So, say I wanted to build a ship that hearkened back to the Horus Heresy (assuming this isn't just in it, but I don't have that book), like those used by the Imperial Army, or was just playing a Rogue Trader who liked to stay on the good side of the Navy, and was willing to sell his services to them to aide in the logistical nightmare of moving Guardsmen (and i don't want to have to page through the RT and BFK books), what would be a good build? I want a powerful military ship, able to carry a regiment of soldiers, and their tanks (at least some; they have to be transported somehow, too), with enough firepower to protect itself during arrival, and then rain fire down on the planet, to soften things up for its passengers to engage. What do I need to carry that many men, munitions, and vehicles? Would you need a Universe MC? A Galleon? Any specific upgrades toward that task? Just curious, and thanks for the thoughts.

I think you're looking at using the Galleon from BFK as the base with Barracks(in RT) and Munitorium components. Then, perhaps a main cargo hold for the cargo needed to supply a fighting force, then probably an an additional main cargo hold for vehicles if it's a mechnized/armored force.

What's a bit hard is figuring out how many of each component you'd need. Trying to compare various numbers used in the core rule book: The Barracks says it can fill "the ship with thousands". "Thousands" sounds like a regiment to me. A regimental sized acquisition is a Major (-10), and it seems rather convenient that the Barracks + Munitorium = 125 points towards military objectives and a Difficult encounter yields 150 achievement points. That makes it awfully close, so I think one regiment needs one of each of the three components I outlined. That said, the acquisition "regiment" size is 1000, not "thousands", so some judgement still needs to be applied.

What you'd probably also need for an "All in one" ship is a medicae deck.

Keep in mind that trying to combine armor + firepower + significant transport results in a ship that is built on a hull that's probably one size larger than it's firepower would dictate. A space marine strike cruiser pulls it off because they are better ships with fewer crew and only transporting 100 Astartes (a company) for a cruiser sized ship. Trying to transport a regiment on a cruiser sized hull is going to result in something with less than cruiser sized capabilities. If you wanted cruiser capabilties, you'd probably end up building on a battle cruiser hull.

CorpseGod said:

Gotta disagree with you there! The Standard Imperial Strike cruiser (The 'classic' Space Marine assault transport) is actually only a Light cruiser! I was able to produce a fairly reasonable facimile using the Lathe class hull as a base. Technically, Any ship that has a Barracks and a cargo bay could transport an Imperial guard regiment. The biggest challenge would be carrying sufficient shuttlecraft to land the regiment in an efficient manner, In BG fluff the IG are typically carried aboard standard transports which (In BG) were capable of landing.

Way we approached it is that you have a barracks which takes up 2P and 4S

Just for your pressed quarters crew housing onboard a small ship its 1P, 2S and on larger ships 2P, 3S + factor in a bit of extra life support extension, logistics in terms of ammo, vehicles, food, medical gear and so forth. A barracks is about right to house around 50% of your crew population in terms of numbers of soldiers.

So something like a Raider or Frigate could well have upwards of 12-15k in troops, a cruiser 45-50k

Unlike Crew Quarters, a Barracks Component takes the same amount of space regardless of the size of vessel it's built into, so it follows the complement of Troops & supplies that fit in would be about the same regardless of ship size. Cruisers do, of course, have the space to fit in multiple Barracks Components, at a Regiment per Barracks for ease.

I was just looking at mt first edition Rogue Trader and it says that the Imperial Army Regiments (what they called it back then) are transported by the Navy. This keeps local governors etc from mounting serious rebellions on a sale greater than one planet. Said Galleon would still be a naval asset.

Zakalwe said:

Well, between the facts that some Rogue Traders can be a force unto themselves, and act how they want, many are given IG troops as an asset, for invading planets that they find, and several references pop up of Rogue Traders choosing to assist the logistically hogtied Imperial forces, possibly by transporting their troops for them, I wondered what kind of ship they might be able to have/would need to have, if moving such a force proved desirable, and necessary. Back during the Great Crusade, one ship could do the job, Guardsmen, their supplies, and their machines; I just wondered what the build might look like, since RTs can be in a unique position to hearken back to the glory days, and work like no one else can, anymore.

I just wasn't sure how big a hull would be necessary for that many men+tanks, and what all components would be needed to carry them. Still, any such ship would be the Lord Captain's, whether he's serving as a "military asset", and assisting the local Imperium troops, or even if he is just amassing an army, tanks and all, of his own, because some Rogue Traders can just do that (not sure what the Acq test for amassing Lemun Russ's and Basilisks is). I can easily imagine some RTs becoming their own little warlords, and amassing sizable groups of trained troops, to secure their assets, and so long as they don't turn them on anyone already Imperial, and the tithes come in from the worlds these forces do conquer (if any such force proved necessary), the Imperium wouldn't even really care, and just keep a wary eye on the Lord Captain, to make sure he stays a good Warmaster, and not a despotic tyrant of Chaos/the Tau/whatever else have you.

