Vehicles of the Planetary Defense Force

Is there any information about the vehicles of the Planetary Defense Force?

Would it be similar to the Imperial Guard only less in number and lower quality? Or would it be something worse?

yes

>Would it be similar to the Imperial Guard only less in number and lower quality?
>Or would it be something worse?

Yes to which statement?

I would imagine the vehicles of the average Planetary Defense Force would be the same as that of the vehicles of the Genestealer Cults such as:

Goliath Truck/Rockgrinder
Scout/Armored Sentinel
Chimera
Leman Russ Tank

This is because lore wise the Genestealers just steal the equipment from the planet they are in be it civilian or military resources.

Regarding Genestealer Cults, the Wikia states: "Though the greater masses of these hordes are armed little better than planetary militia, their sheer numbers and fanatical devotion make them a fierce prospect in a firefight."

So this would prove whatever vehicles the Genestealer Cult Codex has would be equipment that the average Planetary Defense Force would have.

In contrast the Renegades and Heretics are often Traitor Guardsmen so what they posses is not representative to what an average planetary government has even though a portion of those armies were in fact Chaos Cults with a similar position as the Genestealer Cults.

Generally - it should depend on a planet and it's resources at hand - the mech-pinnacle of the Feudal world may be ballista while Mining Colonies may face you with hundreds of Hades-like Drills. As the PDF is under planetary governor responsibility, there is no Munitorum standardization and unification - therefore it is highly unlikely that any "typical" PDF vehicles exist.

I would also add common civilian vehicles such as horses, motorcycles, tauros, and land crawlers (and its siegfried variant) with improvised armor such as the centaur and countless custom designs.

Thinking about it, since as a general rule the Imperial Guard is better armed than the planetary defense force (probably due to the tithes taking what usually would be the best troops of the PDF) I would imagine that therefore the PDF forces would be less advanced, less well funded, or at best their vehicles would be the most common ones in large number that can still be spared (Sentinel, Chimera, Leman Russ)

Of course all primitive worlds won't have advance technology, as a general rule it would be safe to assume the above statement to be reasonable. The Mechanicus isn't simply selling uncontrollably and the Imperium would demand the best for their direct use.

Usually older outdated models like the Malcador.

Their infantry would usually ride in older vehicles and unarmored ones as well with artillery support being towed or virtually nonexistent.

But then again it varies from planet to planet. The Cadian interior guard are a PDF and are pretty damn professional.

Is there a list of Obsolete Vehicles used by the PDF?

Think anything from chariots over Abrams or Leopard tanks to IG technology.

Cains time on perlia had him use local PDF equipment against the orks
perlia was a civilized world, so fairly well equipped, but not expecting anything serious

they were mostly armed with chimeras, scout cars, assorted land vehicles, and a few basilisks
one can also imagine a local tank regiment with vanilla russes in case of serious fighting

What were the "Assorted Land Vehicles"? Were they named or was it described as that?

I';s imagine they would be similar as the tithe is a 10% across the board take , this includes tanks drivers and sentinel pilots, that said it would vary from world to world with some (Armageddon for example) being equipped (though not necessarily deployed) with the same equipment that their Imperial Guard counterparts use.

mostly captured ork stuff, which in turn were looted from the PDF, one of them was a dune buggy, which might have been imperial once since it had a imperial bolter on it, but its hard to tell if its a highly modified imperial vehicle, or a looted bolter strapped on to a purely ork invention
cain didnt name any vehicles that werent already well

chimeras seem to be the backbone of the PDF, although the cheaper lighter taurox, which wasnt a thing yet at the time of cains books, might also be a widespread vehicle to use, since its a fast vehicle with a low cost, perfect to responding cost effectively to sudden crises

that being said, locally produced vehicles might be pressed into service if there arent enough chimeras or tauroxes

Locally Produce Vehicles may be Land Crawlers and Goliath Trucks armed with weapons since those two vehicles are the only official civilian vehicles I can find (Other than Genestealer Limousines)

That and Horses, Motorcycles, and in theory Homemade Sandrails since Personal Cars should be Uncommon to Rare.

both. depending on the planet. some would just have the very same russes that the guard uses. Other planets would have local designs that could be anywhere from a little better to Bob Semple tank level crap. Many low tech worlds wouldn't have any at all.

yeah seems fair enough. The PDF sti usually has the leman russ, tyey just get the basic one and maybe exterminators. the fancier paterns like demolisher or Executioner are mostly guard only.

Land Crawlers and Goliath Trucks seem to be the Standard STC Civilian Vehicles that any Civilized, Hive, and Agri World would have that one can improvise to transform into improvised fighting vehicles.

those are just wide spread designs. most civilised worlds would have local designs analogous to most of ours. There's a lot of this stuff in the novels that revolve around inquisitors and the like operating largely in civilian areas rather than battle fields.

Though its usually just vague descriptions like "personal car" or " enormous 12 wheeled truck".

So I guess they can be used for making Technicals and Armored Cars (and Bob Semple Tanks)

yeah. the Goliath is basically just an example of an imperial truck rather than the imperial standard.
because they had to use something for the kit.

Threadly reminder that the IoM includes a wide range of planets, including feral worlds on which "vehicle" probably means riding on the back of some kind of xeno creature.

Oh sure but the RT books and others do state that the Governors and Co of primative world's often live off world in hi tech luxury(in the 40k sense of the word) space stations. So it's not completely unfeasible that a primative world might have a moderately well equipped albeit relatively compact PDF. Vehicles and all.

