How many ships does the imperium have

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Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now. I just want to know if these numbers are believable. Ive worked this out by using information from 7th edition Tyranid Codex pg23 that says splinter fleets can be between a few dozen to a few hundred bioships also on page 17 it says there can be as few as 12 hiveships or bioships in a splinter fleet. Using the fleet information from the Battlefleet Gothic Armada supplement book that says for every hive Ship you can have up to 2 cruisers and between escorts then a small splinter fleet with a dozen bioships will only have one hive ship and around 12 other ships and the larger splinter fleets will have up to 12 hiveships and a hundred or so other ships bioships , this keeps in line with the Codex so far.

Using information from the attack on Iyanden Craftworld, hivefleet Kraken attacked in around 7 waves plus one that attacked Ichar if I assume a wave equals to the size of a large splinter fleet then I can multiply bioships by the number of waves 8 in total to get bioships in total.

The numbers that I am going to state here are the minimalist amounts of ships in the Imperium of mans Imperial Navy, I have deliberately attempted to make the size of the whole fleet as small as reasonably possible. There are ships in the whole Imperial Navy are Battleships, Cruisers and Escorts. There are many ways of looking at this but the most prominent way people tend to use is to work out the amount of Sectors in the IOM then multiply the known sizes of Sector Battlefleets.

So here goes, assuming there are only 1 million imperial worlds in the Imperium of Man, excluding Mechanicum worlds and Worlds without civilians on and so forth. According to the Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook pg.. These vessels are precious assets of the Imperium and are carefully husbanded, usually employed in only the larger fleet formations and the most critical engagements.

For the Imperial Navy officer class admirals, captains, commanders, first lieutenants, etc. Lower-class bridge officers and chief petty officers would have fairly large, moderately luxurious quarters, and the armsmen, mid-class crewmen and petty officers would all have decent accommodation, generally consisting of a sleeping area, chemical toilet and storage locker.

However, the bottom-class enlisted conscripts and slave ratings would have little more than a flea-infested sleeping pallet and a single toilet shared between ten ratings. Grand Cruisers are smaller than Battleships, yet larger than Cruisers. These vessels are usually much older in design and do not incorporate many of the features that are typical in the more current classes of Imperial Navy vessels, like the armoured prow, and are not quite compatible with current Imperial Navy tactical doctrine.

As such, many are retired from active duty, but are still used by the Imperial Navy's reserve fleets. The Avenger -class, with its powerful broadside firepower, is one such example of a Grand Cruiser. There are also some modernised versions of Grand Cruisers in active service, but since these are much larger and more heavily-armed than their predecessors, they are more often classed at present as Battleships.

These kinds of vessels are usually purpose-built or modified from Battlecruiser hulls and are not commonly encountered in the Imperial Navy. Cruisers make up the majority of an Imperial Navy fleet. Though not as powerful as a Battleship, Cruisers are much faster and can still deliver a deadly blow. There are multiple classes of Cruiser, most based on the same general hull design but incorporating different combinations of broadside batteries, Lance turrets and Attack Craft hangars.

Examples include the all-round, ubiquitous Lunar -class, the Gothic -class with its powerful Lances and the Dictator -class Attack Craft carrier. Cruisers can carry a crew complement of anywhere between 10, and 1,, crewmen including Imperial Navy armsmen and military police squads , depending on the sources consulted.

While Cruisers are still particularly technologically complex, it is not uncommon for them to be constructed on smaller Forge Worlds or any Civilised World that has an orbital shipyard suitable for constructing vessels of their large size. A note on Imperial warship classes: while naval warships can be defined along a fairly limited number of classes based on weapon configurations approved by the Adeptus Mechanicus, the physical form these vessels take varies widely throughout the Imperium.

For example, a Lunar -class Cruiser constructed above Cypra Mundi in the Segmentum Obscurus may bear little resemblance to a Lunar -class Cruiser constructed above Kar Durniash in the Ultima Segmentum and even less so to a Lunar constructed among the vast shipyards of Mars ' Ring of Iron.

Nonetheless, they will all have roughly the same operating characteristics and weapons configuration, and thus can be easily serviced by any orbital facility throughout Imperial space. Note there are also classes of Battlecruisers. Although based on a hull-design that is similar to the regular Cruiser types, these starships are generally somewhat larger and more heavily armed, incorporating more advanced power distribution systems capable of supporting Battleship-grade weaponry in a Cruiser hull.

