On Codex Astartes

So lets start this post of right and say Roboute Guilliman was an idiot. But to be fair, it wasn't really him, just that the fine people of GW have never organized a combat force. But fear not good peoples, I have. I sit here as a veteran infantryman with combat experience, and I want to talk a little about my problems with Codex Astartes.

The Codex sounds interesting, and is an attempt to give order to the idea that a Chapter is an organization of 1000 marines. But, the flaw is that it doesn't disperse its support elements correctly. Before I go down this path lets have a short discussion on warfare.

Up to World War I it was an accepted fact that wars were won and lost by the intellect of a command structure. Therefore it was necessary to place all of the capabilities at a command level. Commanders looking on to a battle from a hilltop or other vantage point would pit their intellects against other commanders and the winner was decided based on attrition. All very grand, as long as you were the commander. The problem was that wars ground to a halt as no momentum could really be gained because all orders had to be routed through a singular man.

World War II changed all that (at least in America) because it was the first time the military ever embraced the chaos of war. The theory is simple but elegant, if uncertainty and chaos is a constant in battle (and it is) then distribute your available resources at the lowest level feasible and give those commanders the authority to exploit them.

By doing this the low level commander can bring more force to bear immediately because he is the most likely to make sense of the chaos, because he is staring right at it. By doing this the high level commanders allow momentum to be gained and can focus their time on directing more resources to maintain that momentum. The trick to it is to give the low level commanders enough support elements that he can utilize them efficiently while not straining the logistics train (i.e. giving a tank to infantry company who can't carry the tools needed to maintain it).

The next important thing to discuss is the common engagement level. This is really about how your commanders send you out to fight. Typically when you deploy to an area to conduct combat operations you have a unit in reserve, a unit in defense and a maneuver unit. In today's army this is realistically a company (although an argument could be made for a platoon). The three elements described above are platoons and the commander has heavy weapons in reserve, typically mortars and tank busters for light infantry. The important thing is that the commander of the common engagement level force has the capability to conduct operations for an extended period of time and deal with all likely enemies.

So how is the Codex Astartes organized? Well it is organized like the whole chapter is the common engagement level. All of its heavy support (predators, vindicators, whirlwinds, and land raiders) are in the armory, all of its siege specialists (veterans and terminators are in the first company), and all of its reserves (the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th companies) are organized into training companies. Well this is great, but the reality is that chapters rarely go to battle together. So more often than not, if a lower level commander can use a special weapon or unit....its all the way back with the chapter commander.

I submit to you that the proper way to organize your force is by the battle companies. Every battle company should deploy as a single unit and have all of the tools needed at their disposal. If it were up to me a company would be organized as such:

1 Commander
1 Librarian
1 Chaplain
1 HQ squad
1 Veteran Squad
1 Scout Squad
2 Devastator Squads
2 Assault Squads
4 Tactical Squads
2 Dreadnoughts
3 Predators
1 Vindicator
1 Whirlwind
1 Land Raider

There would be ten of them in a chapter and they would deploy as a single unit.

If you look at that the funny part is that it conforms much closer to what you expect to see if you go up against a sizable force. Lets be honest you would never expect to go up against a company and not see some of the heavier vehicles and some terminators. It is also a much more tactically flexible army, you can actually use scouts as scouts, and not some weird training company that never sees any action.

So some counters to some obvious questions you might have:

1. Yes, it might have made more sense when they were fighting as a legion, but when the Codex Astartes was written it was meant to be a guide on how to break up the legions into Chapters
2. Yes I do totally buy into the idea that marines are actually more badass in the fluff than in the game and therefore operate at the squad level instead of the company level (e.g. Legion and Brotherhood of the Snake). This is geared the game.
3. Is there anyone who actually does this right? In all their wisdom the only ones I have seen are the Space Wolves. Take that Ultramarines...trying to tell me what to do.

OK I think that's enough for now. For tomorrow, either I break out my camera and start showing you my armies or I talk about how I would organize a tactical squad.

Rix