So, for the purposes of needless extrapolation, I could see an Ambition-Class Cruiser, for example; that way it doesn't have to be a ridiculously huge, and possibly unlikely Grand cruiser or Battlecruiser), with, at the very least an Invasion Bridge, a port and starboard mounted decent lance or macrobattery (choose what you like; I prefer Hecutor Plasma Broadsides or Godsbane Lance batteries ), a port and starboard mounted Stygies-Pattern Bombardment Cannon (yeah siege weapons), a prow mounted torpedo system or Nova Cannon, if you feel such extra is necessary (say against protecting enemy ships), Ship's Stores, Manufactorum, Medicae Deck, Barracks, a Cargo Hold, or two, Munitorum, and maybe a Teleportarium, if you are feeling keen on specific, surgical strikes, involving elite troops (it's also probably my favorite upgrade, and something I'd hope any ship I GM over, or happened to be playing on had). Round it out with other components you might like (some good armor), and you end up with a warship with punch, able to fight other, defending warships, hopefully, and more than able of decimating a planetary objective beyond them, either with sheer firepower, or by softening them up, and then deploying groups of troops, while a crack team of specialists ports into a high-priority target, and acts during the confusion. All in all, not bad sounding IMO, though I can't claim to have just done all the math, so I'm not sure that the ship could carry all that. Of course, any little weaknesses might be compensated for by an escorting ship, as this would be a lot to invest in one ship, just to have Raiders hit it in deep space. maybe a nice torpedo boat, or just a big ship-killer (we shall call it the Balance of Judgment , if anyone gets that reference).

I can certainly see an RT doing it on the side.

As to what type of ship they would use to ferry (mass) troops and hardware, it wouldn't be a fighting ship. Think of modern equivalents. Troopships fom WWII were just transports, Amphibious Assault ships from now are essentially fancy transports and most have only defensive armaments. Many armies are deployed by contracted civilian roll-on roll-off (roro) vessels. Transports would be the name of the game for moving army assets around because they are optimised toward space for 'cargo'.

While I never say never with RPGs, the vessel you describe seems more like a fighting vessel to me, and would have space optimised for propulsion, weapons, sensors and defences. But we do need to keep in mind that in the scale of 40k, even a frigate can easily have 15000 troops on board so your cruiser could have 50 000 or more. However, If you want to move 500 000, then you need a transport.

With respect to the original topic, I still think the Imperial Guard would not have it's own ships. Given that it is not actually a homogenous force like the Imperial Navy, rather, a disparate collection of regional regiments thrown in the (hopefully) right direction by the Departmento Munitorium. As for letting local governors have ships to move their regiments around? No way would the Imperium tolerate that sort of seditionary nonsense.

Zakalwe said:

No, I agree with you there; to the best of my knowledge, the Guard are forbidden to have ships like that, sort of how the Ecclesiarchy can't have fighting "men", an army, under its control. Normally, I would say that the Navy does the job, to foster good relations, but to maintain limits, so would-be warlords can't easily get everything they need to play Macharius, or Vandire.

My thought was more like you said, if the Navy/Guard needed to "contract civilians" (Rogue Traders in this case) to assist them, in order to hasten the logistics. I was reading about the Great Crusade, Horus Heresy, and Imperial Army, and they described that organization as consisting of numerous one-ship battle units, with each ship being a potent warship, and carrying one regiment of troops, with their artillery. In their case, it seems like one warship, probably a grand cruiser, that has tons of guns, especially for planetary sieges, and carrying the troops to invade it. If I had a Rogue Trader who inherited that old ship, or liked the idea, and knows that they can work in ways that others are forbidden to, especially if their power did corrupt them, and they did go rogue , I just wanted to know what ship could "do it all", if the RT had the resources to claim it?

One thing that might be important remembering is that most 'fluff' suffers from what I like to call the 'tactical tabletop problem'. Allow me to explain.

Warhammer is a game meant to fight out relatively small scale battles on a tactical scale, involving small numbers of individual soldiers, on the whole organised up to company level. Even epic battles do not go much bigger then fielding brigades. This is obviously a practical choice, as bigger units cannot be managed warhammer style, let alone collected. So, the fluff is written to support these small scale battles and you end up with companies conquering whole planets.

