Siege of Terra fleet sizes

[b1soul]

Do we have direct quotes or suggestions of how large the Loyalist and Traitor fleets were at the beginning of the Solar War?

 

Are there any numbers?

[Biscuittzz]

At numerous times the traitor fleet is said to number 100,000, which is just outlandish. The IF fleet at the height of the GC had about 1,500 vessels and was said to be vastly superior in number to any other legion. So let's say the traitor legions somehow get up to that number (even though it takes years to construct cruisers and battle barges) you still only get close to 10,000, considering some legions aren't there in their entirety. 

 

A lot of the tactical/strategic nuance regarding legion dispositions and fleet sizes that FW carefully constructed have been thrown out the window by BL. They want it to feel that the loyalists are severely outnumbered and outgunned, which they are, but there are plenty of ways to show that without going crazy on the numbers.

 

As for the loyalist fleets left - the Phalanx has withdrawn out of the inner system to be used as a final escape chance for the Emperor if needs be. I assume the legion fleet is with it. The WS and BA fleets were active in the fight around the defensive spheres so I would assume what's left of them is harrying easy targets.

[b1soul]

When you say "numerous times", which books are you referring to?

[Phoebus]

Do we have direct quotes or suggestions of how large the Loyalist and Traitor fleets were at the beginning of the Solar War?

 

Are there any numbers?

 

“In the heart of the Grand Borealis Strategium in the Bhab Bastion within the Imperial Palace, Admiral Su-Kassen felt the silence crawl into the moments as she watched holo-projections of scrolling data. This was the primary command for the entire system, its view like that of a god looking down on a realm held in the light of the glowing displays. Primary fleet concentrations stood out as green runes, each a war command of tens of thousands of warships, monitor craft and others that had been pressed into service.”

 

Excerpt From

The Solar War

John French

“We cannot yet be precise, of course, but if the core data is correct, the enemy has brought a force numbering many thousands of vessels from the immaterium.”

 

Excerpt From

The Solar War

John French

“Terra was before him, its tortured atmosphere flashing and roiling, its orbits shoaling with a hundred thousand ships.”

 

Excerpt From

The Lost and the Damned

Guy Haley

So the Loyalists had, at a minimum, tens of thousands of vessels — though not all of them were necessarily of a military configuration.

 

The initial assault of the Traitors was overwhelming relative to the assets the Loyalists had present, but only a fraction of their overall strength. Thousands of vessels were deployed through the Twin Gates, and the “spearhead fleet” that launched from there to Terra numbered around five thousand vessels. After the great rift opened, however, Horus was able to bring as many as a hundred thousand vessels over Terra — possibly more, possibly less. 

 

That may seem a lot, but remember the strategic disposition of the Great Crusade that we received at the very beginning of this series:

 

“At that time, according to War Council logs, there were four thousand two hundred and eighty-seven primary expedition fleets engaged upon the business of the crusade, as well as sixty thousand odd secondary deployment groups involved in compliance or occupation endeavours, with a further three hundred and seventy-two primary expeditions in regroup and refit, or resupplying as they awaited new tasking orders.”

 

Excerpt From

Horus Rising

Dan Abnett

Even if there were only a dozen or so vessels on average in each Expedition Fleet (like Astelan’s fleet in “Call of the Lion”), that’s still more than fifty thousand vessels. If each of the secondary detachments consisted of a single vessel, the total tally would surpass a hundred thousand. In reality, we can easily acknowledge those detachments had more than one vessel, and that many primary expeditions could call on more than a dozen void-ships. Realistically, two hundred thousand or more ships could have been involved in the Great Crusade.

 

Broadly speaking, Horus would have commanded the loyalty of roughly half those vessels. Accounting for attrition, a Traitor Fleet comprised of a hundred thousand vessels assembling for the Siege of Terra is more than plausible.

