Army Combat Veteran Reacts to the 88th Siege Army (Krieg)(Siege of Vraks by Arch) 

It is important to ad the planet name to their designation. Since it might help commanders not place two units with conflicting cultures and religious practices together to avoid friction between them

So to go more into the Imperial Guard Regiments: When Arch says they are made up on a single entity, he’s not lying. An Imperial Guard Line Regiment is made up entirely of infantry. No vehicles or anything. The heaviest they may see would be something like a scout or armour sentinel. The rest are infantry. It’s artillery being at best a heavy mortar. The same goes for Armoured Regiment. They have no supporting Infantry with them. Just tanks. In addition the reason each regiment is named after the planet is due to the fact that every planet is different. It’s like how many regiments from places like the US during the civil war era/independence war would name regiments after the states they came from. This is to give commanders an idea of who they will be commanding and give them time to learn of said planets views, culture and what they are best known for when fighting - like how Catachan are known for being amazing Jungle fighters, Cadians strong disciplined marksmen, tallarn are strong hit and run fighters, etc

"an atrociously bad command" you have no idea just how bad it gets

As arch says krieg is one of the only planets allowed to raise regiments that can independently deploy combined arms tactics and are not dependent on other regiments, so putting krieg in their name designation does tell the planners additional information.

Now, realize this, Arch had to make a bunch of adjustments to the figures to 88th Imperial Siege army. The authors of the Vraks books were not......military historians by any stretch of the imagination. To get the proper figures to work (Divisions, Brigade, Company, Armored Brigade, etc), Arch had to use Military information, Game's Workshop Imperial Guard Codex's and other Forge world technical manuals to get everything to work. At the end of the series, he goes into more detail and how confused the books truly were. Units that were attacking one side of the bastion, were also shown to be attacking at full strength 52km away on the complete other side of the bastion, which bulked the entire Regiment beyond the stated numbers in the book. Luckily, Arch managed to make sense of the entire thing and make it more coherent. The next series (The War for Badab) was even worse in his opinion. 25:00 "I wonder if, in Lore, they discuss the logistic issues about supplying these Regiments" Oh, You're going to LOVE Arch's Administration videos he starts doing before each battle..Especially before the "BIG PUSH"

Most of the logistical work here would be done and organized by munitorum personnel rather than militarum. Another check in the ability of guard to rebel, all of their logistics are handled by a third party, they can’t get or distribute anything themselves.

- "This is nonesense!" - "THIS. IS. WARHAMMER!" Also, the denomination Krieg is actually important in that particular case. Because kriegers do not kindly take orders unless the commanding officer has the same mentality than them. Yes, this is a drawback more than anything, but hey, one can compensate. X)

A general CANT command starships though. Only very occasionally do you get a warmaster or "Lord Solar" who has authority over Gaurd and Navy

He didn't say the IG doesn't conduct combined arms, he says that the majority of the guards per planet do not have combined arms. So planet A guards may all be Infantry and planet B might be mechanized, but rarely is there a planet C with Mechanized, Infantry and Artillery all raised together as a regiment on that singular planet. It is less for modularity sake and more for isolation of power sake. The Imperium is scared shitless of another Horus Heresy, it is also why the majority of the Astartes chapters were broken up into no more than 1,000 man chapters. A few remain codex uncompliant but they are the minority. It is also why he refers to each unit by the planet name the guards come from. It lets the commanders know what sort of soldiers they have to work with.

Don't forget the use of Augmented SERVITORS for logistical stuff. They are too many to count, plus there is also the Admech cyber forces to aid in the replenishment of munitions and equipment. These numbers can be quite high.

As far as I know, it's quite rare for a Corps or army commander turn traitor. Individual regiments have turned traitor but they were either destroyed or delayed by the other regiments until reinforcements arrived to stomp out the traitors. As for why armor just didn't made this a shorter battle? There are now ATGMs and lascannons and plasma cannons. Those things can melt armor like nothing so an armored advance can by stymied real quick unless cleared by infantry and artillery. As to why there's no aircraft for the Imperium. Lots and lots and lots of AAA on the Vraxian side. Also, it took what? Months before the Imperium realized that Vraks had fallen and then time to debate, even more time to form and as a spoiler, even more time to prepare the siege. So two and a half years to prepare for the coming storm. I don't think anyone is just gonna laze around doing nothing? They will drill, rehearse, exercise, think and plot and prepare.

