WH40k Imperial Guard vs SW Stormtroopers

[Gunhead]

Page 7

"I have at my command an entire battle group of the Imperial Guard. Fifty Regiments, including specialised drop troops, stealthers, mechanised formations, armoured companies and mobile artillery. Over half a million fighting men and thirty thousand tanks and artillery pieces are mine to command.

Which tells us the guard is big? Which we already knew? Ok, if this a representative layout of a guard battle group, it just says it contains all the elements needed to conduct an operation. It doesn't even give a solid breakdown of tanks vs. artillery pieces, which would have been at least somewhat informative. It doesn't say anything about the general mechanization level or even to what extent are they motorized. Artillery by default requires motorization, but that is not conclusive proof when it comes to infantry.

Page 8

For a hive worl dsuch as Armageddon, caught in the throes of an all-consuming war, a draft of at least a hundred million men at arms and several million armoured vehicles is typical, a tiny fraction of the totla populace which numbers in the hundreds of billions.

Ok, the guard is really, really freakishly humongous. We already know Armageddon is a notable world when it comes to armored units and regiments raised on armageddon are very likely to contain high levels of armor and mech inf. It's still a single world and we don't know the total number of regiments that are raised throughout the imperium in a similar timeframe. 5th codex pretty much says this is not enough to achieve general mechanization in the guard.

Page 9

The basic principle held by the Departmento Munitorum is that regardless of number of men at arms or the exact composition of armoured vehicles, the overall fighting strength - and hence combat effectiveness, of one regiment is equivalent to any other. This is clearly a gross over-simplification but a necessary one when organising wars on a galactic scale.

I don't know what you're getting at with this, but guard units are supposed to be moved by troop transports and if you increase the number of vehicles in a regiment, number of men decreases.
Tanks and other stuff take a lot of space not to mention fuel, spare parts, maintenance vehicles etc. that are needed to support them. It would be silly to assume regiments don't get deployed with at least a month worth of consumables, considering the fucked up nature of warp travel and supply on the spot can be unreliable.

Page 19

Armageddon has a massive population and is capable of raising a large number of Imperial Guard regiments. Indeed, at the height of the second War for Armageddon more regiments were being raised each year from the population of Armageddon than from any two other worlds in the entire Segmentum Solar combined.

I'm out of words to describe big, oh one more Motherfucking Gargantuan huge.

Page 38

The Chimera is the Imperial Guard's most commonly used armoured troop carrier. These ubiquitous vehicles are extremely durable and practical...

Yes, I think no one is denying this.

Page 38

An infantry regiment does not typically include any mechanised troops, it being difficult for most planetary governors to obtain and maintain the vehicles needed for such formations. BEcause of this, it is quite common for commanders to attach individual Armoured Fist squads from fully mechanised regiments in order to provide fast-moving armoured transport.

Already touched upon earlier, but what the hell. This gives a regiment a modest amount of tactical mobility, but overall it's still stuck to infantry speeds. Against a fully mechanized force of similar size it's not that useful since the whole of the opposing force can more easily choose where to fight and overall has greater tempo of battle.

Page 51

Manufactured on hundreds of Forge worlds, the Hydra is a common sight in the Imperial Guard, freuqently deployed in support of armoued tank columsn, fixed emplacements and infantry regiments who would otherwise be a threat from enemy bomber strikes and strafing runs.

Triple A covering you is a good thing??

Ah, but I can do more than just post from the 5th edition Codex, I can post from other (non novel) sources as well. Such as:
Previous IG codex
Page 11


An infantry regiment is often supplied with a number of Chimera transports. They allow a commander the option of mounting a number of squads to provide Armoured Fist units for greater tactical flexibility. In addition, they are used to transport command squads which can make good use of the long-range vox casters they carry. Some regiments are entirely mounted in Chimeras but this is relatively rare.