Edited May 7, 2020 by Phoebus

[librisrouge]

I always assumed that the fleet numbers include things like mass conveyors, supply vessels, fleet tenders, and other smaller vessels that are normally not counted amongst the numbers of a great crusade fleet in action. The sort of things more numerous around shipyards and the like in order to effect maintenance and such.

 

You also have irregular vessels, such as modified and/or stolen civilian vessels utilized by cultists and smaller warbands from the increasingly fragmented legions. During the era of the great crusade, these would not have been included in expeditionary fleets because they're just floating targets asking to be blown apart in a proper fleet engagement. Horus doesn't care because they'll eat a shot from the loyalists, might make it to the target and disgorge troops, and because Khorne cares not from where the blood flows.

 

The loyalist fleet is probably more traditional, with the exception of things like in system skippers (that'd operate as customs in more peaceful times and are now likely converted into some kind of PT boat analog) or desperate fire ships. Both because of limited resources and an unwillingness to sacrifice lives in the same ways as the traitors, the traitors outnumber the loyalists. Plus, you have the fleets of several legions, who had more or less had their way the last seven years, versus the fleets of three, who had been heavily damage from repeated engagements that wore them down.

[MegaVolt87]

Well, its plausible the 10k number are not all proper ships of the line owned exclusively by the traitor legions. Many would be independent fleets from systems loyal to the Warmaster and allies, with a portion likely of questionable void battle capability despite being void combat capable. Quantity has a quality all of its own. 

[StrangerOrders]

Hmm... I still dont have enough coffee in my system to go trudging through my black books...

 

Off the tp of my head the biggest issue with sizes is that oftentimes things like Stormbirds and other light craft are counted in ship-totals while other times they are excluded.

 

We have a rough idea of what every Legion save the DA's looked like at the start of the Heresy. We also know that the Legions got dibs on alot of the meanest bastards in the Imperium. However I think that the Legions probably represented a surprisingly small number of vessels relative to the total navies.

 

Case in point, I always remember that the IF are noted that while they themselves only have the direct control of some thousand vessels I could swear their Black Book notes that they had the fealty and oaths of many times that number.

 

Given that this is very much an Imperium-wide deal, its plausible that the vast bulk of the traitor fleet represents either traitor Armada or salvaged loyalist ships.

 

The ease with which the Solar fleet was routed was still silly but that's another story which involves one of the most annoying Daemons in the setting.

[b1soul]

Thanks a lot, Phoebus

 

So 100K (maybe not all combat vessels) seems to be the size of Horus' invading fleet with uncontested orbital supremacy over Terra?

[MegaVolt87]

What interested me was the numbers of storm birds, thunderhawks seem to have largely supplanted it during the HH as far as I can tell.

[Phoebus]

Thanks a lot, Phoebus

 

So 100K (maybe not all combat vessels) seems to be the size of Horus' invading fleet with uncontested orbital supremacy over Terra?

Roughly, yes. Here are a few qualifiers:

 

1. Yes, some of the vessels in that fleet were pressed into service, and were not necessarily designed with combat (or even combat support) in mind
2. Not every vessel in that fleet was designed with shooting at other ships or a planer, first and foremost (military transports and various types of support ships come to mind)
3. I would argue that, nonetheless, the overwhelming majority of the vessels that fall under that figure were created to serve in the primary Expedition Fleets or the Great Crusade’s secondary detachments

 

What interested me was the numbers of storm birds, thunderhawks seem to have largely supplanted it during the HH as far as I can tell.

The quotes I provided earlier, from the Siege of Terra novels, reference actual void ships. I’m not aware of them making any allusion to gunships, etc. Is there another source that indicates what you’re saying? I’d be interested to check it out!

[MegaVolt87]

 

 

What interested me was the numbers of storm birds, thunderhawks seem to have largely supplanted it during the HH as far as I can tell.

The quotes I provided earlier, from the Siege of Terra novels, reference actual void ships. I’m not aware of them making any allusion to gunships, etc. Is there another source that indicates what you’re saying? I’d be interested to check it out!

