Army Combat Veteran Reacts to the 88th Siege Army (Krieg)(Siege of Vraks by Arch)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 18 ก.ย. 2024
- Arch gives us a deep break down of the units and makeup of the Death Korps of Krieg's 88th Siege Army. Needless to say, I have some issues with the level of realism in this organization
Original Video is here: • 40k Lore, The Siege of...
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"an atrociously bad command" you have no idea just how bad it gets
I can’t wait until we get to that…
Lord Commander Zuehlke really Hötzendorfed it up.
@@Tenebraeification Every villain in the novels gets their come uppance EXCEPT him. Males him my most hated person yet
@@donkface8509 in the grimdarkness ...
Whoooh boy Combat Veteran has no idea.
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
Well, the usual (heavy) infantry regiment DOES have vehicles. Chimera APCs, Salamander scouts, Sentinels etc. are fair game (see the Ciaphas Cain novels). Just the light infantry is completely on foot.
@@wulferikgebhardt5312 they were not a heavy regiment. They were a mechanised.
The list for regiments are:
Line Infantry - basic infantry
Light Infantry - less armoured infantry
Mechanised - Chimera or Turox
Reconnaissance - recon infantry supported by a handful of sentinels
Armoured - Leman Russ with a handful of basilisks and other mobile arty.
Drop - grav-chutters
Hunter Killers - Armoured Sentinels or Hellhound variants (assigned to kill either infantry or tanks)
Super Heavy - Baneblades and such
Artillery - Basilisk platforms
Siege - I.e. like the Krieg
Rough Riders - mounted riders (be it horse or other docile creature)
Grenadiers - infantry armed with primarily assault weapons and grenade launchers and maybe transport designed to take entrenchments or heavily defended positions
Heavy reconnoissance - entirely made of sentinels
Guerrilla - infiltrators and saboteurs
Close Assault - urban fighters armed with close in weapons (be them melee or ranged)
Rapid Reconnaissance - Tauros mounted troops for recon
Mechanised Reconnaissance - Salamaders
Salvage and Recovery - rear line troops designed to help recover and build equipment
Auxiliary - your auxiliary abhumans which will be split down and assigned where needed.
These are all the main types of regiments you’ll find however their are exceptions plus every regiment will find itself with different specialist equipment, training and numbers
This is very much incorrect. "Inferno" and Imperial Armor books, including Siege of Vraks ones provide detailed descriptions for what different Guard regiments consist of. More recent examples can be found in Imperial Guard Codex, but that one describes it on company levels. Even "line infantry" regiments are mechanized and can contain various support vehicles such as Hydras and light fire support such as Medusas and Wyverns
@@reecedignan8365 I just went off some of the novels. Wasn't aware there's THAT much detail to it.
@@theovoldjopus4272 Agreed, it seems to be very much a recent idea something I suspect GW dropped into lore to sell more models, a regiments descriptor will be it's primary focus, but an Armoured Regiment will generally have a company or two of Mechanized Infantry knocking about the place along with Hydras and other odds and sods, but the couple of squadrons of Griffons it has won't help much when it needs full artillery support so it'll turn to a Artillery regiment when it needs the serious covering fire... If you look at the big photo of the Cadians 8th from the 4th ed codex, a purely infantry line regiment, they've got a fair number of assigned chimeras.
The combined arms nature of The Guards really been played down in recent editions, I suspect it's to make the Primaris Marines look cooler by comparison
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
yeah, there have been units wiped out by 'friendly fire' because the unit next to them didn't like their culture or religion. And the commissars in both units mysteriously had 'accidents' involving their las pistols and the back of their heads. It also gives the commander some idea of what to expect his troops to be capable to do and how they are going to accomplish the orders he gives since each regiment will approach orders in entirely different ways. Krieg will throw men at the problem with little care for casualty numbers where other units would break and run under much lighter circumstances then it takes to break a krieg regiment.
I mean, modern British Army regiments are also often named after certain counties.
(Edit: This is important because Games Workshop is a British company. Example "38th (Irish) Brigade" or "the Yorkshire Regiment". Much like "the 8th Cadian")
Read Gaunts Ghosts. Jantine Patricians and 1st&only for example.
Hope he 👀 this
The other thing is the different worlds have different tech and specialitys too, so there is a good reason to naming them + the religious factor named above.
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.
