Would the Imperium survive if every Space Marine (Chaos Marines excluded) disappeared

Would the Imperium survive if every Space Marine (Chaos Marines excluded) disappeared

They would probably do fine after the initial shock. Space Marines are only a fracture of the Imperiums forces.

Space Marines in setting are ridiculously OP. They often make up the difference between defect and victory for the Imperium. 100 Space Marines is a force that can potentially stop ANY force they come up against. For the Guard to have the same effect they would have to send a crusades worth of materials and men. So logistically The Imperium would keep falling further and further behind as the guard are a great anvil, but they often need a hammer to help get the job done.

While the Space Marines are most certainly juggernauts, I believe that you are seriously underestimating the Guard. A crusade of guardsmen equals alot more than 100 SMs. A brigade or division is a better comparison. 4000-10000 Guards

>4000-10000 Guards
No I dont think so. See the difference is how the two force operate most effectively. SM can be dropped from orbit in pods, Thunderhawk-ed out after the objective is destroyed and redeployed again ASAP. They can do this for weeks on end without sleep or food. Each individual is capable beyond the realm of mere humans is willing and able to sacrifice themselves for the mission.

Guard however successful they are at holding/fortifying a position, attacking in massive ground and airbased attacks, just simply dont have the combat effectiveness of the SM when up against the true dangers of the Galaxy. To clarify I'm not saying the cant do what the SM can just that the SM can do it more effectively, quicker and be ready to move on instantly if the mission changes. So if they were to disappear the guard would have to take up this slack which despite them being capable of it, become more and more logistically impossible on a galaxy wide scale.

Think about the difference in transporting 100 men vs the 10,000. Keeping them fed and armed. Getting them from one battle field to another, and then the next one and the next one.

I can see your point, logistics aren't the Imperiums strong suit.

They would lose a lot of planets without having the marines as a response to random invasions,

Are the grey knights gone?

No.
The fluff says that without the Marines the Imperium would have fallen long ago.

Yeah, even the Custodes are gone.

Then the Imperium immediately implodes as daemons pour out of the Golden Throne room.

I'm not too knowledgeable about the whole warp aspect, but isn't the warp generated by the throne untainted?

Wat.

The Custodes just guard the Emperor, its him who seals the Imperial Webway not the Custodes.

As far as I know, the custodes have been waging a 10,000 year war non-stop with daemons in the webway so they don't just physically come through the portal that's still under the throne.

Incorrect.

Following the narrative rules of 40k?
No. Mere moments after the inexplicably vital guardians of the universe disappear the entire galaxy is overrun by any number of those races that the SM kept at bay despite losing something like 75% of all their battles in fluff.

Realistically I think that the imperium would fragment pretty much instantly into uncountable dominions; one of which, statistically, should produce some vaguely equivalent replacement before the entire galaxy is devoured by the now unparalleled Hrud empire.

It's said over and over that without the Astartes mankind would surely perish

>As far as I know, the custodes have been waging a 10,000 year war non-stop with daemons in the webway so they don't just physically come through the portal that's still under the throne.
The gateway is sealed, the Custodes guard the palace.

What? Logistics is the IoM's strongest area. The ability to deploy millions of men and keep them supplied is the exact reason the Imperium is so dominant.

>Logistics is the IoM's strongest area.

No, the reason it's so dominant is the work of god-men ten thousand years ago. Without the vast numerical superiority it has over every foe except orks and tyranids, the Imperium would have crumbled thousands of years ago. Mostly due to corruption and infighting really.

Logistics are almost certainly not the Empires strength. They may very well be one of the most inefficient races in the galaxy. The shear size of their territory and the close minded thinking of their scribes makes any effort to standardize or even keep track of everything impossible. The only reason the guard even has weapons to fight with is probably because of the Guard themselves, like their support staff and such.

>untold billions of Guardsmen and Sailors
>all of them have lasguns, ammo, and food.

>tens of millions of Leman Russ'
>all of them have promethium and ammo

The Imperium economy might be terribly inefficient, but the Munitorum can get materiel to the front from across the galaxy with great efficiency.

Let us examine the other faction's logistical competence.

>CHAOS
Fucking terrible. Each warband has to scrounge up supplies from looting, barter, and scavenging. Selective warbands have worlds in the EoT that they tithe materiel from, but overall Chaos uses whatever they can get their hands on.

D+

>NECRONS
Quite good. Living metal almost eliminate supply lines entirely. Troops don't need to eat, ammo is all created through power generation, casualties can simply be repaired or recycled.

B+

>ELDAR
Webway, and the nature of Eldar doctrine precludes all need for extended supply lines. Troopers usually carry what they need with them for a given mission, and return to the craft world before running out of supplies. Their reliance on small elite forces further extends this. If access to the Webway is cut off though they starve.