Now, on a realistic level, even for Astartes it would be impossible to conquer a modern settled planet with a company. If we take the stats from battlefield Koronus they are indeed hidiously effective heavy infantry but no more then that. It is not very romantic to say so, but real warfare is not decided by the individual weapons of heroes, but by manoeuvre on the operational level and massed artillery firepower. Take just the conquest of one rebellious hive of, say, 1 billion souls. That said hive can bring to bear, if it mobilises just 1% of its population in its defence (and an advanced society can mobilise far more, especially if it can be as merciless as the USSR in its darkest days), 10 million soldiers. Admittedly, depending on the industrial capabilities of the hive not all will be well armed. But you can envisage a very, very big Stalingrad like battle before you can take such a hive. Companies of a few hundreds or brigades of a few thousands will just be small players in such apocalyptic battles, only able to influence the situation in their close neighbourhood and (barring some very rare heroic exceptions) victory will only come through the combined effort of armies millions strong with losses of the same magnitude.

If we transpolate that to RT (which as a RP-game can allow itself a more realistic approach to warfare then a commercial tabletop battle game), we obviously see the first vital bit: mass. For real warfare you need loads and loads of troops, weapons, and all the same. Organised not just in regiments. These are logically the big mother untis of the companies fighting the WH tabletop battles, but the operational level the Imperial Guard talks about is corps, armies, army groups and the whole. So, for a campaign that is more then taking a mining facility on an otherwise uninhabited planet or cowing a few barbarians armed with stick and arrows, you will have to transport and deploy many many troops.

This is of course an important added difference. Transport and deploy! Universe Mass Conveyors can take along 200,000 to 500,000 passengers, so, say, 250,000 guardsmen and their gear is not a bad estimate. That is about one infantry army (and remember that rebellious hive mobilised 10 million men). So transporting the Imperial Guard from system to system is feasible, but will ask for vast fleets of at least scores of transports. But once you are in the system, the real problem begins. Deploying those troops planetside is a wholy different cookie. Let's forget for a moment about the possibility of space based agression. If you have an admiral that deploys his transports with the same Navy fighting force that battles for system supremacy he (or she) deserves to be shot immediately as a traitor or an incompetent. So, we assume there is at least system control (obviously, an enemy might attempt a counterattack during a landing), but now we have to deploy our troops planetside. This means destroying or neutralising the planetary defences and creating an airhead (for which attacks the Astartes obviously excel). These first operations will see the use of tactical landing craft to create a safe zone, where larger and larger craft can land. To deploy these forces and troops, you will need dedicated 'amphibious' ships, able to deploy many of those craft at the same moment (carrier capability), heavily protected and armed with supporting weaponry. Space Marine ships are measure made, but the Imperial Navy will have its own ability as well. Once an area is secured, more vulnerable ships can be deployed to land the vast mass of troops needed for the warfighting.

In BFK (where silly admirals seemed to prosper, as there were scenarios where you had to fight through your landing craft to a hostile planet....a very silly notion, as the thing to do is to first fight your battle, unencumbered by landing craft, and then land your troops) there was the tempting notion of the smaller escort size vessels being able to land intactly on a planet. This obviously would massively facilitate the landing of large amounts of troops in later waves, as each would be able to land about a division (10,000 to 20,000 men and their gear). I made a post of it once, but still have not asked an official response on whether or not this is possible. And obviously, to quell the rebellion in that hive, you will need a load of divisions.

So, seeing the shipping needed for a decent invasion, the Imperial Navy will quite likely deploy any auxiliaries it can, definitely including Rogue Traders. Although, as a Naval strategist, I would be tempted to give them 'roving' missions where their indiviualism can be used to the full rather then mass hauling where their lack of discipline and respect for authority can get akward. Swift raids, coup de mains and scouting seem far more suited to RT capabilites. And adventures, obviously. Although one can always zoom in on the heroics of a RT and his ship(s) and crew in a massed battle.

Friedrich van Riebeeck, Navigator Primus, Heart of the Void

Well, I do agree with much of what you are saying, and it's good that comic book physics saves 40K, every so often, but I don't know if your numbers are all right. In said Hive, most people won't be combat-capable, to say nothing of well-armed. Many won't want to fight, others won't be willing to defy the Emperor, and the Guard is His Hammer, so once they arrive, it would be best to not be seen as a heretic. Such people make great allies, until you actually call on them to die, and then they clam up, and wait for the battle to end, costing you numbers. Also, the civilians are only likely to be problematic so long as the renegade leader still draws breath, and surgical strikes to eliminate him/her will be the order of the day. They'll basically follow whoever is in charge, so that will mean the new, loyal PGov, once the fighting has passed. If the Inquisition steps in, the Navy might not even need to deploy troops ( Callidus or Vindicare Assassin ), for much more than show, or a distraction. My thoughts were a bit more along the lines of the old 40K fallback; the Imperium planet is loyal, and being gobbled up by Tau/Nids/Orks what have you, and the xenos threat needs to be stopped. Barring a planet already on the brink of collapse (Nids), possibly with a Hive Fleet looming above, or one that has been steadily losing ground for decades, while the rescue ship has been lost in the warp (Orks), some slightly smaller IG units SHOULD be able to deal with the incursion, as there shouldn't be THAT many Orks or Nids, and certainly not Tau. They could reinforce already standing PDF units, and potentially mobilize some citizenry, Commissar-style, if they required it. Empty out some prisons, and forge a Penal Legion, or two. A bit of SM assistance, and it'll be over fast.

