence normaly apearing when hunger becomes an issue. The leeway the IoM has is far smaller than many people assume, it's the same with our own states.

And it's all entirely irrelevant to the points being discussed.

No. You want to deem it irrelevant because it doesn't fit what you want. But the setting without logistical constraints would, even if the 8th edition 32% are nuts, be less grimdark and only a matter of time until the IoM would win by sheer snowballing inertia.

But the fact remains that Logistics don't work out in favour of female regiments at all (unless we are talking about garison worlds and even there arguably deployment of female regiments into warzones would be questionable) on a fundamental level onwards in a setting with 32% failurerate of shipping and with massive population centers requiring food production from offworld / out of system planets. And we see the IoM's reaction an somewhat semi relevant world like vraks that it takes logistics very seriously.

Your point is only relevant if the Imperium wasn't absolutely massive and had a hundred ways to artificially increase populations when needed.

The losses from Warp travel are baked into calculations of the Tithe and raising of Regiments, they aren't just something that happens willy nilly that the Imperium gets a massive shock by every time it happens.
It is hard-coded into the calculations made by the Administratum at all times.

You're clutching at straws to justify a position that is completely at odds with what the actual setting is telling you. There are women in the Guard, just like there are women in the Titan Legions, Mechanicus, Knight Lances, Navy, Inquisition, Assassinorum, Arbites, and the various local forces.

You can dress it up as "logic" or "maths" or whatever you want but it's utter tosh and it's been proven time and time again that is the case.

Not Online!!! wrote:
...even if the 8th edition 32% are nuts, be less grimdark and only a matter of time until the IoM would win by sheer snowballing inertia...

...a setting with 32% failurerate of shipping ...

See other thread. This is a single example, probably not generalisable (in my opinion), and the correct rate in the source is 22% (still massive). I have edited Lexicanum to the correct value.

Also, a stupidly high loss rate for basic trade isn't needed to be grimdark.

 Gert wrote:
Your point is only relevant if the Imperium wasn't absolutely massive and had a hundred ways to artificially increase populations when needed.

it's size is preciscly the problem in combination with unreliable transportation,

The losses from Warp travel are baked into calculations of the Tithe and raising of Regiments, they aren't just something that happens willy nilly that the Imperium gets a massive shock by every time it happens.
It is hard-coded into the calculations made by the Administratum at all times.

An administratum shown to be out of date on occaision by centuries, inefficent and full of nepotism. NVM that standard loses of warptravel can be calculated else the whole tihng would collapse but info about the state of production happening "planetside" can not adequatly due to above.

You're clutching at straws to justify a position that is completely at odds with what the actual setting is telling you. There are women in the Guard, just like there are women in the Titan Legions, Mechanicus, Knight Lances, Navy, Inquisition, Assassinorum, Arbites, and the various local forces.

You can dress it up as "logic" or "maths" or whatever you want but it's utter tosh and it's been proven time and time again that is the case.

My position has never been that there are no female guard regiments as verifyable in this thread. Contrary my position was that the IoM would in general avoid conscription of women for combat duty due to concerns of maintenance of ressource output through population due to a questionable state of automatisation and a reliance on manpower in production that is localised.

Very diffrent.

And yet the setting says otherwise when it beats you around the head with how brutal and cruel the Imperium is.

Women being kept to allow for reproduction isn't an issue when a tiny tiny tiny portion of the population is being sent to fight.

This isn't like the World Wars where sending troops to fight means losing entire generations. A planet only raises Regiments when it can sustain them.

Even if half of the 0.00002% of the population that gets drafted are women, the impact on the overall population is utterly negligible.

Not every woman in the Imperium is reproducing at every opportunity because that would be monumentally messed up if that was the baseline for the background. But it isn't so women going off to join the Guard isn't an issue.

 Gert wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Whilst I agree with your overall point, the only canon number I have ever come across for hive worlds lists approximately 32,000 out of the rough 1,000,000 worlds of the Imperium. About 3%. Still a vast population base though.

For the record, I don't think this would include planets like Verghast, where the biggest hive is barely more populous than modern Tokyo.

Urban Conquest from 2019 used that figure, though it also caveats that with the whole "The Imperium doesn't really know for sure" but as we agree, the wider point stands.
Verghast is listed as a Hive World but as with all things, there can be those that hit below the average. Vervunhive never really came across as particularly large as far as Hive cities go while Ferrazoica and Vannick were said to be smaller than their larger sibling. Verghast didn't seem to be quite as colonised as other Hive Worlds as well, likely due to the fact that they were in the Sabbat Worlds, and with a huge Chaos empire on their doorstep, the Imperium was likely a bit cautious of sending billions of people to a planet where they could very likely end up as soldiers or slaves of Chaos.

Thanks, I'd not read Urban Conquest before. I think the two are reconcilable through differing definitions- you can see how a definition including Verghast (a world that probably has noticeably less population than modern-day Earth) is going to come up with a greatly different number to the 3rd edition classification of >100 billion.

Either way, a large number of populous worlds.