It also tells the commander that the company in question is made out of 9001% mad lads who can and will die for the emperor to claim even a tenth of an inch of ground from the enemy and who have been known to execute the Commissars assigned to them for 'not being zealous enough in performing their duties'.
In other words, these people be fucking insane, just tell them what you want them to do and expect them to get it done and die trying.
@@accywacky2699
Krieg doesn't sacrifice just for sacrifice. Just to win.
Only if they're familiar with every planet in the Imperium at a glance. What he described is still better.
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"
Not sure if the authors ever met a real soldier even if just crossing paths in the street.
@@marcuskylemarcuskyle222 considering some of their views socially and politically some of them have revealed, they would be so disgusted to shake one's hand as to need to cleanse themselves after such a "horrid" encounter. I like 40k, i enjoy the game, i hugely despise GW.
Then again, Arch is no military historian either... x)
@@Archon3960 you are absolutely correct, however, he put the time in to at least make the numbers coherent.
@@Archon3960 He’s said before that he’ll sometimes spend hours sitting around reading WWII books.
- "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 good kriegsman does not question the orders of high command, but his commissar in the field? The commissar has to be kind of careful in a death korp regiment, because if he says the wrong thing at the wrong time HE will be the one executed for cowardice, and even if he doesn't get executed he may get 'accidented' for not letting the kriegsman sacrifice themselves.
@@Rembanspellsong Precisely. :)
@@Rembanspellsong Well if your commander isn't ordering frontal assaults on titan, he is insane, a coward, and a traitor. And it is your DUTY as a member of the death korp of krieg to quickly dig trenches in front of his command post, and start lobbing as much artillery as possible, before a head-on charge to storm it. Naturally, this is the only way a true servent of the god-emperor reacts to such, insane, treasonous, cowardly commanders. It isn't questioning orders, it's just taking out another traitor...Just don't mind the detail of him being technically your boss's boss boss boss and so on. ----This has been a message by the death korp of krieg's automatic response system.
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.
Guard also lacks air support as one or two special planets aside aircraft (even solely atmospheric ones) are under Navy control.
@@gokbay3057 except the rare few guard aircraft regimens.
@@Teronas And I already said "one or two special planets aside". These special planets do have aircraft regiments, yes.
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.
And why the Imperial Army had all its space assets removed and given to the Imperial Navy and vice versa.
It not so much planets as it is regiments, every regiment explicitly mono-type so a tank regiment only has tanks, tank crews, and the maintenance people, meanwhile an infantry regiment is pure footslogger, artillery regiment is just the big guns and their crews, and finally mechanized is strictly their troops and the APCs they came 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.
That point in of itself isn't the problem. The problem is as far as the viewer/reader is concerned was the Augmented Servitors were never pointed out doing the Logistical stuff, especially in the assault korp or the line korp, so how is Combat Veteran supposed to know of there presence if they are not included in the listing in any way.
I don't disagree with your point, but the writers should have mentioned them if only briefly.
@@magnos_decimus True. It is one of those things that SHOULD be listed, but unfortunately is somewhat left out. The Servitors are a essential part of the Imperial war machine, and there is many types of them. Also the Admech detachments are not pointed out, there should be many Engineseers and Tech-priests plus their servants and servitors, again. Being the Admech, those number would probably be kept in secret.
@@tramico96 Yeah. After all since the writers of the Siege of Vraks were trying to be a detailed as possible to account for who and in what numbers were involved in the conflict then these logistics and Admech cyber elements should have been considered in more detail.
@@magnos_decimus I'm pretty sure it was written long before the Admech codex. The Admech has been surprisingly overlooked quite a bit until recently.
A general CANT command starships though. Only very occasionally do you get a warmaster or "Lord Solar" who has authority over Gaurd and Navy
Indeed. Guard not having starships and Navy not having ground troops is the entire point of them being separate organizations.
Even the astartes are limited in the kinds of spaceships they are alowed to have.
Because of what happened in the Horus Heresy, yeah.
Every time you upload, you put a smile on my custodian face.
most definitely
Custodian, are you distracting yourself from guarding the golden throne!?
@@andreanecchi5930 Im on break, enjoying kitten's PIZZA PIES
It is acceptable to watch these videos as long as you are now on guard duty (on a break, eating, not scheduled to guard, so on)
“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.
flawless logic.
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.