In the end, I don't particularly want to build the Army ship anymore; I was just wondering what it might take, inside 40K's "humorous war" physics.

In answer to Venkelos' original request, here's a ship hull I knocked up back in March. It's not an Imperial Army hull, but it is a Great-Crusade era warship, albeit one used by the Astartes. It is close to your concept, Venkelos; it's a heavily armoured transport which would be perfectly capable of carrying IG regiments if outfitted appropriately:-

Warp Barque
Dimensions: 6.25km long, 1.4 km abeam
Mass: 41 Megatonnes approx.
Crew: 20-1000 Marines, up to 12,000 support crew and chapter serfs
Accel: 2 Gravities max sustainable acceleration
A warp barque is an ancient specialist Astartes fleet support vessel, designed to sustain and resupply the Space Marine Legions during the Great Crusade. Given that no Imperial forces now operate at the Legion level, these vanishingly rare ships are now rightly regarded as anachronisms. But they are still viewed with awe, as each colossal ship of this type is a true Imperial relic, a magisterial and astounding star cathedral that witnessed the birth of the Imperium.
Barques are huge, heavily armed and armoured transports which-through the use of rapidly replaceable internal modular task units-are also able to fill a variety of fleet support roles, such as hospital ship, fleet tender, and mobile crusade headquarters. Some barques would act as re-supply factoria, drifting in the wake of the compliance fleets and churning out endless bolt shells and explosives. Others would act as mobile apothecaria, treating the endless tide of crippled and wounded marines, and resurrecting them for battle once more. Yet others would huddle lesser ships to them, refuelling and repairing.
Their principle assets are their adaptability and vast size: although they are smaller than an Astartes battle barge, they are stocky and boxy vessels, and mass slightly more. Their huge internal space consists of a number of truly gigantic linked hangers, all of which can be connected together to form a single cavernous hold. In extremis, given that barques were equipped with cavernous bay doors almost a kilometre across, an empty warp barque can act as a mobile drydock, swallowing ships up to the size of a light cruiser.
Although better armed and armoured than the transports employed by the Imperium’s lesser servants, the barque fleets were devastated by the Horus Heresy, falling prey to the more numerous and aggressive ships of the rival Astartes Legions. Few indeed survived the Heresy, and those few that did were rapidly mothballed as Gulliman’s reforms deliberately crippled the Legions, preventing them from ever rising up against mankind in such numbers. The barques-ever having been loyal servants of the Legions-were victims of the same political process which led to their dissolution. Modern Marine Chapters simply do not require transports and support vessels of this size.
Now, few examples of these ships remain. A handful are in use amongst larger fleet based chapters such as the Lamenters and Black Templars, and a yet smaller number were tithed to the black fleet or to a number of Rogue Trader dynasties who chose their allegiances wisely during the dark days of the Horus Heresy. For those who can afford the upkeep of such a vessel, they are priceless assets, flexible and powerful ships with huge internal space and enough armour and firepower to enable the captain to take on anything up to the size of a cruiser. Such a ship will always be the prime asset of any Imperial organisation in whose hands it is placed, and the Imperium will punish those who do not treat it with the reverence it deserves.

Speed: 5 Manoeuvrability: -5
Detection: +15 Hull Integrity: 60
Armour: 23 Turret Rating: 2
Space: 50 SP: 60
Weapon Capacity: Dorsal 2, Starboard 1, Port 1
Cargo Hauler: The Warp Barque was designed for transporting Legiones Astartes support modules of various types, and as such will always be a transport vessel. This ship is pre-equipped with three Main Cargo Hold components. The hull’s Space has been reduced to account for these, however when the ship is constructed it must be able to provide a total of 6 Power to these Components.
Redundancies: The barques were constructed to face the worst the universe could throw at them, with a variety of backup systems and redundancies. If a player wishes, he may equip a barque with up to two plasma drives and two bridges, though the plasma drives must be of the same type.
Transport: The Barque counts as a transport for the purposes of all Components.

Our rogue trader game has quite a warfare elect and in terms of scale van riebeeck has described the logistics of 40k well. The soviets managed to supply 6 million soldiers in a population of around 200 million. For us this scale is why the imperial tithe is so high, bill lions of soldiers deployed on several fronts needs a lot of supplies. For our game the mechanics produce arks which are mass conveyances carrying barracks etc enough for 250000 men in a war zone or twice that as simple transport