Talking about the tactic in a later video arch will say something similar when it comes to the writer. I cant wait to see your reaction and somethings will get clearer later in the series. So just keep watching.

The logic behind the regiments not having access to combined arms by themselves is mostly to reduce the amount of work the inquisition needs to do. Somebody with the authority and influence to switch a ton of forces against the imperium is going to be scrutinised a lot more by the inquisition than somebody in charge of a more easily countered force. Granted, there are times when some higher up will turn and bring a ton of forces with them.

“What happens when one of the tank crew gets killed?” Simple answer: usually when a tank crew member is killed, the thing that killed him, usually kills the rest of the crew. So replacing the crew is never really an issue. Since both they and the tank are gone.

The 88th is not a unit, it is an army, with units parentheses are there to avoid having the 7.000.000th imperial guard army, instead dividing them by origin

a lot of the 40k logistics have been optimized a lot for example the imperial ration bars might taste like ass if they taste like anything but are a lot more compact and nutritious then current day mre meanwhile lazguns are a guardsmens responsibility, if it needed repairs the guardsmen probably needs a bullet to the head unless he used it to club a ork to death if it was for clubbing a heretic to death you are expected to do it without damaging your lazgun lucky for guardsmen the guns are extremely durable and easy to maintain and ammo supplies only need a simple powerplug or even just leaving the pack out in the sun for a day and if neither of those is an option throwing it in a campfir can be used as a last resort this will seriously decrease the lifetime of the powerpack, so it is only as a last resort, but you have options the guards equipment has been made to be economic, atleast logistics wise but most regiments do have logistics specialists, but its rarely mentioned except in passing or when things go wrong with it meanwhile for vehicles, its up to tank crews to do the regular maintenance rituals but most regiments have atleast a enginseer to aid or oversee, enginseers are like the non theoretical wing of the mechanicus techpriests that are good with their hands but cant be thrusted with the theological side of things the vehicles are also very durable as they are based off the stc of colonizing farming equipment, designs that during the age of exploration the first landers on a planet couldnt afford to fail no matter how badly they treated them not the most efficient, but extremely durable atleast from reading dead man walking, krieg also has a specialized theoretical command class that stays in orbit and does the numbers numbers of dead, numbers of ammo needed, numbers of rations not sure where they are recruited and trained from but krieg turns war into numbers and they have people doing the math getting the theorized numbers on the ground is still a mess but atleast they have a start

Every time you upload, you put a smile on my custodian face.

you are correct about them not needing to seize the entire planet at one time, it only has 1 hive city that they have to take. While that hive contains millions, it can be contained and sieged with far fewer men. And the more men you have sieging a planet, the more strain you put on your logistics to feed and supply those men, some of which since you can only put so many on the line at one time will just be sitting around if you get too many soldiers on the ground.

"Krieg", to those in the Imperium who need to know; is a descriptor of unit capability. They would instantly know what makes "Krieg" special. IE: Combined Arms and Siege. The 41st millennium is so far removed from the world we live in as to be alien in many aspects like xenos or Chaos invasions.

It's worth noting that, alongside the cultural aspects of different regiments of different planets working together and the friction that could cause. Each planet would have It's own military culture all of its own. A Steel Legionnaire may call for backup more readily than a Kriegsman, for example. I vaguely recall a story where British troops found themselves in a very serious situation, and couldn't get support from their American backup because they constantly understated their own situation. Not to even mention they each have different preferences of terrain and different specialities, and even entirely different organizational systems. A planetary designation in the Guard can be immensely important, and having a Commander that can appreciate the differences, can help drastically.