One other thing as well is that Vraks is an armory world, place has stores massive enough to easily supply troops for 12 years of constant warfare outside of the bodies to use them. It's the reason the Imperium even decided to even siege the place. It would take way too long to starve out with a blockade and they still wanted to recover some of the material there to continue to supply other conflicts.
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
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.
The main point of regiments not having combined arms is that if any certain regiments rebels they are easy to put down by multiple coordinating Imperial regiments utilizing combined arms.
@@gokbay3057 I was responding specifically to his point of higher ranking generals potentially turning entire armies and that therefore being redundant.
The Inquisition would probably love to keep a close eye on every single guard regiment but they need to focus more on the people who could potentially turn an entire combined army against the imperium instead. The system that the imperium has in place is specifically supposed to cripple any small scale rebellions or corruptions that might fly under the radar.
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.
cant wait! xD
@@halo12390 oh this series gets fucking wild mainly because alot of stupid choice's are made on both sides
@@kriegdeathrider7805 Stupid command choices made on both sides in 40k?
*_You don't say!?_* xD
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.
It's not even a hive city. It's just a big city.
Yes but the real reason they are taking the planet is purely political the inquisition tried to assassinate him and failed so if he isn't brought to Justice swiftly it makes the inquisition look weak which dosent end well for anyone so they pulled strings to try and get the city taken as quickly as reasonably possible
@@kriegdeathrider7805 it's not purely political, the guy is actually a criminal and was in violation of the ecclisiarchy not having men under arms. He was raising an army, trying to hide the fact he was by saying he was raising a militia to protect the shrine on Vraks, but the problem was that the entire sector he was in was quiet and there was no need for a militia to defend it. While the politics are a motivator, he still has broken the law.
@@Rembanspellsong which is why they tried to assassinate him which is not the correct channel to take, and since that failed and they tightened security to the point another attempt isn't possible and at this point there's no way in hell he'd willing stand before a court and be judged by the high lord's, they are forced to commit to a siege
@@kriegdeathrider7805 He wasn't going to stand in front of a court even before the assassination attempt. Once he had gone to Vraks and started gathering his army, it was going to be a fight no matter what. the assassination attempt was to try to prevent damage to the shrine and put down a heretic swiftly before he could spread his lies that the imperium couldn't care for its citizens.
"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.
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
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.
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.
41:15 -
Officer: "Hey, we have 60% casualties."
HQ: "So?"
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.
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.
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.
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
15:04
Yeah, only one city... but it's a WH40K hive city, which can contain more people, than entire American continent 😂
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.
When are you going to watch Arch's Death Korps of Krieg video?
it not necessary as Paul does have a good idea what the krieg are about.
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 he doesn't seem to understand there history and culture since he keeps calling them soldiers who are nothing more than wasteful suicide troopers.
@@l.warner3951 'he keeps calling them soldiers who are nothing more than wasteful suicide troopers' when has he said that and even if he did is he wrong though, the death core whole thing is just throwing men in the meat grinder until the foe is overwhelm or they have no more men to send into certain death.
@@thesmilinggun-knight9646 look at his his Everything the Imperium is doing wrong/ any video has the Kriegers there. And that's my point.
@@l.warner3951 ok but again how is he wrong?
Oh, Designating them as Krieg, yeah you need to let the generals know. That isn’t something you leave out.
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.
So, who's the guy being thrown out of the window for proposing stupid ideas? xD
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.
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.
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.
Supplies AND reinforcements.
War is hungry of human lives.
i took 17 years it`s a bad ficton or atrocious command- oh boi It would be fun meeting with lord commander Zuehlke :p
And yeah... The logistics will be mentioned by lore and Arch. Multiple times and in DETAIL!
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
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.
“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
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.
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 TH-cam 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 it is more that a certain planet produce better soldiers of a certain type. Remember that first there are the PDF (Planetary defense force), which are the equivalent of local militia. From these, the best regiments are selected to be drafted off planet to a warzone somewhere in the galaxy.
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.
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.
“Atrociously bad command” those are... certainly words.
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
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".
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.
CVR, it's amazing how you predicted exactly how Krieg executed their strategy... when someone actually competent eventually get in charge.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
Rogue Trader Captn Jack Sparrow said it best...
"This is madness!"
"THIS IS POLITICS".
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.
