Editing Nobledark Imperium Imperial Forces (section)

=== Imperial Infantry Command Structure ===

As the Imperial Guard does not prescribe specific organizational arrangements for anything below battalion level, the vastly different cultures and traditions that exist across the Imperium change the size of the smaller units as they see fit. Terra does set minimum sizes on how large units must be before the unit can be recognized as aforementioned self-declared units by the wider Imperial Guard, however. 

The lowest level of the Imperial Guard is the squad size. Guardsmen often operate in pairs for specialized tasks to keep confusion as low as possible between other in the same squad. The smallest recognized size for these squads is 10 soldiers per squad, further broken into 5 pairs, although a command squad might only have 6 men. At least 4 squads form a platoon, with one squad being a command squad, bringing the total number of men in platoon to at least 36 Guardsmen. Some battalions, like the Kriegers, assign 7 squads to a platoon, bringing their platoon size to 76 Guardsmen.

Eldar squads attached to Guardsman platoons come in the smallest size of 5 Eldar per squad, but their size can be bigger depending on their world of origin. Notably, Maiden world Eldar tends to be organized into larger sizes as they experience more attacks on their homes compared to the Craftworlds. 

For the platoons to form into a company there must be at least 4 platoons with a company command squad, thus bringing the number to at least 150 men. Again, these numbers vary; Cadian Shock Troops often deploy around 300 per company, whereas the Kriegers use 10 platoons per company then adding the Company HQ with at least 1 Grenadier squad totalling in at least 704 Guardsmen, not counting transports which they are often deployed with.

The smallest size battalion uses at least 2 companies and battalion HQ before being deployed, bringing the numbers to 306 Guardsmen per battalion. The expected regiment holds at least 3 battalions and 1 support platoon, which have 7 squads and 1 HQ, totalling to 1000 men. More often than not, regiments like the Vostroyans use 3 infantry battalions and 2 standardized (organized not by 7 squad and HQ but like the infantry 3 squad with 1 HQ) support battalions coming up to 1,536 men. The Krieger regiments far exceed these expectations by using 4 standardized support battalions and 6 infantry battalions, boosting their numbers to 14,146 men including the regimental HQ.

The corps used to garrison a world often use the smallest size, with only 5 regiments totalling to at least 5,000 Guardsmen, and these troops are used more to raise PDF than to actually keep the peace. If there are still insurgents who disrupt the peace and do not accept the Imperial Truth, these garrison corps can double or triple in regiments. This puts the tripled corps from at least a small 15,000 to a gigantic 200,000 Guardsmen. The PDF used to aid the garrison corps may number from around a low 400,000 up to millions at a time on heavily populated planets like on hive worlds. 

In more peaceful systems, the lax Guardsmen armies deployed to ‘guard’ the place would only be using the tinniest size, thus only have 20,000 on-paper Guardsmen at any one time, with a majority of the corps in reserve. In the more active systems, particularly garrisoning systems not too far from a front, the numbers would go up to around 40,000 to 60,000 troops at any given time. When the Imperial Guard does deploy an army to the frontline the commanders always request at least 100,000 soldiers for the more daring, but preferentially use 180,000 men if they are fortunate enough that they can requisition such numbers.

 - Additional info in thread XI, including number of troops in each Segmentum. Actual number of troops never agreed upon, left here as placeholder.