No Paul, stuff like maintaining arty and delivering ammunition IS outsourced in WH40k, that´s what the Adeptus Mechanicus does. And delivering to soldiers to wher ethey are meant to fight happens with the ships they came to the planet, you are thinking too "Terra-n" in this case, though i get your point.

for the guard the planet is a large part of the esignation for example if its valhallans you know they wont mind a blizzard and are very very stubborn, if they see krieg they know that losses dont matter and asking them to retreat is a no go, meanwhile a catachan unit will be hard to command but if you let them loose on a jungle they will kill whatever is there without the need for supplies the planet designation is a combination of mobility and environmental preferences and abilities just like some parts of the american military, some planets have a well known reputation and when commanders see it they know what weapon they have available to them also helps keep conflicting cultures separated, if you combined catachans and krieg you would end up with a lot of dead kriegsmen and a burned jungle and not a lot of enemy dead

When are you going to watch Arch's Death Korps of Krieg video?

The krieg is the important part. Know where they are from allows them to be deployed better. It is a huge factor in where they are assigned.

Your other point regarding the logistics is not quite as valid, as the Imperial Guard itself is only doing the math and - as Arch puts it - an asston of Adeptus Munitorum personel is taking care of all the logistics for the army.

The Box Barrage is a real thing that could and have been used in the manner described in the video, as a means to stop reinforcements and fleeing enemies during an attack. Also I feel that you missed the part where the Krieg siege army was not in charge of the entire logistics. The navy and adeptus mechanicus delivered the supplies required all the way up to the back lines and the army was only expected to handle the distribution from there. Not an easy task perhaps but not quite the insane task you seam to be imagining.

I think the big thing about 40k imperial logistics is that it isn't the domain of the Astra Militarum, its the domain of the Adeptus Administratum, specifically the Departmento Munitorum, which takes care of all background logistics, so only dedicated battlefield logistics would be permitted to be members of the army itself. Yes, the logistics not being part of the military will and does lead to all the problems you would expect. oh, also, the descriptor of (Krieg) would actually give critical command information, just information about morale rather than movement namely that the commissar's job will be to restrain excessive zeal rather than punish cowardice.

41:15 - Officer: "Hey, we have 60% casualties." HQ: "So?"

And yeah... The logistics will be mentioned by lore and Arch. Multiple times and in DETAIL!

15:04 Yeah, only one city... but it's a WH40K hive city, which can contain more people, than entire American continent 😂

The problem with you complaint about combined arms is that combined arms generally in our modern army is combining sections of the same army under the same command structure together to make the most out of them but imperial regiments are a unilateral style. Meaning a infantry regiment is nothing but infantry with no vehicle support no artillery support or air support just a guardsmen and his kit and millions more like him. Also regiments have different command structures so the commander of a tank regiment cannot command any element from an infantry regiment

The thing to remember with each of the imperial guard regiment is that they all have there own specialisations. So for example the Catachans specialise in jungle fighting and the Elysian specialise in airdrops. Each planet of which the guard is recruited from general only specialises to one or at most a couple specialisations. For combined arms they will pick and choose regiments from different planets to form there army. Where arch says that death korps are one of the few that does combined arms he means that is one of the few planets with multiple specialisations.

40k Order or battle rarely includes the logistics parts, they are there, and in massive amounts, the longer they are there the more robust the system gets, including rail lines, etc. I do recall reading something in one of the old codexes I think mentioning the logistics parts being much larger than the field army.

Oh, Designating them as Krieg, yeah you need to let the generals know. That isn’t something you leave out.

i took 17 years it`s a bad ficton or atrocious command- oh boi It would be fun meeting with lord commander Zuehlke :p

Also bear in mind that one city is also the size of a mountain, vertically. Hive cities are basically Sci-fi castles, getting in needs a lot of troops.

10:40 about this - there still some risk mitigation, since regiments, their troops and commanding officers are constant entity, while generals are appointed, in the same manner you gave an example of your service earlier, temporarily from Sector or Segmentum command for the purpose of a single operations. So they are less in touch with their troops, there is little compassion between them. Plus corruption may be rooted within not only regiment commander, but in hearts and minds of other officers, NCOs and enlisted men. This way it's much easier to turn whole regiment traitor at once. Traitorous acts of a single person in command can be easily prevented by the commisar bolt in the head.

If anyone needs to know what it's like to attend a corporate meeting, this video right here. Arch represents all of the decision makers and their unrealistic pie-in-the-sky back-and-forth, sucking all of the energy out of the room. Paul is the one sane guy willing to correct them and is the only thing that lets you get out the other side with your sanity intact.