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 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.
these reactions are very informative. i learned quite alot of stuff i usually dont hear about and its quite funny to see a professional find problems in fiction. i can see the pain on your face haha
anyway, can't wait to see more!
also heard that the reason logistics isn't included is because they are a separate element and in the event the units rebel or turn, they will have to fight without logistical backup and severely limited tactical choices. giving the loyal servants a huge advantage
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.
Hey at 1:06:31, they mention how most of the labor gets done, the adimnastratum labor corps
"A stupid, ridiculous saga, where they waste mens lives for no discernible reason "
Ah, so you've already met the Lord Commander. Wonderful!
You gotta watch baldermort imperial fist, very detailed descriptions of how the chapter is organized
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
Always commend logi
@@Beanie28 logi AND engineers, but MOSTLY logi.
The engineers can't grow and on their index fingers clicking the mouse button to build without the resources being carried and protected from partisans by THEMSELVES at most times, driving those trucks to the front or gathering resources in the wilderness which is a risk in of itself.
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.
Imagine putting Iranian troops next to Palestinian troops and being forced to work together
Better comparison would be Israeli forces put next to Lebanese, Jordanian, or Egyptian forces to fight together against something.
@@assult878 true but considering the current situation in Iran
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.
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.
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.
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).
Which is why no sane Commissar would ever work in the Death Korps of Krieg! xD
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.
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.
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.
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
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
That is the best part of Arch's videos. He actually goes into the details of logistics and the like. I'm sure you will enjoy "The Great Push" episode of this series. XD
Specifically about the logistics, on Vraks the 88th Army had an entire separate Labor Corps of a couple million non-combatants, responsible for the logistics and provisions. He just doesn't mention them here, since this video is specifically about the fighting units. They get a mention in the next episodes when the forces actually land on planet.
The problem with Vrax is the opposite of "no water". It's "too much water". Raining from the sky in torrential downpours.
You constantly complain about how the Imperium's military is set up, but never acknowledge the fact that it's done on purpose and for very good reason. It limits how much damage a particular unit can do if they decide to go rouge. This philosophy is the direct result of the Horus Heresy, where one of the Emperor's sons got half the Imperium to defect. The result was massive damage to humanity's empire, the Emperor himself almost murdered and a dark age that persists to this day.
The Imperium can afford losing billions upon billions of guardsmen every day. What it can't afford is a commander of a massive crusade going rogue and leveling half the Imperium.
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.
At the first mention of a combined arms Fireteam, my first thought was A-Team
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.
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.
What a nice present for my 37th.
Thank you.
Yeah your right the baneblades/shadowswords ect, get requested perpetually
Krieg IS the special designation lol.
Planner: could I use these guys to siege?
They’re krieg
Planner: Ok what do they specialize in?
Krieg…ing?
Planner: So will they
JUST USE THE KRIEG!!!
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.
I honestly wish more writers out there had access to people with real world experience more often. These videos have been pretty invaluable to my own homebrew lore designing.
Ay yo, was wonderin' if I could perhaps suggest Luetin's video "The Titanic Defense of Ryza"? It's an awesome event that makes me giddy and proud of Knights whenever I hear it, and could help give some info on Titans and Knights of both Traitors and Loyalists.
Also, regarding logistics: That is handled by the Servitors, Adeptus Mechanicus, and the Adeptus Ministorum rather than the Militarum. The Militarum's job is just to keep fighting, for the most part.
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
Then it a good thing that it only rarely happens and then it does it get fuck because
A. The inquisition will sniff that ass out at some point and although that doesn't always stop that heretic they do still stop many of them including heretical corruption in high places like the general for instance
B. General of the imperial guard don't have any authority over the navy the only scores of well armed and armored transperson of interplanetary capabilities and the navy only has the know-how and man power to pilot there ships and use the guns and suff like that but not the man power or training for boarding action of an enemy ship or ground invasion so unless he becomes lord solar that is a position that only exists during a great crusade and not just giving to any general
C. a general only has so much authority of different imperial guard regiments out side of a war so bast case scenario for the corrupt general is if he get into a similar position as the priest guy who started this rebellion and we know how that going for him
Who needs AI when you can feed all sensors info to your local Mechanicus priest, or a servo-skull created specifically for that role.
What a difference a year makes. When you posted this, W40K was the most intense military thing to comment on. Now, in mid-2022... Not quite.