A notable example is the Mars -class Battlecruiser, with its fighter bays, broadside batteries, dorsal Lance turrets and an immense, prow-mounted Nova Cannon capable of attacking targets at extremely long range. A subset of the Cruiser type is the Light Cruiser. These warships fall in size between Cruisers and Escorts, mixing the firepower and durability of the former with the speed and manoeuvrability of the latter.

Extremely self-sufficient, it is fast and has enough firepower to be a threat to Escorts and larger capital ships alike. There are other classes of Light Cruiser in common use in the Imperial Navy, most notably the Endeavour -class, which serves in varied forms and hull types throughout the Imperium.

Light Cruisers are a fairly common warship class, for they are relatively simple to construct for a capital ship, and they are uniquely suited for reconnaissance patrols and for ensuring a presence where their speed and manoeuvrability are an advantage, and where having a larger number of smaller hulls allows the Imperial Navy to monitor a wider area of space.

Ironclads, much like their contemporary Imperial Navy counterparts, the Battleships, are vast, 8-kilometre-long vessels which lack the Void Shielding of their Battleship counterparts in favour of metres of adamantium plate armour. These warships, built before the advent of Void Shield technology, have since been phased out of production by the Imperium to be replaced by more modern designs.

However, those remaining in service have been recommissioned for a variety of purposes; various pattern Ironclads may be retrofitted with a gargantuan, ship-, station- and even planet-killer cannon running the entire length of the ship's keel, linked directly to the stern fusion reactors; others may simply be braced and reinforced for the purpose of ramming into -- and through -- enemy vessels.

These starships are rare in the Imperial Navy, due to their archaic design and the lack of facilities still capable of repairing them at existing Forge Worlds, let alone manufacturing new ones.

Escort ships are the smallest type of warship in the Imperial Navy's fleets, found in two distinct sub-classes. The larger of the two sub-classes of Escorts are Frigates, which are better armed and more heavily armoured than other Escorts.

Destroyers are generally smaller than Frigates, but they are by far the fastest and most manoeuvrable interstellar warships employed by the Imperial Navy. They are usually organised in squadrons of 2 to 6 vessels and will always operate as a group or "wolf pack. They are also employed behind the gun line to finish off enemy Cruisers that have been damaged so that the larger vessels can concentrate on the most dangerous capital ship threats in an enemy formation.

Most Escort classes specialise in a certain role, such as the Cobra -class torpedo boat Destroyers or the Firestorm -class Frigate with its armour-piercing prow-mounted Lance.

Escorts are normally not more than 1. See Also: Imperial Navy Hierarchy. An Imperial Navy Captain. Commissioned officers represent the highest ranks of the Imperial Navy personnel and their commissions usually can only be granted by the Battlefleet Administratum. Warrant Officers also known in some quarters by the archaic term "Petty Officers" act as the equivalent of non-commissioned officers like Sergeants and Corporals in planet-bound Imperial Guard regiments.

They disseminate orders from higher authority, ensure that those orders are carried out by the rank and file of enlisted ratings and maintain discipline with regular floggings. They are called Warrant Officers because their rank is created through the issue of a written warrant from either fleet administration or the captain of their warship. Warrant Officers occupy positions of trust on the ship and a Captain with even the most mutinous of crews can keep the ship running as long as he can rely on his Warrant Officers.

It is common practice in the Imperial Navy to promote Warrant Officers from among the ratings already on board a warship, but large numbers of warrants are also issued to civilised worlds as part of their Imperial tithe of experienced personnel for the Emperor's military, often with a promise of reward to entice skilled individuals.

Ratings are the basic enlisted voidsmen aboard a warship that take care of the menial tasks; hauling shells and missiles, re-routing cables, clearing debris and conducting basic maintenance. Men and women in this class typically have a myriad of sub-classifications ratings that specify their role further, e.

Ratings make up the great bulk of the starship's crew and will be the ones doing most of the fighting during boarding actions. Contrary to popular belief, many Imperial Navy Ratings are volunteers, for the pay is good and the conditions are better than those on many Imperial worlds. If there are not enough volunteers to fulfill a Captain's requirements he or she always has the right to send Press Gangs to tithe more crew directly from any planet along the way, which may include penal colonies or hab-blocks.

In practice, this is often achieved through collusion with the local Planetary Governor , but an Imperial Navy Captain does not need civilian permission to take crew from any world.