Death Korps of Kreig was known for being hard world breakers. After their victory at home, they went out to take care of all those problems from the recent times for the Imperium. I think that is why they do boast Kreig, as Kreig was like a measuring bar now. Kreig meant they were going to win more or less. They wouldn't give up, they kept at it with that blissful desire to die for the Emperor in glory and battle that furthered the reach of the Imperium. They weren't your typical rank and file. Like a special forces ground division, they should carry their history and pride on as Death Korps of Kreig - claiming the name to commanders just lets them know, "Oh, need an impossible Siege? Right here!!"

The Vraks defensive lines consisted of layers for each line. The walls are built with massive guns, and heavy weapons, then lower down in front of the walls is a series of bunkers that interlock and have missile launchers, lascannons and many heavy machine guns, then the trenches are in front of that manned with standard weapons, then in front of that is the razor wire and mine fields. So you can't just bust the trench and encircle it as your back would still be to the bunkers and walls. It's not unbreakable but it's no easy defense to crack.

There may be some inconsistencies in lore, but actually there is a bunch of IG regiments that have some combined arms elements attached to them on permanent basis. Taros campaign book (a very nice read actually, I hope it was put somewhere on RU-vid for your reaction) gives detailed orders of battle for different guard regiments, and they look more like Soviet Cold-War era type of formations (where you had rigid regiment with 3 tank battalion and 1 mech infantry battalion, or visa versa). For example, Tallarn Infantry regiment would have few large infantry battalions, of like a thousand+ men each, and then couple of tank and artillery companies and couple AA batteries, blus Salamander/Sentinel recon squadron. Not a lot but it gives some local support if needed. But for proper use of combined armes you need to bunch up few regiments together.

I think you should take into consideration that at a certain scale tactics and orders have to be made simpler for the sheer number of forces involved. This is probably the number one reason Astartes exist anyway. Because at a certain scale tactics tend to give way to grand campaign strategy. With a smaller force of elite supersoldiers a smaller army can be much more effective just in terms of flexibility and logistics. Just moving 1000 tanks is a huge job. Even if you wanted to do a feint, at what point does your pretend attack become a real one. It's the same problem with feigned retreats which become real retreats. Even moving hundreds of thousands of men and hundreds upon hundreds of tanks and artillery for a feint is going to take time and is going to be noticed well in advance.

Out of curiosity, I don't know how many Imperial Guard cultures and regiments you know of, but out the ones you do know, which ones are your favorite? Which ones do you want to know more of?

So, i'm going to go out on a limb and assume most of the heavy lifting is taken care of by servitors so as to keep the fighters fighting and the planners planning, and much of the scouting can be done with servo skulls.

“Can you imagine the logistical nightmare of replacing all of those barrels” as a matter of fact, having heard the rest of the series, I can

actually, now that I think about it the Guard DO have contracted repair workers for their equipment Its called the mechanicus, because the cogboys only trust us with reassembly or maintenance and NOT actual repairs.

About meintenanance and logistics. Each gun get assigned about 2 to 4 times as many crewmen as it needs to operate. "Spares" are there to provide said maintenance and pick up the job when the primary crew get worn out or killed. The later is very common for Medusas that due to their shorter ranges almost always operate winin enemy anti-artillery range. Another part is that Munitorum support corps who do the brunt of moving things everyone needs around (sometimes even to the right places) are generally ignored in Imperium's sources as "not really soldiers, and as such unimportant".

“Atrociously bad command” those are... certainly words.

To clarify, this is what they were sending to Vraks in the first wave; a formation large enough to assault an entire country was considered the first wave of deployment necessary to establish a foothold for a 10-year long siege on a single fortified city and its outlying defenses, which speaks more about the defense than it does about the offense. As far as the Imperium Guard is concerned, Vraks is not Jericho or even Stalingrad; Vraks is Troy, and there's no Odysseus or Achilles to help them take it.

High Paul, I don't know if you read the comments of older videos, but I thought I should point out something in the naming convention of the 88th Imperial Guard (Krieg) Siege Army. Games Workshop frequently borrows from the British Army, especially of the British Army of the World War eras. In this case, since many British Army units utilized parentheses to denote the place of origin of the unit or where the majority of the men were recruited from, for example: 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division, 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Division, and the 11th (East African) Division.