Often, as in not always and still leaves most of the infantry on foot. Having commanding officers in a command vehicle means he can change vantage point more quickly and take personal command if needed in a critical spot. They also carry voxes to stay in communication with each other and their support elements. This is was a new idea back in WWII.

IA
PAge 11

As sole guardians of technology, the Adeptus Mechanicus have no difficulty in regulating what vehicles ar made for whom. Whilst Leman Russ and Chimeras are manufactured in huge numbers for the Imperial Guard, the largest vehicle entrusted to Imperial Guard commanders (whose loyalty has sometimes proved questionable) are the superheavy tanks and the Leviathan command vehicle.

Having something in huge numbers doesn't mean everyone gets to have some, or that they get any at all. Specially when talking about the guard.

Page 143

The Trojan is the workhorse used by Imperial Guard armoured regiments as a tractor for towing weapons platforms and as an armoured munitions carrier, ferrying extra ammunition to the platforms once in position or to frontline units in need of supplying.

The Trojan is not a combat vehicle and rarely sees service at the frongline. Behind the lines it is a common sight, trundling to and from supply dumps to forwar dunits. Using the basic Chimera chassis and engine, it is quick to manufacture and efficient in its role, with good road and cross-country performance.

If anyone, anywhere thought IG can survive without supply vehicles, is a good contender for the dumbass of the year award. I really don't know why you brought this point up Connor, I'm sure you had a reason. But I really wonder what is was / is.

Page 143

Although it is not meant to be committed to battle there have been many examples of Trojans being converted in field workshops for use in combat. As an (all be it weakly) armoured vehicle, it can be pressed into forntline service by desperate commanders. Some examples of such expedient field conversions are: Adding autocannons to create a makehsift anti-aircraft weapon, bolting on extra armour plates to crete a small personnel carrier, packing the rear with communications equipment to create a headquarters comm hub, and creating ad-hoc engineering vehicles by adding minesweepers or even a light bridge layer. These vheicles are never as successful as their authentic counteparts, but most commanders would rather explain themselves to an irate Adeptus Mechanicus Enginseer than be seen to fail in the eyes of their superiors or Commissar.

Better make that: IG is utterly fucked without a supply vehicle.

I could go on. I could point out specific examples from the IA books (they cover breakdowns and how mechanised formations are used in specific regiments, like the Cadian 114th or in armoured regiments/companies, etc.) I could cite earlier material even more, since its long established that GW, BL, or any author will never restrict him or herself to "current" stuff - they happily recycle older materia if it suits them (much of 5th edition is recycled material.) I could also make declarations based my quotes, or generalize about the structure of the Guard. But I won't, because it would be silly and would just degenerate into semantics nitpickery (Hell it's already heading that way.) .

The problem is, though, that posting a few exercpts doesn't prove much unless you're making a specific point (EG a calc, and even then you have some numbers.) We might make some ratios from a couple of the quotes I posed from the 5th edition codex, or from the previous codex edition (Cadian 8th's makeup) but that's not going to settle matters either. Using Hoth's quotes or any of the qualitative quotes I posted is not going to tell us anything (how the fuck do we attach numbers to words like "ubiquitous" or "rare"? In terms of even vague precision they're useless.)

To make this work would need more data, and more data from a greater variety of sources. Which isn't likely to happen, since this really isn't a debate. There's the aformentioned limited data set. Further, what little data we do have lacks any actual analysis. No verifiable comparisons or contrasts, no numbers, no examples, no citations or detailed explanations... see to actually do an analysis you have to do at least one, preferrably more of the above. Even more hilarious is how vague most of the data being posted (including myself) is and the myriad interpretations it offers. I mean, we haven't even broken down logistical issues at ALL, or the financial/economic side of things. We haven't touched on the structure or duties of the Guard (EG what are all those troops usually used for? Invasions and defending planets is one, but garrison and guard duty is another.) It doesn't deal with strategy or tactics much beyond "IG is slow hur hur" which as pointed out is simplistic in the extreme. I could go on and on listing qualifiers, and it still doesn't change that we're still dealing too many unknowns, and yet we have people trying to generalize about functioning of the guard Guard from a couple paragraphs (or rather, vague recollections of some stuff soem guy read.)