Indentured Deck Gang loading munitions into a Macrocannon. Indentured or slave workers are those unfortunate individuals who rank even below enlisted personnel on a warship and are press-ganged from a world's slums or taken en masse from penal colonies for their ability to perform unskilled hard labour.

They are given duties such as hauling guns into position, turning flywheels, and carrying supplies, heavy equipment, and Macrocannon shells. Most ships must replenish their crews of indentured workers every so often, as a steady stream die to malnutrition, accidents and disciplinary actions. Many Imperial Navy capital ships of Cruiser-class size and above are capable of carrying squadrons of Attack Craft like starfighters and starbombers.

These are used in a variety of roles, from small fighters providing defence against torpedo attacks, to heavy bombers packing anti-starship ordnance.

The largest Imperial Battleships and Heavy Cruisers are known to have launch bays capable of carrying up to fighter craft, bombers and dropships. The Fury Interceptor is the most common starfighter used by the Imperial Navy for space combat.

With some variants reaching 60 to 70 metres in length, the more common patterns of the Fury are significantly larger than most fighters designed for atmospheric operations, and it carries a three-man crew, including a pilot, navigator and gunner. On occasion, an Astropath psyker will also be aboard, to provide greater communications capability. The Fury's reinforced hull contains an extensive network of circuitry and life-support systems, and even has a small chemical toilet and sleeping compartment for the crew.

Furies are normally equipped with multiple forward-firing banks of Lascannons and anti-starfighter missiles. An average Attack Craft carrier can carry upwards of 1,, Furies although most will carry less as to increase their capacity to carry more Starhawks and atmospheric craft , split into fighter wings comprised of roughly 15 interceptors each.

Starhawk bombers are larger, slower spacecraft, designed to carry a heavy payload of Plasma Bombs and armour piercing missiles for use against enemy capital ships in the void.

Crewed by a pilot, co-pilot, Tech-priest plus Acolytes , various turret gunners and a logistics officer, a standard Starhawk features limited sleeping quarters, chemical toilets and even an automated medical unit inside its hull.

Armed with a multitude of short-range turret-mounted defence weapons used to fend off enemy starfighters, a lone Starhawk can wreak havoc among enemy fighter squadrons before swooping in to deliver a crippling missile strike on an enemy capital ship. On rare occasions, Starhawks can be modified to carry and launch a very small number of anti-starship torpedoes. A standard carrier warship can carry between 1,, Starhawks. As part of the post- Horus Heresy reorganisation of the Imperial military, all aviation capability and air support in the Imperial armed forces was assigned to the Imperial Navy's Aeronautica Imperialis subdivision.

No Astra Militarum regiment with the exception of the Phantine Air Corps and possibly others has access to aerospace or atmospheric fighter craft, and the assistance of the Imperial Navy is required when air support is needed for an Astra Militarum campaign.

For atmospheric fighter combat, the two workhorses of the Imperial Navy are the Lightning strike fighter and the Thunderbolt heavy fighter. The Lightning is the faster and more maneuverable of the two, but cannot carry as many weapons as the Thunderbolt, and has considerably lighter armour.

Lightnings are often used as reconnaissance aircraft and interceptors, while Thunderbolts are mainly assigned to an air superiority role. Both are equipped with vector-thrust capability. Marauder Bombers are huge aircraft, capable of carrying 6, kilograms of ordnance. Each Marauder possesses a massive bomb bay and missile racks along the wings, along with a pair of Lascannons and two pairs of Heavy Bolters for defence against enemy fighters.

Marauders were the Imperial Navy's original space-borne bomber craft before their replacement by the equally large, but more advanced and heavily-armed Starhawk bomber. The Marauder is also equipped with vector-thrust engines on some patterns, allowing them vertical take-off and landing capabilities. For close air support of ground units, the Imperial Navy has access to Valkyrie transports and the Vulture gunship.

These aircraft are not true flight craft, instead using vectored thrust to travel quickly at low altitudes. Unlike most Imperial Navy aircraft, they are sometimes directly assigned to specialised Imperial Guard regiments, such as the Elysian Drop Troopers. During boarding missions and for low-profile personnel movement, the Imperial Navy will deploy a spacecraft known as a pinnace.