The title of the army would be the 88th Krieg Army ( Seige) . Because the Army is coming from Krieg and is the 88th Army. That's most likely how they are written on paper. Each regiment would simply be whatever number , regiment ( Seige) or whatever type of regiment it is.

"They would need to have the logistics behind it. The sheer scale..." Allow me to introduce you to the Administratum... And the armies of clerks. In my opinion the only army that can compare and sheer size to the imperial guard is the administratum and logistical army behind them.

Box barrages were common in ww1. You can't always know were reinforcements are but you can tell were they have to go to reinforce their comrades. The box barrage was designed to make it suicide to try to reach said comrades.

You may think its nonsense but the box barrage was a thing used during the first world war. It was usually used once you were already in the other guys trench. There are also references to a box barrage bring used by the U.S. military during the battle of Pork Chop hill in Korea.

the guard is very inefficiently organized, but that has a purpose. it is the same reason that the legions where split into weaker chapters: to prevent betrayel. while many seperate specialized units are weaker than a single organized army, they are also very easy to counter. this design philosophy can be found in every single part of imperial military. Another horus heresy must be prevented, whatever the cost

The Loyalty of high ranking officers is easier to guarantee than an entire mixed arms army. One Commissar on their side is a normal sight in WH40k, and there is plenty of occations when the Commissar simply executed Capatins, Admirals or Generals. Exceptionally rare is the case of Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt who was both Commissar AND commanding officer. If you are interested, the Gaunt´s Ghosts novels are great.

The vast majority of the logistical part is done by the Munitorium and the Mechanicus. The Krieg logistical units are more for the direct local needs, distributing the arrived supplies from the back front line. That way the adepts of both organization minimizes the risk to them selfs

Ok there is a bunch of comments already covering this, but a more in lore and logical breakdown is as follows. Each regiment and even army is first given their unit identification numbers, next they are given their combat role tag. So in the Kreig units case "seige" but the Imperium doesn't put that portion in parentheses since that portion is actually considered as vital as the unit designation, particularly since the Imperial Guard is so huge that it's actually a common mistake to have units with the same ID tag numbers in the same Campaign. Then after that they put the homeworld in parathesis since the home world will tell the commander the Reinforcement rate of the unit in question since about 90% of worlds don't reinforce their regiments once sent out, of the remaining ten percent avout 8% do batch Reinforcement typically if a unit is reported under power and the last 2% will do constant Reinforcement until a unit is near full strength. The homeworld will tell someone who is willing to study any special equipment, or formations, as well as the whole rivalries and competition with fellow Imperium i mentioned in one of your previous videos.

When you were talking about martial culture @40:00 ish, that is prime example why something like the planet of origin being in a regiment/army's designation makes sense. It gives High Command some kind of idea as to what to expect from the officer they will be giving assignments to. As well as let them keep the Emperor botherers away from the indebted mercenaries and convicted conscripts.

11:50 Dude trying to find THAT many completely loyal IG forces is like finding a needle in a Universe sized hay stack, completely impossible.

Hey at 1:06:31, they mention how most of the labor gets done, the adimnastratum labor corps

CVR, it's amazing how you predicted exactly how Krieg executed their strategy... when someone actually competent eventually get in charge.

At least Arch doesn't pronounce it like corpse (as in dead person) as I've heard others who are not familiar with the word. ^^ And thank you for clarifying that the plural of Korps is pronounced like the singular. I wasn't aware of that at all :) Edit: 32:36 Tank regiment commanders in 40k be like "Drive my Baneblade closer, I want to hit them with my sword!" :D

When the story starts its gets so much better as it is not as boring as this. Just going over numbers made me almost go to bed

Granaders and Engineers are the elite of the Krieg because their the most lucky or insane to have survived and if I remember they are the most important troops of the army. If you need anything done from a trench to a bomb then you call the engender, you need someone specially dead, the grenadier will be more then happy to pulp the enemy.