I think user who was suggesting looking at the gsc list was on to something. If you want to represent the average PDF it's probably a good place to start.

>as a general rule the Imperial Guard is better armed than the planetary defense force
yes and no.
The IG being fully standardized, you may find pdfs with better/rarer equipment.
For example, the Phantine Air Corps has fighter-bombers, while the IG has to rely on the navy for air-support.

They are literally just the 40k equivalent of National Guard, so use that as inspiration.

For the most part, similar gear, just less of it. If it was noticably poorer quality the governor would probably have some explaining to do the high Lord's of Terra. Fucking up your tithe or your ability to defend your planet are punishable by death, so governors tend to make sure they're doing what they can. That doesn't mean they can't have older gear, or keep around more obsolete designs due to being easy to acquire or cheap to use. After all, an obsolete tank is better than no tank.

While they will probably lack fancy gear like lascannons or plasma, they can still have it mothballed for emergencies potentially. More likely they will use weapons that can be made locally or are easy to acquire from a nearby forgeworld. This means autoguns, stubbers, autocannons, bolters, heavy bolters, missile launchers, maybe russe's and basilisks, etc. Remember these forces are expected to hold out in case of full scale invasions until the guard show up, and are expected to contribute men to the Imperial Guard as well. They need to be a fairly competent force. Especially since the whole fall of cadia means that planets will often be cut off and entirely on their own with 0 warning.

gaunt's ghosts mention non-guard AFVs; a walker tank, a light tank called the SteG 4 and a heavier one called the something 90, all are explicitly worse than russ platform vehicles, but cheap and effective enough. i'd imagine that PDFs and some Guard across the galaxy have variable amounts of stuff like this if STC patterns aren't around, or even lower tier STCs as the pz VI is officially an STC now.

The Phantine Air Corps are Imperial Guard though, not PDF

It gives rise to incredible flexibility in regards to kitbashing. Most planets will have mechanical industry of some kind, so it wouldn't be out of the question for them to make their own tanks.

Inb4 las-cannons mounted on a mk1

yeah but they're guard equipped with planes because theyre drawn from PDF equipped with planes.

I like the idea of a hidden vault filled with Malacador tanks, and it's found by accident when shit hits the fan.

Better-equipped PDF have IG vehicles like Leman Russ', Chimeras, etc..

The more backwards planets would have to make due with their own local stuff.

Keep in mind there are backwater feudal/feral PDF's equipped with spears/shields, chariots, etc..

The PDF guys in Necropolis are equipped the exact same as the guard regiments. The PDF in Straight Silver have bolt action rifles and locally built WWI tanks.

It depends on the planet.

The old Vraks source material might be a pretty good reference, since most of the chaos there were PDF turned bad. Still using all the equipment they already had on hand though, just supplemented with chaos stuff.

>The Cadian interior guard are a PDF and are pretty damn professional.
cadia is kind of a special case though, there's not much distinction there between the IG and PDF. Probably not a great example case for more general use.

depends on the planet

if it's rich and populous, they'll have plenty of equipment, but they'll tithe regiments more regularly

if it's a manufacturing world, they'll have plenty

if it's a closely-affiliated world to a local Forge World, they'll have... strange stuff in addition to probably being quite well off, and may have a standing force of indentured Knights

if it's poor they'll have whatever Terra thinks they should have; that might be anything from Home Guard-style regiments of non-combatants as a token force to get the paperwork done, or layer upon layer of defenders in the Cadian style, with more brought in from outside to surround the system etc

generally, Guard regiments are as different as they are in style and equipment because they're tithed from different planets; the basic Cadian-pattern equipment goes to most of them, some produce their own or have different local Forge Worlds with variants, etc

tithing manpower in this sense simply means taking a pre-existing regiment of the local PDF and inducting it in whole into the Astra Militarum (as opposed to what we might loosely term the Mundos Militarum), so for worlds like Cadia, Tallarn, etc you already know what the best-equipped local regiments use, as the only difference is that they'd have no access to major fleet support, other regiments to support (no Mordians on Catacha etc) with specialists, or the tender love and care of the Commissariat for morale purposes

>this would prove... the average

Something around there, yes; but average is just what's in the middle.

Vraks is a bad example except if we're talking about heavily fortified worlds, as it was already being used as a distribution hub for the guard.

Vraks' excuse for bringing them back into service.

I like to think some outer rim PDFs on the outer rim of the galaxy still use gear from around the time of the DAOT, but don't/can't recognize the importance/rarity of the the tech they possess

Does the PDF have any artillery?

see

Theoretically, a Governor with a super important planet and a shitload of resources could have a "PDF" that outstrips most Guard units and could potentially even have a local Chapter keep some Marines on planet or at least in the system in case something goes wrong.

Also some planets are of such warrior caliber that they just straight up raise Guard units and don't bother with a PDF, such as Armageddon.

PDF probably has more divergent and second tier equipment than Guard. Some high-tech planets probably have better. Guard is standardized to specific specs. Vehicles and heavy weapons are usually provided by the Munitorum while planets only need to provide trained soldiers with basic equipment (adherent to the standards the Guard provides). So locally produced vehicles might not always make it to service with the regiments.

Just like Guard regiments it depends.

They are generally inferior to the Guard but some may use the Leman Russ while other use indigenous tank designs. Some will use Chimeras while other use softback trucks to carry troops around.