Oh and to top it all off, there's the whole "I don't give a fuck I'll debate this how I want" attitude, despite the reality of how debates are SUPPOSED to happen on the board (EG read the rules, especially the bits on burden of proof.) Hell, Simon already addressed this little problem and got brushed off.

So yeah, this thread has already become a trainwreck like alot of other IG oriented threads, but whether it can be salvaged is the question, which I honestly doubt.

Maybe if the original poster of the thread had stated what sort of forces are facing each other, this wouldn't have gone the route of broad speculative comparative analysis of two forces that can contain pretty much what the fuck ever. Not that IG threads are the only ones that suffer from "But if they field this piece of equipment they can totally kick ass".

-Gunhead

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

All right, let's try to nail this down a little closer by suggesting something definite for the Guard and then adjusting it later;

On the side of the Galactic Empire, just to be absolutely definite about this, three full formed and largely repulsor equipped Armies, to about nine hundred thousand strong with five hundred and ninety thousand combatants, in a listed and known format;
the remaining hundred thousand, ten spearhead Stormtrooper Battle Groups as deployed by destroyer, with their thin load of walkers and the due allotment of landing barges, assault landers, transports and other dropships.


In the blue corner, weighing in at fuckknowswhat...sod it, let's invent a plausible kampfgruppe and tune it afterwards. Some kind of tile that can be multiplied out to fit the million.

A reasonably high tech, reasonably balanced Brigade or short Division, composed of three Regiments of soft-skinned transport, foot mobile on the battlefield, Guard infantry, one fully Chimera equipped armoured infantry regiment, one regiment of Leman Russ with possibly a command platoon or attachment of superheavies, one regiment of artillery including air defence.

(As an aside- why GW did it like that I don't know, but the guard "regiment" has a lot more in common with an old system British batallion than the real world Regiment. Personally I reckon they were deliberately avoiding having it be a direct analogue.)

As I understand it, 'usual' is anything up to hexagonal although there is no upper limit on the number of companies in a regiment, just as many as can be managed with the command facilities and personnel available, and for variable values of quality of management. Certain oddball outfits like the First and Only don't appear to have them at all, being a loose mob of thirty to fifty Platoons- but they are not the run of the mill.

Tooth to tail ratio seems a damn' sight higher than a modern army, call it two to one as a wild ass estimate, ration strength of a four-by regiment (fifty-five to a platoon, four rifle and a support squad plus command team; four platoons plus field services to a company, four plus logistics to the regiment) should be around fifteen, sixteen hundred, a pentagonal regiment twenty-four hundred, of a six-by should be around four thousand.

Call it one of each, and we have eight thousand ration, fifty-three hundred (ish) rifle strength. Could add another five hundred to that in non-combatant transport companies and their logistic overhead.

Pentagonal mech-inf regiment? Probably more noncombatants, being largely servitors, lay brothers and low ranking Mechanicus, almost two thousand rifle and one hundred and fifty Chimera, out of call it thirty-five hundred total.

Armour, five crew to a Russ, isn't it? (Strange how the Guard have a tank named after a Primarch, the Astartes have a primary vehicle- Land Raider- named after a great Magos Mechanicus- oh well.) Four pentagonal companies, say, plus one triangular coy of attached superheavies, a hundred and eight Russ, seven (two platoons of three plus the command tank) Baneblade and three Shadowsword, about six hundred tankies and a lot of mechanical and logistic overhead, eighteen hundred to two thousand total.