Round about 25:13, logistics. Yes the rest of the videos in this series, Arch does go into the logistical issues faced when operating at this scale. Be it simply moving materiel around on the battle field or the aftermath of an all out fortnight of putting heavy ordinance downrange at the defenses of the enemy. Downtime requirements for gun crews, barrel changes, ammunition replenishment everything. Apparently that too is part of the lore.

It is noted that the Imperium of Man's largest organization is not the Imperial Guard or any of the sort, but the Adeptus Administratum... which are tasked for the sheer purpose of logistics of everything in the Imperium. The Imperial Palace "ALONE" Is noted to contain up to 10 billion Administratum Staff. There are billions upon billions more across the Galaxy... they also do this recording the entire Imperium's resources and logistics not through computers, but through Vellum; thick animal-based paper. The Vellum is the 7th largest import based on weight in the Imperium. Logistics of the Imperium is an unreasonable nightmare.

Rogue Trader Captn Jack Sparrow said it best... "This is madness!" "THIS IS POLITICS".

Just started to watch and at about 2:00 i think the designation would be like this as different planets have different standards for their tactics, specialties, and demeanor. Like cadia is overall well rounded commissars will have the general worries but say krieg they’d have to keep them from basically suicidal advances or tactics they usually employ. Its all about there specialties and behaviors of that world which will determine how higher officers handle them.

Regarding the logistics, the Imperial Guard have a defacto Engineering and Logistical Support element outside of themselves in the form of the Adeptus Administratum and the Adeltus Mechanicus both to make the Imperial Guard dependent on these organizations as the army would starve very quickly without them. And to help ensure that Imperial Guard Commanders really can't turn traitor alone, either they have to get secret supporters from the off world administratum or they would need to be on a planet actually capable of supporting the presence of their military forces and have the locals on their side...and due to the nature of technology in 40k. That still leaves them cut off from the more advanced elements of their support and having to improvise new tech all while the Imperium is coming down on them with the full might of the Navy and whatever vengeful Imperial Guard forces are also on their way. But the Administatum and Mechanicus' logistical support ends (mostly) once the supplies are in the unit itself and all they leave is some of their personel to manage the basw camp logistics. Field logistics is left up to the unit entirely.

Hey, Paul. Love the reactions so far, But I did notice you skipped Arch's video on the Death Korps of Krieg. I know you watched some other video's on them. However I really do recommend you watch it as he goes into detail of What each of the jobs IN the death Korps is/does. For instance, what are the watchmasters, how does on become an officer of the death Korps? Things like that. I think having your opinion on that video will one be great and also help with some of the things you maybe confused or wondering about in this video. Otherwise have a great day and thanks for the reaction/explanation.

In the main video that covers the Kriege it explains how they are a technical cult of sacrifice and are fanatics to say the least ; they are all about the ultimate sacrifice in battle and are not recommended to be grouped with rational thinking units ; as the kriege will think the normal dudes are crazy.

It's one of those wacky Warhammer things, but that crew reshuffling and damage accounting of individual vehicles would likely be handled by an Adeptus Mechanicus attaché who is in the HQ vehicle. He or she would be neurally linked to a noosphere and being fed constant data streams, taking care of those micromanaging tasks in order to free up the commander so they can focus on tactical or strategic concerns. There would also be other AdMech folks dotted around just to watch over the vehicles' Machine Spirits and perform the proper maintenance rites and repair rituals. A tank's crew would be... rather hesitant... to perform any kind of field repair on their own vehicle, likely knowing that the Tech Priests back at the motor pool would literally flense them for despoiling the sacred machine by not applying the proper holy oils while canting the correct blessings for something as simple as replacing a broken track pin or resetting a circuit breaker. For the crews' needs, everything is handled by the ImpGuard CoC and a Baneblade is practically a FOB on tracks, but everything to do with the vehicles themselves will almost always be handled by AdMech. When putting fuel in your vehicle or restocking ammo racks involves a ritual, including the burning of incense and chanted blessings, or even something as simple as starting an engine, having Mechanicus people on hand is a requirement. "The soul of the Machine God surrounds thee. The power of the Machine God invests thee. The hate of the Machine God drives thee. The Machine God endows thee with life." -AdMech prayer for flipping on a power switch.

