The icon of the Imperial Fleet
The Imperial Fleet is the name given to the entirety of all faster-than-light capable voidships controlled directly or regulated by the Adeptus Terra and includes almost every voidship active in the Imperium of Man.
The Imperial Fleet is divided into three distinct branches -- the segmentum and sector battlefleets of the Navis Imperialis, the merchant fleets and the civil fleets. The Navigators of the Navis Nobilite are also officially considered to fall under the administration of the Imperial Fleet though their de facto political power and great wealth provides them with influence among many other Imperial adepta.
The few vessels that are not formally a part of the Imperial Fleet instead belong to either the Adeptus Mechanicus, the Adeptus Astartes, the commercial dynasties of the Rogue Traders, the Inquisition and its various Chamber Militants, or a small number of honoured and ancient merchant families. Within the labyrinthine bureaucracy of the Imperium, the Imperial Fleet's various components are considered to be under the formal command of the Adeptus Administratum, particularly those vessels that do not belong to the Imperial Navy.
The Imperial Fleet's three divisions, civil and military alike, are each administratively divided between the five Segmentae Majoris that comprise Imperial space, and the command headquarters for each is based within that segmentum's Segmentum Fortress.
Each segmentum has its own merchant, civil and Imperial Navy battlefleets -- for example, the Battlefleet Solar is the total of all Imperial Navy warships assigned to the Segmentum Solar, while the Merchant Pacificus is the total of all voidships in the merchant fleet of the Segmentum Pacificus, etc. The Imperial Navy rarely if ever gathers the entire battlefleet of a segmentum; rather the naval vessels within a segmentum are firther divided into battlefleets which operate at the sector level in almost all instances.
Imperial Fleet Segmentum Headquarters[]
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The icon of the Navis Imperialis
The Navis Imperialis, better known as the Imperial Navy in Low Gothic, is one of the primary armed forces of the Imperium of Man.
While the Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard) represents the Imperium's ground forces, the Imperial Navy is responsible for the fleets of starships that maintain order between the stars and planets in the Imperium, for all space and air support provided to the infantry of the Astra Militarum through its Aeronautica Imperialis branch, and for transporting those Guardsmen across the galaxy to the Imperium's myriad warzones.
The battlefleets of the Imperial Navy are constantly engaging threats both inside and outside the Imperium's borders.
In ancient times, during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy eras, the Imperial Navy was not an independent armed force of its own but was considered a part of the greater Imperial Army and was known as the Armada Imperialis. Its vessels were dedicated to the defence of Imperial space and strategic Warp routes. This was opposed to the fleets of warships assigned to the service of the Legiones Astartes, who were used for the planetary assaults that occupied the bulk of the Great Crusade.
After the horrors of the Horus Heresy, during the Imperial reformation overseen at the start of the Time of Rebirth by the Primarch Roboute Guilliman, the Imperial Army's fleet component was reestablished as a separate and rival service. This was done to weaken the Imperial armed forces in case of the outbreak of a future rebellion against the Emperor's rule. The Imperial Navy is today largely divided into the five major battlefleets which serve each of the Segmentae Majoris from their Segmentum Fortresses, though the largest actual formation that ever sees service are the individual sector battlefleets.
Merchant Fleets[]
The merchant fleets of the Imperium of Man are the commercial component of what is collectively known as the Imperial Fleet. The commercial voidcraft of the Imperium, most of which are commanded by the Chartist Captains who possess a Merchant Charter, make up approximately 90% of all the voidcraft with interstellar capabilities in Human-controlled space.
Each of the merchant fleets, much like the Imperial Navy's battlefleets, are based in one of the five Segmentae Majoris that comprise the primary administrative units of the Imperium. The segmentum's fleet commanders and their administrative staffs are based at the respective Segmentum Fortresses. For example, the Segmentum Solar fleet is based on Mars, whilst the fleet of the northern zone -- the Segmentum Obscurus -- is based on Cypra Mundi.
While these fleet bases are massive orbiting void stations that usually maintain gigantic complexes of orbiting docks, shipyards and starship repair facilities, their primary function is to maintain bureaucratic control over both the military and civilian starships operating within their segmentum of control. In reality, of course, only a vanishing fraction of the starships assigned to a given segmentum's merchant fleet ever actually travels to its Segmentum Fortress.
