What makes the PDF inferior to the Imperial Guard, generally speaking?
The reason I ask is because I'm thinking of making a homebrew PDF regiment for Only War that gets drafted into the Imperial Guard. They'd be a small, decently-funded aerial cavalry PDF like the American's helicopter infantry in Vietnam, only with Valkyries.
Imperial Guard regiments see much more large scale shitfests which comparatively makes them a more trained and veteran force.
The PDF is meant as a speedbump to hold the enemy off until real armies arrive. They aren't meant to win the war alone. If they did, good for them, though.
The Imperial Guard is made of the best of the PDF. IG also has better training, more combat experience and morale than PDF. Don't know about equipment.
>>44512150
>>44512356
Ah,thanks.
I'm thinking of making my guys act like the early Coast Guard, basically patrolling the planet's civilized areas to combat smuggling and perform search and rescue. So that when shit hits the fan they really aren't ready for it.
Don't the PDF get like Guard Surplus and stuff?
>>44512079
Consider looking at things like ww2 britains Homeguard and other things like it.
Basically the guard is regulated, it needs to reach a standard. the PDF is not, the PDF is there to hold the line againts things the guard would be overkill against, like civilian uprisings. Gretchin, riots, small cults, civilians.
They get as much as the local gouverment wants to pay, which generally is bare minimum because if anything serious happens the guard will have to sweep in anyhow.
Or the local Arbites.
>>44513200
Bwa! If they are very, very, lucky indeed.
I can see lasguns being the standard weapon because its a damn lasgun, but imagen an *army* where the main rifle, fire support, anti-tank weapon and transport is all filed under "lasgun".
Its just a hell of a lot cheaper then actually giving the fucks anything decent.
>>44513324
Ofcourse, the same thing goes in the other direction. The PDF from an industrial powerhouse would be very, very, different from that of an agri-world.
The main thing is: Unregulated and generally not expected to carry any sort of war effort
>>44513409
Isn't it more like they're expected to carry on serious war efforts so that there's still something for the Guard to save?
>>44513542
They are not expected to win.
They are most likely not expected even do well.
They are expected to not fold like wet paper right away, anything else and thats a bonus.
Thats not carrying a war effort.
>>44513659
What do you call the Battle of Britain and the Invasion of Russia/
>>44513723
An aerial conflict with a ridiculous followup invasion plan and a horrifying nightmare that rivals the trench war, respectively
>>44513723
If you want a better analog to the pdf that took an active role in ww2 go look up the Volksturm.
I used the British homeguard as an example simply because of how preposterous some of their weapons where (Blacker Bombard, anyone?) compared to the regular infantry forces.
The Imperium doesn't want the PDF to bee too good, as that makes it a tool for potential rebel governors.
Imperial Guard
-Uniform equipment
-Minimum standard of training
-Comparatively high amount of experience fighting non-human enemies
-Highly variant equipment
-Highly variant standard of training
-Mostly there to put down ill-equipped human enemies
>>44512079
The main thing is the PDF are usually the soldiers that weren't good enough to be drafted into the Guard. They're usually poorly equipped (in quality and quantity) poorly trained (training costs money) and poorly led (since the best commanders would go with the best soldiers into the guard.)
That isn't to say that there aren't some very good PDF forces. Worlds with higher industrial capacity will be able to create PDF regiments with the equipment that some Guard regiments would envy.
If you want your PDF to be well trained, well equipped badasses. Thats fine it might be that the tithing for the guard hasn't happened for a little while and your PDF Regiment is the best on the planet.
Everyone is correct in saying that the main purpose of a PDF is to deal with local issues such as riots that the Arbites can't handle alone, rebels and alien incursions. Should the fight be too hard for the PDF to handle the Governor would contact the Imperium to ask for the Guard to help.
They might be dregs, poorly equipped and so on but they are supposed to be able to defend their homeworld.
>>44512079
>What makes the PDF inferior to the Imperial Guard, generally speaking?
It's the same thing that makes the bottom 90% of Marines in a USMC platoon inferior to the top 10% Marines in the same platoon.
>>44514207
Are you sure?
>>44514234
Yes, I am sure inferiority is what makes inferior things inferior. Positive, in fact.