I always enjoy listening to people talk about military stuff when they are military or use to be. I enjoy listening to my dad talk about the shit he deals with in the marine corp. Then I got to learn about one of our family members that was pretty famous around ww2.

am looking at some guys who are playing Warhammer 40k RPG, they have created their own army, which would be made up of prisoners of a prison planet, they are very good and make you laugh, too bad those who do not understand Italian cannot see them

Your point about "high risk, high reward" is valid, however the risk is mitigated by the Commissariat, which not only fields officers to the soldiers, but also to high command. An imperial Commissar is well in his right to execute a presumed traitor even of a rank such as General (I can highly recommend the Gaunt's Ghosts book series on the matter).

The basic problem is that writers in GW usually don't even bother to dig up their own lore before writing something, we can cut them slack on the researching of actual how things in real life kinda make sense and happen.

Arch explains the reasoning for the imperial guard’s organization in this episode of his series on the 2nd war for Armageddon at the video’s 11:00 mark: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-mqJRzwvHJ3w.html

I can tell from watching your vids and your interest in this subject from fiction and your prior service, that you would love playing foxhole or Hoi4.. 😁 P.s. pick Collie(Colonial) if and when you do play Foxhole

You gotta watch baldermort imperial fist, very detailed descriptions of how the chapter is organized

Under more conventional system, where every regiment has combined arms capabilities, you still lose the entire army if your high command is corrupted. Under Imperium's system a higher level commander turning to Chaos is indeed still an issue, but that's what comissairs are for. They have an authority to tell the regimental commander "no, you will not follow those orders, your HQ is compromised". I'm not saying it can't happen, just that if you want to flip an army for sure you need to infiltrate each corps individually which takes longer and is easier to notice.

The situation you described is exactly what happened in a lot of case, but this is why the Inquisition exist. So for example if a general turn to chaos, the inquisition can immediately respond with a multitude of choices like, the Assassinorum or thay can raised their own Army to counter the other Army. In the imperium doctrine, if a general turn to chaos, it is considered all troops under him fallen no matter what. So even if their are loyal regiment under the Chaos general, the they will still be considered suspect until proven otherwise.

The problem with Vrax is the opposite of "no water". It's "too much water". Raining from the sky in torrential downpours.

11:42 if it corrupts that high its fubar anyway no matter how you look at it, most people dont even know what chaos is so you can corrupt them without them even noticing a thing

So much misunderstanding. In a normal infantry regiment there are like 3000 guys, some of them are going to use mortars and heavy assets. An Imperial Guard Infantry Regiment is 10 000 guys with lasguns.

About regiment logistic issue - It's been done by Servitors most of the time, and their numbers are over the top obviously, since no one really cares about their health and state of lobotomized mind.

These numbers are also just the forces ON Vraks, it’s not taking into account all the people Making the supplies on Krieg nor the people and ships required to ship all of this from Krieg to Vraks.

All those years playing WH:40k with my fellow enlisted men in the barracks and later base housing, lol…never once did we consider our Lt or COs doing the same….but I guess some of them did.

To answer the question of why the lagistics personnel do not seem to meet any logical ratio for soldier to support personnel is because they do not give you the number of servitors that are being used as an labor force. Servitors are lobotomized humans that have been heavily augmented and conditioned by the adeptus mechanicus. They use servitors because practically any form of artificial intelligence is banned under threat of extreame pain then death.

A great example would be the badab war where lefhuron chapter master of the astral claws turned traitor along with three other entire chapters of space marines most notably the unfortunate lementers chapter. And during his rain he actually improved the sector he was left to command and re introduced combined arms as well as higher training standards as well as better equipment and so when the sector turned traitor it took about six full astartes chapters and a few dozen regiments just to recapture the mail storm cluster

On the logistics, vehicles and equipment are repaired by the Mechanicus and supply is directed by the Administratum. The Guard is there just to fight.

As far as the logistical stuff for the tanks they did have these for fuel and all that stuff. However the Mechanicus does all the logistical planning and replacing of parts like how ICLS or General Dynamics did for the Strykers for the Army. That's why he didn't cover it in detail. Also the Imperium does use cogitators and stuff that are advance computers for planning they just don't put full trust in them do too the AI issue from the age of Strife caused by the Dark Age of Technology.