The overall headquarters of the merchant fleets was located at the Nexus Axiomatic fortress on Terra. Within the Nexus Axiomatic could be found the nigh-mythical Magisters Calculo Horarium, genetically and cybernetically-modified Human members of the merchant fleets. Many of them were so badly deformed, mutated or genetically-altered that they subsisted only with the aid of life-support vats. It was their duty to carry out the monumental calculations required to coordinate shipping traffic across the Imperium.
Civil Fleets[]
The civil fleets comprise all of the privately-owned civilian voidships of the Imperium of Man, granted the right to operate along commercial or passanger transit routes defined by the Imperial authorities. The civil fleets are considered a part of the overall Imperial Fleet by the Adeptus Terra.
Although the vast majority of the faster-than-light-capable voidcraft of the Imperium are actually part of the merchant fleets, there remain several thousand other civilian voidships in the Imperium that are owned and registered by private individuals, small-time traders, Highborn families, corporations or other commercial cartels. All such privately-owned, interstellar-capable voidships must operate only along Warp routes licensed and approved by the Imperial Fleet authorities, usually bureaucrats of the Adeptus Administratum who are responsible for regulating all shipping and transport within a given segmentum of the Imperium.
Other Imperial Fleets[]
Adeptus Astartes[]
Each Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes maintains its own, separate Chapter fleet of military vessels and transports, which by the dictates of the Codex Astartes and the limitations placed upon the Astartes by the High Lords of Terra during the reformation of the Imperium after the Horus Heresy in the Time of Rebirth, is supposed to be focused on intra-system transports and planetary assault.
By tradition, only the Space Marines' smaller voidcraft are purposely designed to serve as gunships that are optimised for naval warfare and fleet actions. There are some Chapters that that have always railed against these restrictions, especially those that spend all of their time on crusade or who possess no homeworld or fortress-monastery save for their fleet.
These Chapters usually ignore these ancient restrictions and as a result often come into political conflict with the Imperial Navy, which fears seeing its monopoly on ship-to-ship combat eroded by the far more capable fleets of the Adeptus Astartes.
Rather than making use of very tightly-defined classes of starships like the Imperial Navy, most Chapters define their voidcraft by a far broader classification system that is defined by utility, with some of the few exceptions like the Imperial Fists' Phalanx being themselves ancient relics of the Great Crusade or unique Human-built warships left over from the Dark Age of Technology or captured as prizes from other species and converted to the Chapter's use.
The battle barge is the largest and most powerful type of Space Marine starship ever constructed by the Imperium of Man, and few but the most potent Chapters possess more than 2 or 3 of these extraordinarily powerful warships. Battle barges are equivalent in size and firepower to Imperial Navy battleships and were designed first and foremost for survivability under the heaviest forms of enemy fire -- a necessary trait when spearheading a planetary invasion, the Astartes' most common form of military operation requiring such a vessel.
Battle barge designs back up this incredible durability with massive if usually short-range firepower to aid the Astartes in their assault operations, along with a substantial number of launch bays for Thunderhawks, other attack craft and Drop Pods. Because of the incredible durability of their armour and Void Shielding, as well as their massive arsenals of the Imperium's most powerful weapons, few known starships, save for full-scale battleships, can stand up to a battle barge in close-action void combat. Thanks to the Space Marines aboard one, a battle barge is an even more terrifying opponent during a ship-to-ship boarding operation.
In addition to the battle barge, the strike cruiser is the most common type of heavy warship in Space Marine Chapter fleets. Strike cruisers are high-speed rapid response cruisers, intended for use in planetary assault and pacification operations. Strike cruisers are able to carry a company-sized strike force of Astartes to a combat zone and deploy them with preternatural rapidity.
The last common type of starship found in Space Marine fleets are rapid strike vessels. These warships are small, Warp-capable escorts that include attack craft, frigates and destroyers which serve as both line-of-battle escorts for capital ships and system patrol vessels as well as infiltration ships that can be used to deploy small groups of elite Astartes behind enemy lines for a reconnaissance in force or hit-and-run raiding missions.
