Question about Super Heavy Tanks

[The AKH]

It just seems odd to have AA regiments, because the purpose of AA is purely to defend other assets, whereas every other regiment has an offensive purpose.

Imagine how you'd feel being a commander if 10 AA regiments turned up to the planet you're meant to be liberating and nothing else.

Welcome to the grand workings of the Departmento Munitorum, buddy.

[Rev. Tiberius Jackhammer]

Imagine how you'd feel being a commander if 10 AA regiments turned up to the planet you're meant to be liberating and nothing else.

"Lieutenant, which edition are we pacifying this planet in?"
"6th, sir. Our 10,000 Hydras all have Skyfire."
"Oh dear Emperor we are boned."

[The AKH]

There's an incident in one of the Gaunt's Ghosts novels where a commissar literally has to get into a punch-up with the commander of an AA detachment before he will see the sense in using his Hydras to discomfit an enemy infantry column.

[Eberk]

It's probably not worth comparing to WWII. The heaviest tanks (that actually saw battle, at least) in WWII were about 70 tonnes, compared to the "typical" tanks being around 30. In the 40th millennium, Leman Russes are 60 tonnes, whereas the Baneblade is over 300 tonnes.

One good point you do mention is that super heavies will not be in the same regiment as infantry. The fluff has it that the vast majority of regiments are highly specialised, so infantry for one regiment, artillery for another, tanks for a third, cavalry for yet another, and super heavies for a fifth.

I'm sure I've seen somewhere that you would have anti aircraft weapons as a separate regiment, but can't help but wonder if it wouldn't be more logical to have them incorporated into other regiments.

I beg to differ.

Don't look at the weight of the tanks (or else we should also look at the roads those 300+ tonnes tank ride on and their fuel consumption ).

The comparison I want to make is that in WWII there were tanks that were (more than) twice as heavy as the 'normal/mainstream' tanks but were a hundredth times as rare (which I think Baneblades are in comparison to Leman Russes).

Those 'rare' tanks were grouped in their own units and controlled at a higher level (divisional, corps, ...)

So I think my comparison still stands


But of course... it's all matter of different point of view and different names.

I like to think that Infantry regiments are between 2000 and 10.000 men in size which make it possible to combine a couple of them into divisions/corps/armies..... together with supporting elements.

But the Krieg 'regiments' mentioned in the Siege of Vrakks were 500.000 men a piece.


So I think (and this is again a real-world comparison) that every unit is 'specialized' in some aspect of warfare (being artillery, recon, infantry, mechanised, etc...) but that those 'units/regiments' are combined into battle ready divisions (/corps/armies/...) and those are send to warzones.
Depending on which types of 'units/regiments' are part of the 'division' you can have 'Infantry' divisions (which contain at least infantry, artillery and recon) or 'Mechanised' divisions (which contain at least armour, artillery and recon) for example... Super heavies companies/batalions will be assigned to those 'high level' divisions/corps/...

So altough it is fantasy it is worth a comparison with real-life examples regarding organization of units.


This is all in a perfect world... So I think it is entirely possible for 10 AA regiments to arrive at a planet without any form of support in the imperium... the wheels of the munitorum grind slowly

[Chris*ta]

I beg to differ.

Don't look at the weight of the tanks (or else we should also look at the roads those 300+ tonnes tank ride on and their fuel consumption ).

The comparison I want to make is that in WWII there were tanks that were (more than) twice as heavy as the 'normal/mainstream' tanks but were a hundredth times as rare (which I think Baneblades are in comparison to Leman Russes).

Those 'rare' tanks were grouped in their own units and controlled at a higher level (divisional, corps, ...)

So I think my comparison still stands

I'm wondering what tanks you're referring to here. If you mean the King Tiger and/or Jagdtiger, my understanding is that these were incorporated in to, say, the SS Panzer divisions as Heavy Tank companies.

But of course... it's all matter of different point of view and different names.

