Or, to put it another way, the Imperium of Man's abysmal transportation situation determined that it did not have enough capacity to arm all of the Astra Militarum to the teeth, nor could it deliver the armed Astra Militarum to where they were most needed in a timely manner, and deliver their most needed military supplies to their hands.
A transport ship might have to traverse a dozen star systems to deliver a box of Lasgun batteries to front-line troops.
The Imperium of Man's supplies were always insufficient, and quartermasters withholding or delaying supplies based on their mood was already part of the Imperium of Man's military logistics supply system.
From the Department of Military Affairs to the company quartermaster, every link in the chain would take its cut, and by the time supplies actually reached the soldiers, it was often only a third of the requested amount.
As for the Astartes… Astartes equipment types are only more numerous, production cycles are longer, and requirements are stricter.
A set of Power Armor requires hundreds of processes, each needing to be consecrated by a Tech-Priest. The assembly time for one Bolter is enough for a Hive City factory to produce hundreds of Lasguns.
However, fortunately, Astartes are very special to the Imperium of Man; their military supply is basically guaranteed.
After all, every Space Marine is the Emperor's Angel of Death, a precious war asset worth as much as a cruiser.
Unless you are a Chapter that has offended the High Lords of Terra or other influential departments of the Imperium of Man, you generally won't encounter situations where military supplies are withheld.
Even the most disfavored Chapters have a supply priority far higher than regular Astra Militarum units.
Especially for most Astartes Chapters, they can trade directly with the Adeptus Mechanicus to obtain supplies and various materials they need, including Gene-Seed.
Many ancient Chapters maintain millennia-long alliances with specific Forge Worlds, and this deep cooperative bond allows them to consistently acquire excellent weaponry.
For example, the Iron Hands Chapter and the Mars Forge World have had close ties for ten thousand years, while the Blood Angels Chapter has established its own military-industrial system in the Baal system.
Not to mention, many Chapters possess the ability to produce their own weapons and equipment, and are not overly reliant on the Imperium of Man for military supplies.
However, for Alex and his team, the problem was viewed differently.
They had neither the millennia-long cooperative relationship of traditional Chapters with the Adeptus Mechanicus nor a complete independent production capacity, yet they faced more complex equipment demands than traditional Chapters.
"The Ash Knights have expanded to three thousand men in the past decade. Although they are all new recruits, at this rate, I have no doubt they can achieve their goal of expanding to thirty thousand in the next twenty years," Alex told 32, his finger lightly tapping the Chapter organization chart on the data pad.
The information he referred to was from a recent report, personally submitted to Alex by Chapter Master Shi Dong.
This encrypted report detailed the success rate of Chapter recruit modifications and the current equipment shortfall list for each company—from Power Armor and Bolters to heavy vehicles, each item marked with precise demand figures, and this list continued to grow with the constant influx of new recruits.
"Three thousand men means at least over twenty-five hundred sets of Astartes equipment. Where am I supposed to conjure up that much equipment for you?" 32's face turned green when she heard the number, the aperture of her mechanical bionic eye contracting violently.
Rostov III's production capacity was very limited; it could only assemble about 10 sets of Astartes equipment per year, and that didn't even include Terminator Armor or lost technology from the 30K era.
Just the basic equipment needs for these three thousand men would keep her Forging factories busy for two and a half centuries.
It should be noted that while the Primaris weaponry they were now producing was considerably larger than the original Astartes armaments, these Primaris weapons and equipment actually had lower production costs due to Archmagos Belisarius Cawl's ten millennia of design iterations.
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