Hexagonal artillery regiment- artillery do tend to have good comms, command and control- of three companies of Basilisk, one of multilaunchers- Manticore, couldn't remember what they were called for a moment- two of Hydra. Forty-four to a company (six plus platoon command, six platoons plus company command and 2iC)- so that many Manticore, eighty-eight Hydra and a hundred and thirty-two Basilisk, and a lot of logistics and overhead most of which is going to be shell lugging, and some fairly sophisticated workshops. Nine- hundred and twenty Gunners from a total of maybe three thousand, and a lot of noncombat vehicles.

That comes to about seventeen thousand for the Brigade, add a three-by-four of Valks and Vultures held at brigade level, a small element of superheavy artillery and launchers, and their share of theatre-level staff, logistic and support requirements, could end up calling it about twenty to twenty-five thousand easily.

Call a Guard Division four of these things, that should be a fairly respectable formation- and the full invasion force ten Divisions, what sort of picture does that make?

[Simon_Jester]

ECR, is it just me or is the Guard suffering badly here from the fact that your estimated tooth to tail ratio for them is considerably lower than the published ratio for the Imperial Army?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

A different person might well take a different view of it, certainly, and basically I'm trying to split the difference between what I know of real world armies for comparison and what the Imperium seems likely to be able to do better, and what seems likely to be worse.
The historical ratio varies a lot, also varies according to how closely you consider camp followers to be part of the army, but generally speaking the more mechanised the force, the more people it requires standing behind each trooper and shoving.
For the British Army at the moment, overall, out of a hundred and forty-seven thousand before the latest budget cuts there are maybe ten thousand personnel deployed. Count the rotation system, units deploying, resting, training, deploying, roughly forty thousand in combat arms even if the government can't afford to send them to be shot at at the moment. Shade over three and a half to one, which is surprisingly good to me, I thought it was worse.
For the Great War, the subject has an immense amount of devils lurking in various details, but at the peak sixty western front divisions in theory sixteen thousand strong, but which were in the process of running out of infantry, from some two million in the field to any one time and that many again in various other bits of the world, on home service or in home reserve. Somewhere between one and a half and three to one.

The Guard has better physical logistics, but more and more complicated machines to look after and probably more bureaucratic overhead simply as a result of being an interstellar force, the fighting units have to interface with the munitorum and that with the administratum- and there's another ugly question; do you count servitors? If not, the numbers go down.

I'm not going to defend my numbers more strongly than they deserve, they are basically a wild guess, but I think I'm right to a factor of maybe two- could be half that, could be twice that. Thrashing it out in detail might be the only way to be sure.


On the other side of the equation, Imperial Army, and I strongly suspect Stormtrooper units even more so given their lack of visible support, are known and stated to carry resource-extracting, scavenging and manufacturing capability, largely droid provided, at regimental level.
They need much less in the way of logistic support- something I've always wondered about; if a repulsortank regiment commander convinces their workshops to dig up and smelt that hill, and make six new tanks out of it (possible, but in what time frame?)- who signs for them, and where do they appear on the budget?
One noncombatant for every two in the front line, with that kind of support available, doesn't seem that unfeasible even for heavy armour- but I very much doubt if any other than skitarii directly attached to a titan legion would get anything like the same support.
Also, if you count droids as part of the Imperial Army, their numbers drop by about forty percent- lose one of the three Armies basically.

[Thanas]

In the blue corner, weighing in at fuckknowswhat...sod it, let's invent a plausible kampfgruppe and tune it afterwards. Some kind of tile that can be multiplied out to fit the million.

A reasonably high tech, reasonably balanced Brigade or short Division, composed of three Regiments of soft-skinned transport, foot mobile on the battlefield, Guard infantry, one fully Chimera equipped armoured infantry regiment, one regiment of Leman Russ with possibly a command platoon or attachment of superheavies, one regiment of artillery including air defence.

(As an aside- why GW did it like that I don't know, but the guard "regiment" has a lot more in common with an old system British batallion than the real world Regiment. Personally I reckon they were deliberately avoiding having it be a direct analogue.)