B

DARK ELDAR
See above. But since their economy depends of theft and slavery they've also mastered the art of moving huge amounts of cargo from realspace back into the Webway.

A-

>TYRANIDS
Much like the Necrons. Since all biomass is equally valuable their supply lines only need to be from the ships to the ground. Most 'nids don't eat and are purposefully disposable. Their conquests require a constant capture of new worlds with sufficient biomass to make up for attrition, if they get caught in space without biomass to steal for lightyears they can start to run thin.

B-

>TAU
Closest faction of the Xenos that require a traditional logistics train. Can work efficiently, but since their empire is only a handful of worlds the supply lines are short.

B

>ORKS
See 'Chaos'. Unlike humans however Orks can eat pretty much anything, have a very short lifespan (while humans take 18 years to mature) and they can fashion new weapons and materiel from scrap metal.

C-

>IMPERIUM of MAN
Despite having to feed, arm, armor, cloth, bathe, supply, and fuel untold billions of soldiers. Despite having no access to the Webway. And despite having by far the longest supply lines of any faction in the 41st millenium. Despite their economy being a mishmash of horribly administrated, semi-autonomous planets.

Despite everything, basically, the Imperium somehow manages to move MASSIVE amounts of people and cargo from the core sectors to the front lines, constantly.

Truly the Departmento Munitorum must be master logisticians.

RANK: S

Probably because, while it's beholden to Terran law, the Munitorum is spread out enough that they can handle things on a small-scale. But it aught to be noted that, while we all love the meme of Guardsmen being a bunch of regular schmucks, they are in reality the best soldiers/warriors a planet has to offer, given as tithe and effectively owned by the Munitorum. It's likely that the Imperial Guard is just a small fraction of the Galactic population, and that arming and maintaining them (one has to remember that not everyone is a Cadian, and that they're perhaps more likely to have very basic protection and provisions which were brought from their planet of origin) probably isn't that difficult a task when everything is handled in a given solar system.

The local Munitorum mooks would accept tithes and make sure they had the bare-minimum required to function, and then when someone on Terra or a higher-up in another sector needs assistance, they send the information to another higher-up who sends that down to his lackies till it gets to the local mooks who send their Guard out. That is, if they bother to respond or ever get the message. Shit only gets done in the Imperium because of just how many resources they can shove onto a problem.

>when everything is handled in a given solar system.
How does an Agri-world arm its regiments?

How does a Forge world feed its regiments?

How do shrine worlds do either?

Because most worlds in the Imperium are pretty monofunctional the Munitorum would have to be a hugely powerful organization that can coordinate supplies from hundreds of worlds at a time. On top of that the travel time between planets can take months, and yet the IG usually has enough supplies to keep fighting.

Sure the Imperium has the most resources, but their shit is so spread out that the Munitorum would have to be highly efficient for the Imperium's constant warfare to go well.

S rank means "Shit, if out of luck" because the only reason they can manage those untold billions of soldiers is because of the untold number of planets they have under their control. with the most territory out of any known faction they have to be far from home to not have a supply point. I can guarantee that almost all Guards from places outside of Holy Terra have never been issued anything that's been in the Sol system or most likely seen anything from the Homeworld

100% false. Read the post above you, retard.

oh shit sorry, I didn't know the owner of the franchise was posting in this thread

Im not sure who I'm supporting here, but taking a look at real world militaries, equipment will often last longer than its user will. for example in 40k I'm sure when a few thousand guardsmen die in a battle whatever equipment is in perfectly working order or that is fixable will simply be given to the newest recruits. so if the imperium arms 2 billion imperial guard and one billion die it doest take a perfect or even particularly great logistics system to replace that. because out of the next billion guard, only Half of them may need newly made armor and only a quarter may need a newly made weapon. the food and bullets require a bit more organization though.

No, because GW would discontinue 40k then.

Nobody is saying the marines will walk out of there unscathed. The 200-300 marines that were on Fall of Cadia were just as important as the 850 million guardsmen there, so what does that tell you?

That GW writers have absolutely no sense of scale whatsoever?

>thing is X strong
>no it isn't that's dumb
>here's proof
>WELL THE WRITERS JUST HAVE NO SENSE OF SCALE

Too bad you're not the one writing the lore faggot you don't get to decide this shit

>There are as many Elves as the plot demands

Well yes, but that's true of any scifi setting. Herbert said the known universe spans multiple galaxies but the furtherest known planet from Earth is 450 light years, and Star Trek's phaser have the same energy output of the hiroshima bomb.

Absolutely.

The Imperial Guard does the heavy lifting when it comes to the Imperium's defense. Space Marines are rare as fuck. There's probably a dozen regiments per Space Marine.

Please not the discussion on poop ships going back to fertilize agriworlds again