Pinnaces are unarmed, deep-hulled spacecraft, capable of making an airtight space dock. Normally a pinnace is accompanied by a detail of Naval Security Armsmen dressed in grey and black body armour with their fleet symbol on their chest and gold braid edging their epaulettes. They have form-moulded ceramite helmets plus rebreathers, and are armed with compact, short-frame Autoguns , not powerful enough to pierce a starship's hull, but easily powerful enough to kill.

The troops of Naval Security are famed for their vigorous training and natural skill, second only to that of Imperial Guard Storm Troopers. Weapons batteries usually are the primary armament for most Imperial warships. Since each battery consists of numerous ranks of individual weapons, whole sections of the starship's hull can be covered by gun ports, launcher systems, turrets and weapon housings. These batteries fire in coordinated salvoes, to increase the chances to hit and the amount of damage done to a target.

Macro weaponry serves as the baseline starship weapons for Imperial warships. Ranks of large cannons or other weapons destroy their targets through powerful broadsides and volumes of fire. Types of Macrocannons used by Imperial warships include:. Lances are Imperial directed energy weapons of extreme power.

A Lance battery is, in essence, a gargantuan Lasgun , usually mounted in a large and heavily armoured turret. Thanks to the available energy from the ship's Plasma Reactor , a Lance can fire prolonged bursts instead of the short "shots" of man-portable las-weapons. Often, a bright shaft of coherent light connects the weapon to its target, hence the name "Lance".

Lances use triple or even quad-arranged energy projectors to focus their energy into a concentrated beam, capable of burning through even the most heavily armoured hulls and cutting smaller vessels in half. Lance batteries can be used to either apply sustained firepower to one precise location of a target, or, by slightly moving the projector, "rake" across its target.

Multiple batteries often combine these two firing modes, in the hope of overwhelming their target's Void Shields and inflicting massive damage. The many types of Lances include:. An Imperial Battleship fires a torpedo salvo.

Torpedoes are massive self-propelled ship-to-ship missiles. While expensive to maintain, these weapons possess considerable destructive potential, and many captains use an enemy's tendency to avoid torpedoes to dominate a battle, forcing enemies to move in particular directions. The most common forms of torpedo are over 60 metres long on Destroyers , metres long on Cruisers and metres long on Battleships and contain both a powerful warhead and a short-lived plasma reactor similar to, but less stable than those used by starships and Titans.

Each torpedo is built to accelerate quickly from its launching tube into the void, hurtling in a straight line towards the enemy. While many torpedoes are fired to deter enemy movement and thus may never strike, each individual weapon can do significant damage to a voidship, and thus are feared by many captains.

Guided by a crude and murderous Machine Spirit artificial intelligence and the calculations of a ship's Master of Ordnance, a torpedo uses basic Augury sensors to scan for the heat from plasma drives, a target silhouette, any electronic output, and even an enemy ship's mass to locate enemy vessels. Once the Machine Spirit acquires its target, powerful manoeuvring thrusters adjust the torpedo's course to intercept.

Unlike weapons batteries and Lances, torpedoes cannot be deflected by a ship's Void Shields -- most shields intercept incoming fire based on its speed. Torpedoes travel slowly enough relatively speaking that shields will not intercept them and they can pass through these powerful gravitic energy barriers unimpeded.

Upon impact, the forward momentum drives the torpedo's body deep into the vessel's structure before the warhead and plasma reactor both detonate, inflicting damage far greater than that of a single Lance strike or macrocannon shell. Nova Cannons are a classification of exceptionally powerful weaponry that can only be mounted upon capital ships. These extremely powerful weapons can easily wreak vast destruction upon enemy vessels at great range, but are inaccurate and require a stable vessel to fire effectively.

Mounted below the heavily armoured prows of Imperial Navy Cruisers and Battleships, Nova Cannons have few equals in terms of their range or destructive power. While variations exist, a typical Nova Cannon consists of an array of potent gravimetric impellers designed to accelerate a projectile to a fraction of the speed of light. Due to the lethal nature of their warheads, Nova Cannon shells are not armed for a fraction of a second after firing, allowing them to travel many tens of thousands of kilometres through the void before they become truly deadly.

These projectiles vary more than the nature of the cannons themselves, ranging from sophisticated plasma warheads which burn with the ferocity of a small star for a fraction of a second, to implosive devices which exert destructive gravitational forces upon all those caught within several thousand kilometres of the detonation.