Considering the idiotic way they use German words, I think they just do not know what they are talking about.

[AniThyng]

Whose definition of "Real World Regiment" are we talking about? The IG "regiment" seems to fit perfectly well the old British system, but not the modern one or the confusing American one.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Thanas- there's always the possibility that they are in fact taking the mick, that some of their employees, being ex- Army, certainly do know better and they are deliberately getting it wrong precisely in order to annoy the purists.
In the same vein, I have word of mouth- yes, I know it's an anecdote, and also a hare too many to be running right now, but- the IA numbers are actually quite low, lower than calc'd from the novels on many occasions and much lower than many real world AFVs; in at least one GW store, Portsmouth, they believe that the mobility and armour for, for instance, the Land Raider were set as deliberately pathetic- somewhere about equivalent to a late T-72 in armour, not much better than a late WWII Comet tank in speed and range- specifically in order to mock the vs'ers, calculators and gearheads.
(Before anyone following Squelch asks, yes I am seriously considering re-equipping the Lions of Caledon with a thinly disguised Merkava with the serial numbers translated into cod-Latin.)

The definition of a regiment I was referring to- for it has changed it's meaning almost as often as the word "frigate"- was the Cardwell system in practise, as it adapted to WWI and II; the permanent territorial basing of the formation, that raised and trained batallions from it's recruiting area, and sent them to join the field army where they would be brigaded with other units possibly from the other end of the country.
Initially there were only two, rotating back and forth, but in the Great War and WWII, instead of raising new regiments, each regiment expanded and raised many more batallions- my local formation, the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders as then was, raised twenty-six, numbered one to sixteen but five of them, Territorials, divided into first, second and third line each batallion size in their own right. Reinforcement was from drafts from the training batallions that remained in the regimental area, unless things were really bad in which case they were simply pointed at the direction of the army and whichever formation was in most need got first pick.

So yes, a Guard Regiment really is analogous to a Cardwell system Batallion, just with the name changed a bit.

Any thoughts on the OP?

[Brother-Captain Gaius]

I don't have much to add to ECR's proposed forces except that one or two of the Chimaera mechanized regiments ought to be changed to Valkyrie/Vendetta/whatever airborne units. On that note, some room should also be made for a small contingent of stormtroopers, and a few of the regular infantry (or perhaps mechanized) units should be grenadiers of some variety (a la Kasrkins or the other various grenadier "heavy infantry" formations).

[Simon_Jester]

On the tooth-to-tail issue, all right I understand now. On the other hand, I'm pretty sure the original poster had meant to give the two sides approximately equal rifle strength; in this case the Guard suffers very badly from not having von Neumann machine-grade logistics support attached at the regimental level.

(Before anyone following Squelch asks, yes I am seriously considering re-equipping the Lions of Caledon with a thinly disguised Merkava with the serial numbers translated into cod-Latin.)

Oh come on, the Land Raider is iconic; you can't go wrong with the beasties.

[Aaron]

*snip*

I believe the Russ has a four man crew; Commander, Gunner, Loader and Driver. Unless it has sponson guns, then it's six.

[Talk738kno]

I think the IG have another advantage thats sort of a wild card, psykers, due to their divination capabilities, gives them insurmountable albeit unpredictable advantage I think.

[Purple]

That and the general ability to do stuff like cast lightning bolts onto enemy troops. Effectiveness might wary but the moral damage from fighting what the storm troopers might preserve as Jedi/Sith would be present.

[Keevan_Colton]

Hm, that is an interesting point. We've not really looked at some of the more esoteric items that make up the forces of the guard.

There is a lot of potential for devastation from primaris psykers as well as psychic choirs. Direct energy attacks, along with mental assault are both used by the psykers employed by the guard, the morale element being a particular forte of the psychic choirs. They're nowhere near batting in the sort of leagues of space marine librarians, but they aren't to be sneezed at either.