In addition to these more common types of Space Marine warships, fleet-based Chapters often make use of a number of other support vessels such as scout-surveyors, Adeptus Mechanicus Forge Ships and the massive, mobile fortress-monasteries known as Chapter Barques (often created from converted mass-conveyors normally used by Imperial merchants for the mass hauling of cargo between star systems). Chapter Barques allow a fleet-based Chapter to avoid risking their precious stores of gene-seed and other irreplaceable artefacts and relics on the frontline of battle or crusade.
Fleet-based Chapters also make use of vessels called vanguard cruisers that are refitted strike cruisers intended to undertake long-range, long-duration operations independent of support from the rest of the Chapter, often serving as reconaissance or exploratory vessels for the Chapter fleet or as heavy escorts.
Vanguard cruisers are less capable of undertaking planetary assaults like normal strike cruisers because their weapons profile has been optimised for ship-to-ship combat, planetary exploration, reconaissance and boarding operations.
Adeptus Arbites[]
The Arbitrators of the Adeptus Arbites maintain a small, private fleet of FTL-capable patrol craft and counter-insurgency vessels, most notable of which is the Punisher-class Strike Cruiser. The Arbites fleet also operates logistical vessels, transports, and other support craft.
Adeptus Astra Telepathica[]
In conjunction with the Inquisition and the Sisters of Silence, the Adeptus Astra Telepathica maintains the independent and secretive League of Blackships whose purpose is to collect the tithe of psykers from every world of the Imperium. These cargoes of Human misery are then delivered to Terra to be sacrificed to the Emperor's need to maintain the Astronomican or to be trained as Sanctioned Psykers if they prove to have a strong enough will.
Adeptus Mechanicus Basilikon Astra[]
The void fleet of the Adeptus Mechanicus is officially known as the Basilikon Astra. The Adeptus Mechanicus maintains this fleet independent of the larger Imperial Navy, while also building and maintaining all of the military and civilian voidships of the wider Imperium at its Forge Worlds and other orbital shipyards across the galaxy.
The fleets of the Adeptus Mechanicus are composed of types of vessel found in other Imperial fleets as well as more unique vessels, such as the near-legendary Ark Mechanicus. A Mechanicus fleet is usually commanded by a Tech-priest with the rank of Archmagos Explorator if it has been assigned Explorator duties or an Archmagos Veneratus for other missions.
Adeptus Ministorum[]
The Imperium's powerful state church, the Adeptus Ministorum or Ecclesiarchy, operates its own exclusive armed voidships such as the Missionary Vessels used to spread the Imperial Creed by Imperial missionaries of the Missionarus Galaxia. In addition, the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas, which serves as the armed forces of the Ecclesiarchy, maintains its own warships such as a small fleet of Dauntless-class Light Cruisers so that the Sisters of Battle can make their way around the galaxy as they are needed.
Rogue Traders[]
The dynasties of the Rogue Traders usually maintain their own voidcraft or even fleets of voidcraft. Rogue Traders vessels come in a multitude of classes and sizes and can even influde refit xenos vessels. Most Rogue Trader vessels are rarely larger than cruisers in size, however.
Inquisition[]
The Inquisition has the legal authority to requisition any voidship of the Imperial Navy or any other Imperial organisation on demand. However, they also maintain small fleets of their own, including Inquisitorial Black Ships, their own grade of strike cruisers known as Inquisitorial Cruisers and the Grey Knights Strike Cruisers of the Ordo Malleus' Chamber Militant.
Sources[]
- Battlefleet Gothic - Vessels of Mars: Ships of the Adeptus Mechanicus (Specialty Game)
- Battlefleet Gothic Rulebook (Specialty Game), pg. 86
- The Horus Heresy: Book Three (Forge World Series) by Alan Bligh, pp. 204-205
- Rogue Trader: Battlefleet Koronus (RPG), pp. 22, 27
- Warhammer 40,000: Rulebook (6th Edition), pg. 139
- White Dwarf 139, "Interstellar Travel", pp. 17-18
- White Dwarf 140, "Interstellar Travel", pp. 50-54