I see I'm not the only one who watches arch's lore videos. I'm literally only a few seconds in and already I'm compelled to point out that the Imperium of man is not necessarily required to follow the United States' conventions when titling or naming military formations.

The Commissar has the full legal authorisation to execute a general on the spot in case of corruption. And there's always a commissar in a command unit.

logistics being forgotten about is a good point, very often happens in SciFi. Heck, real life even. The real reason, for example, William the Conqueror had his success was his logistics. Similar for the Allies in WW2. They did answer it with a dedicated logistical regiment at least, somwhat. One thing that DID affect the war were daemons and Chaos shenanigans which needed Astartes intervention, but they even didn't really want to stick around too long. They did their mission and then left asap.

To note Death Korps regiments are unique in themselves (well almost every planet has their own unique way or forming regiments) However the standard departmento way is: A regiment shall consist of a minimum of 3 Company’s. A company shall be made up of a minimum of 2-6 platoons A platoon shall consist of a minimum of 2-5 squads The standard squad is 10 men. 1 Sergeant and 9 Guardsmen. A handful of guardsmen may be trained in specialist weapons training (flamers, grenade launchers, missile launchers, etc) or equipment (vox caster, medical, pioneer) At the command of each platoon, company and regiment should be a Officer and an attached command element (usually known as a command squad consisting of 4 men also trained in specialist weapons and equipment) However, like I said above, every world is unique. Some worlds may provide a regiment of 600 men split down into 3 company’s of 200 men each. Plus some regiments who suffer casualties may start using veteran sergeants as platoon commanders and even colonels and majors as company or even platoon commanders too. An interesting note to keep in mind is that not every regiment receives reinforcements too from their home world. Some worlds like Vonstroya will keep the First Born regiments their send out supplied with new first born recruits - vonstroya had a tithe earned from the days of Heresy. When the Imperial demanded it send troops to help bolster Terra it refused and instead said it would continue sending weapons and arms. When the imperium won, Vonstroya was placed under a heavy tithe. The first born child of every family, from the lowest to the highest, will be given over to the guard. This tithe has remained in place for over 10,000 years. However, over its time this punishment has somewhat become seen as an honour amongst the people. To be born first and be sent to join the first born regiments is a great honour. It also means for a very close bond within said regiments as many members of them will be cousins or aunts and uncles to one another. However alot of worlds do not send reinforcement or it will be a scarce day when the regiment may return (maybe once every decade or two). These regiments will either rely upon recruits brought on from the local populations they help/liberate/defend or will wittle away one by one until they are all gone. Also to note. Some regiments will be “refounded”. When a planets hears of a regiments destruction they may choose to refound the regiment and give what was supposed to be a new one the honour of baring the old regiments title and honours. However, this can also happen in the opposite way too. A planet that hears that a regiment has either turned to chaos or choose to flee in the face of the enemy or disgraced itself badly may strike said number from ever being founded again (with even some populations becoming known to even adopt said numbers as vile cultural numbers with bad meaning to them when said/used) Also another note is that the vast majority of imperial guard regiments are single sex. The guard like to keep their men and women separated for both logistical reasons and… fraternisation reasons. While some worlds like Cadia train their guardsmen to high standards of discipline that they field mixed regiments - noting that even if relationships do bloom within them, their guardsmen are trained and disciplined and willed enough to be able to stand and hold their orders and positions even if the love of their life is blasting across the vox about being overrun and butchered.

Let me help with Logistics with the Imperial way with Slave labour namely Prisoners. They will dig trenches and other needed emplacements and they can fetch and carry too.

"A stupid, ridiculous saga, where they waste mens lives for no discernible reason " Ah, so you've already met the Lord Commander. Wonderful!

Just a tidbit but they pluralize Korps like Corpse, for a play on words

When talking about the logistics of Maintenance especially with the artillery that would fall at some level to the adeptus mechanicus. While I'm sure even in the Imperium of man artillery crews are capable of doing some low-level maintenance themselves the construction and maintenance of most military equipment in the Imperium the responsibilities of engine Seers and their acolytes. In the Caiaphas Cain novels he often describes the " Cog boys" Milling around with cables , monitors and other equipment when setting up headquarters or other installations.