I like to think that Infantry regiments are between 2000 and 10.000 men in size which make it possible to combine a couple of them into divisions/corps/armies..... together with supporting elements.

But the Krieg 'regiments' mentioned in the Siege of Vrakks were 500.000 men a piece.


So I think (and this is again a real-world comparison) that every unit is 'specialized' in some aspect of warfare (being artillery, recon, infantry, mechanised, etc...) but that those 'units/regiments' are combined into battle ready divisions (/corps/armies/...) and those are send to warzones.
Depending on which types of 'units/regiments' are part of the 'division' you can have 'Infantry' divisions (which contain at least infantry, artillery and recon) or 'Mechanised' divisions (which contain at least armour, artillery and recon) for example... Super heavies companies/batalions will be assigned to those 'high level' divisions/corps/...

So altough it is fantasy it is worth a comparison with real-life examples regarding organization of units.


This is all in a perfect world... So I think it is entirely possible for 10 AA regiments to arrive at a planet without any form of support in the imperium... the wheels of the munitorum grind slowly

I know that some fluff does have those kinds of enormous numbers for a regiment, (e.g. the previous IG codex said that the Cadian 8th was some 8,000 men) I just don't buy them myself. It means that a regiment would have an absolutely stupid number of companies (i.e. hundreds) with only one (or relatively few) higher-ranked officer and that seems impossibly unwieldy, even by the standards of the Imperium.

I see regiments being an absolute maximum (at least most of the time) of, say 20 companies, with a company being 110 men, 10 vehicles or 3 super heavies. And typically say 8 to 12 companies. Obviously, some regiments would have non-standard sized companies/non-standard numbers of companies, but I hope that's rare.

And as for using the concept of Divisions/Corps/Armies/whatever in 40K, as much sense as that would make, the fluff argues pretty strongly against that.

The fluff for the IG in the Apocalypse book does pretty much say that a world sends out a distress signal, and then regiments arrive pretty much at random (if you're lucky you get something like a balanced force) and command goes to either the most senior regimental commander, or, if what amounts to general staff (i.e. a cadre of officers that don't belong to a regiment, but specialise in strategic command) are present, to them.

This does however mean that a serious warzone would need A LOT of regiments (hundreds or even thousands) to have a significant number of boots on the ground. Let alone the kind of multi-system wars that crop up in the fluff from time to time.

I think ultimately, though, that this is one of the things where GW has provided two separate and (largely) mutually exclusive answers in different places. So I guess you can use whatever answer you want.

[Eberk]

I'm wondering what tanks you're referring to here. If you mean the King Tiger and/or Jagdtiger, my understanding is that these were incorporated in to, say, the SS Panzer divisions as Heavy Tank companies.

The heavy tanks (Tiger I, I think, not really into all those different types) were organised in their own abteilungen/batalions and these were assigned at division/corps level units to deploy here needed the most. They weren't assigned to regiments. Google for sPzAbt. 501 (and 502, etc...) for more info...

That's how I think that the Super heavy tanks are used in 40K.

But 40K wouldn't be 40K if there weren't examples of Baneblades assigned to Infantry regiments or even entire super heavy regiments

And as for using the concept of Divisions/Corps/Armies/whatever in 40K, as much sense as that would make, the fluff argues pretty strongly against that.

The fluff for the IG in the Apocalypse book does pretty much say that a world sends out a distress signal, and then regiments arrive pretty much at random (if you're lucky you get something like a balanced force) and command goes to either the most senior regimental commander, or, if what amounts to general staff (i.e. a cadre of officers that don't belong to a regiment, but specialise in strategic command) are present, to them.

But then again, in the IA book 5 the Krieg regiments were specifically raised to send to Vrakks and those weren organised in corps (if my memory serves me well there were even different types of regiments being raised)


So, everybody does what he thinks is best or suits him best. That's the best part of the 40K fluff