[Night_stalker]

Hm, that is an interesting point. We've not really looked at some of the more esoteric items that make up the forces of the guard.

There is a lot of potential for devastation from primaris psykers as well as psychic choirs. Direct energy attacks, along with mental assault are both used by the psykers employed by the guard, the morale element being a particular forte of the psychic choirs. They're nowhere near batting in the sort of leagues of space marine librarians, but they aren't to be sneezed at either.

Just out of curiosity, how good is Stormtrooper armor against plasma weapons/flame based weaponry? I just ask because the Imperial Guard have lots of flame-based weapons compared to the Stormtroopers, and there are Leman Russ variants that have plasma weapons, AND the squads also can have a plasma gun as their heavy weapon...

[Imperial528]

That would depend on the power of the weapon. Modern SW blasters (which are, IIRC, assumed to be plasma weapons) will tear through it as if it's not there, or worse, as seen in the movies and movie novelizations, but blasters from the Clone Wars era require sustained fire to just cause heavy scorching of the armor surface, according to the EU novels.

I'm not sure about fire, though.

[Night_stalker]

That would depend on the power of the weapon. Modern SW blasters (which are, IIRC, assumed to be plasma weapons) will tear through it as if it's not there, or worse, as seen in the movies and movie novelizations, but blasters from the Clone Wars era require sustained fire to just cause heavy scorching of the armor surface, according to the EU novels.

I'm not sure about fire, though.

Hellhounds+Stormtroopers=

The 40K plasma weapons have been stated

" The weapon fires a highly energised ball of hydrogen based plasma.1 This plasma ball or 'bolt' is accelerated through a magnetic accelerator, which upon impact with the target detonates with the power of a small sun."

1.Imperial Armour Volume Five - The Siege of Vraks - Part One

Courtesy of the Lexicarnum. (WH40K wiki)

It's a safe bet that Stormtrooper armor might not be too effective against plasma weapons. Good thing is that they're rare, which does make up for their power.

[Purple]

Also, how would it effect Storm Trooper morale to see a plasma gun overheat and blow up in the hands of its user?
Will they laugh so hard that they forget to fight or are they too professional for that?

[Imperial528]

I'd imagine an officer would do a double take, and then use it as an excuse for the stormtroopers to pull out more dakka. While standard soldiers would probably just acknowledge it and keep shooting, since they're not paid to be emotional.

[Chaotic Neutral]

It's a safe bet that Stormtrooper armor might not be too effective against plasma weapons. Good thing is that they're rare, which does make up for their power.

It doesn't need to be. Against standard enemies, plasma rifles and flamethrowers are almost useless.

Plasma rifle = Low ROF, enough power to scratch a tank, sometimes explodes

Unless you are going to try to use it as an anti-tank gun, what benefits does it have over a lasgun?

Blasters and Lasguns already kill troopers in one shot.

As for flamethrowers...Yeah.

The only time a Plasma rifle would be useful is if you are fighting some sort of monster/power armored solder/demon that takes anti-tank weaponry to kill, but acts like infantry.

As for flamethrowers...still not seeing uses other than trench clearing.

[Todeswind]

Fire weapons aren't necessarily used because they're the best weapons, they're used because they're terrifying, blinding, and primal. We are programed to fear fire. While it is not necessarily the best weapon at range for the purposes of fighting in cramped spaces, trenches, caverns, or in starship corridors flamethrowers allow for one side to effectively clear out a dug in enemy. There are plenty of examples of flame weapons used in Star Wars to great effect, it simply fulfills a different battlefield role than a lasrifle would.

Plasma weaponry is useful for taking out small tanks to its reasonable to assume that it would be effective on ST armor but as the standard lasgun is effective that isn't saying much. It's a light anti-tank weapon so it's not intended to be an infantry clearing gun, nor is the meltagun, however the grenade launcher should be more than sufficient in that role.