In any case, a well-used Nova Cannon is a terrifying thing to face, as much a psychological tool as a weapon. The weapons, however, are often ill-favoured by the Imperial Navy, with most captains preferring to utilise the more traditional torpedoes. Those few who favour the weapon understand that it is difficult to use and often rendered useless at close ranges. Every Imperial Navy vessel is covered with defensive turrets that fire kinetic projectiles or energy pulses that are designed specifically to destroy incoming bombers and torpedoes.

Void Shields are protective barriers of gravitic or electrically-charged energy that allow all starships to survive the hostile environment that is the vacuum of space. Shields form an invisible band of energy around the vessel, a variable layer of force that can absorb radiation, interstellar dust, particle showers and weapons hits.

Shields have a maximum tolerance and can be overloaded by sustained weapons fire, forcing the generators to shut down temporarily to vent the excess kinetic or direct energy. Every spacefaring vessel is equipped with a certain amount of physical armour, capable of deflecting direct weapon impacts on the starship's hull.

The strength and thickness of the armour vary depending on the starship's size and type -- a tiny Escort ship will have a ribbed outer hull maybe a foot thick or less, while an 8-kilometre-long Imperial Battleship will have three separate, heavily reinforced adamantium hull layers, with a total thickness of dozens of metres.

Common amongst all the warships of the Imperial Navy, ranging from Frigate to Battleship size, is the armoured prow, which is massively reinforced and can be hundreds of metres thick on the largest ships as it is also used as a ram.

It is capable of deflecting all but the most powerful of strikes to a vessel's bow. Every Imperial starship is equipped with a fusion-based Plasma Drive for normal propulsion through the depths of space.

Running up to a third of the starship's length, the aft section is a mass of drive tubes, engine compartments and plasma reactors. Most Imperial Navy warships employ Warp-Drives to breach the barrier that separates realspace from the Immaterium and allow for interstellar travel. Implosion of these drives can lead to the creation of an unstable Warp rift, such as that which destroyed Hive Fleet Behemoth during the Battle of Macragge in the First Tyrannic War.

An ancient Space Hulk exits the Warp. Space Hulks are warped and often Chaos -ridden abandoned starships that have been fused together by the ethereal forces of the Warp.

The Ordo Malleus was at one time tracking individual Hulks, but many more are thought to exist throughout the galaxy.

The reason they form is currently unknown; however, some have hypothesised that these Hulks were formerly massive ships of varying sizes and origins that were lost during a Warp jump or Warpstorm at an undocumented point in time. Over time these ships would collide with other lost ships to form these Hulks, making them essentially a floating relic from ages long ago.

However, they constantly pose a threat to any star system where they re-enter realspace from the Warp due to their often hazardous cargo. Orks are known to frequent Space Hulks, as are Tyranid Genestealers. They are constantly being destroyed as they are found, due to the Forces of Chaos usually having an agent on board. However, it is not uncommon for Hulk Exploration Teams to never return from scouting the interior.

All Space Hulks are different, so no single type or size can be used as a basis for interior construction or modeling by the Imperial Navy for assault purposes.

Since Space Hulks can sometimes contain valuable archeotech or artefacts, they are often worth exploring for agents of the Imperium despite the inherent danger. Inquisitors are less likely to make demands of the Imperial Navy than they are of the Astra Militarum, but nonetheless, there are certain circumstances where this might come about.

The most obvious instance is transport. The Imperium is a vast realm, and travel between planets, even those in the same star system, is far from common. Should an Inquisitor require transport at short notice, they may find it necessary to requisition the services of the Imperial Navy.

In most cases, the vessel in question is likely to be one of the smallest of warship classes, such as a Frigate, for the larger capital vessels are dependent upon so many supporting arms that they are rarely able to respond to a request in sufficient time. A small Escort vessel might be made ready to make way within a solar hour of the Inquisitor demanding its services, while a Battleship could take many solar days to make ready and get underway.

An Inquisitor may not requisition the services of an Imperial Navy vessel on the basis of mere convenience. They might also require the presence that even the smallest of vessels can bring to bear on the worlds of the Imperium.

Even a Frigate is equipped with substantial firepower, and is able to bring it into play against any target on the surface of a world. Such support is extremely useful for an Inquisitorial cadre on the ground. As with the Imperial Guard, sometimes a secondment becomes a permanent arrangement.

This might be the case with Inquisitors whose investigations take them to many different planets.