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Post by Brusilov on Aug 7, 2004 5:13:50 GMT -5
The way I see it is that the Munitorum is not so much the supporting branch of the Imperial Guard it is superior to it and includes it.
As such I believe the Imperial Guard refers to those units on the field, the footsloggers in the mud (including up to senior officers).
However the general officers are part of a different Branch of the Departmento, the General Staff Branch.
This is how I see it.
This is why I differentiate between Guard officers (up to the rank of colonel) and Staff officers (from Lieutenant to Lord General, but without a command over a unit in the field, they're planners)
As to the link to culture. Personally I would believe that in most cases Staff officers would be educated in the Schola Progenium and then sent to the sectorial staff college for training.
Training of Guard officers wary from planet to planet, from a highly structured education system to the strongest gets the job.
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Post by Kage2020 on Aug 7, 2004 13:01:21 GMT -5
Well, remember that the idea that all applicants to the schola progenium might be thought of as 'giving up the family', to become nominal orphans of the Imperium...
And lets not play the "every world is unique card". The Guard is an Imperium organisation... Then again, now that I engage the 'ole noodle (once again been thinking about postmedieval disease all day long - do you know the process of tuberculous infection... yeeeuuuuwwww), they are originally PDF and as such trained as officers in the means and methods of the PDF. One would imagine that there is, however, a standardisation process in moving over to the Guard...
(Again, perhaps another reason for the Academy, as it were...)
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Post by Brusilov on Aug 8, 2004 9:37:09 GMT -5
At least in the fluff it does not seem like it, I mean if there were Colonel Corbec or Major Rawne would have had to follow at least a crash course instead of being saddled with responsabilities they were unprepared for (not saying they performed badly).
Not overplaying the card, each world does at it pleases, but in this case, at least in official fluff it is unfortunately the case.
This is why IMO Commissars and Staff Officers are so important, especially Commissars. They're the ones with the standardised military education that make sure the officers of specific regiments are properly trained and competent enough for their position.
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Post by CELS on Aug 8, 2004 10:32:13 GMT -5
Yep, Kage, I'm afraid we're going to have to play that card. But of course, it's obvious that the Adeptus Terra won't allow just any kind of Imperial Guard regiment as part of a world's tithe. A bunch of ferals who don't know what the hell an auspex is are obviously not going to be worth as much to the Imperial Guard as a regiment of Mordians or Cadians, who are trained since birth.
And the Imperial Guard does come in all shapes and sizes, as anyone with a copy of Codex: Imperial Guard can tell you.
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Post by Kage2020 on Aug 8, 2004 12:09:30 GMT -5
Well, at least it fits into the concept of 'status' anyway... there should be an upper limit - and I'm not just talking staff - at which a 'grunt' (including officer and noble grunts) cannot progress beyond. Or at least rarely so and then only on specific recognition of exception circumstance. Incidentally, Brussie, you might be intrigued of this post on EldarOnline which takes exception at your Guard structure. (Incidentally CJenkins makes good arguments but sometimes fails to take into account either the 'fluff' or the spirit of the 'fluff', as well as adding in his own assumptions which directly contravene it. Sounds like a lot of us, but still that's what I remember most about his posts...) |
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Post by Minister on Aug 10, 2004 9:04:22 GMT -5
By my interpretation, the Imperial Guard is the Imperial Guard, in its entirety and including the Munitorium. There are then the three branches: field, general staff and administration. The field element is the most famous and largest, the actual regiments which are the core of the Imperium's military. The General Staff consists of personall of all ranks, from pirvate right up to Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard, who deal with the "big picture" of plannins and overall tactics and strategy. The administration end of it is the Departmento Munitorium, and consists of administratum beurocrats and menials rather than military personel, it being their duty to keep the whole thing running. The Munitorium would also be involved in the strategic planning stage, their role being (at least in the minds of the generals) primarily to say "no" to anything they see as uneconomical. In this sense, the Munitorium serves the same function as the components of the MOD which are not a part of the actual Armed Forces.
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Post by Brusilov on Aug 13, 2004 3:33:56 GMT -5
I won't reply to him on the Eldar online thread but I'll try to do it here.
In the first Tactica Imperium article I touched upon generalities, and as such things might seem rather unclear.
Everything is not decided on Terra, Lord Commander Segmentum and Lord General Militant have a lot of indepedence from the Imperium.
But like in the real world, broad decisions and orientations are taken at the highest level possible and the lower levels put those decisions into effect using the power they are given.
The Lord Commander Militant of the IG decides, with his fellow High Lords, that the Imperium should push in such regions and only keep the status quo in other.
And then the lower levels deal with those orders with the assets they have at their disposal.
The central level does not control everything from Terra, it would not simply impractical but in fact impossible given the communications within the Imperium.
As to the issue of small wars like Eldar raids or even pirates, those things often do not fall upon the shoulders of the Imperial Guard (or the Imperium for that matter). In the recent Index Xenos Dark Eldar it is clearly implied the Imperium has little time to deal with such things because they could require too many troops to deal with a 'minor' threat. Hence planetary forces are often left alone to deal with minor operations, while the Imperial Guard concentrates on the larger operations.
Another thing to take into consideration is that when a world is attacked the Imperium almost never rushes to its defence. Instead they build up a large army and fleet with the extra time and assault en masse, instead of sending forces piecemeal trying to defend the world.
As such many defensive operations end up being IG offensives on worlds taken by the enemy or on the verge of collapse
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