 

 

I haven't read Terra arc yet, though I was more referring to the initial books overall I feel the thunderhawk is more represented than the stormbird in any kind of scene with aircraft it seems. How are void fleets counted in 30k/40k? class, tonnage ? 

[Phoebus]

In general, the authors distinguish void ships from gunships and other smaller vessels that they carry. Void ships are the vessels they count when describing the size of fleets, and they generally separate those by class: escorts, cruisers, and so on.

 

Stormbirds are more represented in the first few novels, but it’s qualified almost from the beginning that they are the older pattern, and that the Thunderhawk — smaller and easier to manufacture — is becoming the more ubiquitous Legiones Astartes gunship.

[b1soul]

The 100K Traitor vessels figure seems to be the figure left over after the Solar War. Any idea how badly Horus' was mauled during the Solar War? I am assuming he came in with significantly more than 100K and was wittled down to 100K by the IF Rings of Iron and WS Falcon Fleets

 

Also, seems like the BA weren't heavily involved with the Solar War

Edited May 9, 2020 by b1soul

[bluntblade]

Gunships are craft, not vessels.

 

I'm OK with the size of the fleets, because quite aside from the war spoil taken along the way to Terra by the Traitors, there's every non-Legion force to consider. For every Legionary there are hundreds of Solar Auxilia, to say nothing of the Imperial Army regiments both elite and mundane, Knight Houses and the Mechanicum. And that goes for their ships too.

 

In the vast dirty pint that is the Emperor's military machine, the Space Marines are merely the most potent shot.

[Indefragable]

Well, its plausible the 10k number are not all proper ships of the line owned exclusively by the traitor legions. Many would be independent fleets from systems loyal to the Warmaster and allies, with a portion likely of questionable void battle capability despite being void combat capable. Quantity has a quality all of its own. 

 

This. 

 

Two thoughts:

 

A. The Spartan Effect I always like to throw around. Short version: the 300 Spartans at Thermopylae get all the credit, but those were just the Spartan peers, while each one of them had 1-5 slaves and slave-warriors with them and then there were the up to 5,000 "other" Greeks (Thespians, Arcadians, et al). 

 

B. Decoys: One of my favorite bits of lore from FW's writing of Chondax is that the Alpha Legion fleet that held the White Scars there had an unknown quantity of "empty" vessels. These were all manner of void ship mocked up to look the part of a fighting ship, but in reality had a skeleton crew, no actual armaments, or were literally just "painted" to look menacing. This is so AL to me it hurts (it is a good pain!)....a force multiplier through psy-ops and manipulation. It served their strategic purpose of holding the WS in place, but also served a tactical purpose: cannon fodder to shield the actual fighting ships. 

 

A is easy to account for in anything 40k. B is less on the nose for the Solar War, but I imagine a similar concept applies where some rich dude's pleasure yacht gets conscripted into Horus' fleet and hurled at Terra: if it makes it, then a couple cultists on board can go wreak some measure of havoc somewhere. If not, no worries since every shell it ate is less for the Traitor fighting component. 

 

The 100K Traitor vessels figure seems to be the figure left over after the Solar War. Any idea how badly Horus' was mauled during the Solar War? I am assuming he came in with significantly more than 100K and was wittled down to 100K by the IF Rings of Iron and WS Falcon Fleets

 

Also, seems like the BA weren't heavily involved with the Solar War

 

I'm surprised at the lack of mention of the BA fleet at all in the Solar War. The WS operated as "falcon" fleets, hanging out to prey on targets of opportunity (fitting their nature) while the main IF fleet does the primary fighting. 

 

It's odd, since Malevolence puts the BA fleet as one of the more significant ones pre-Heresy, with 600+ capital ships. Obviously losses at Signus, in the Rainstorm, and Beta Garmon whittle that away, but we've had 0 mention of what's actually happened with the fleet. 

 

(Obligatory BA commentary from me, I know).