Adeptus Ridiculous - US Army Veteran Reacts to Imperial Guard Tactics | Warhammer 40k Lore

Episode Date: August 31, 2022

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Welcome everyone to another episode of the Adeptus Ridiculous Podcast. My name is D.K. Diamantis. My co-host is Bricky, and our super special guest host today is Slap. But before we get into what he's going to be doing today, if you enjoy today's episode of the podcast, head over to patreon.com slash Adeptus Ridiculous, where you can support us and get access to the Discord, bloopers if they happen. Oh, hey, Bricky, we have a new poster. Did you know that? There it is. It is the toxic gamer poster featuring a, you know, a little, uh, hold, hold on.

I'm supposed to, I'm supposed to react to this, so I just close the tab one moment. Mm-hmm, give a go. Got to get your first reaction to this thing. Bro, what the fuck is that? That's classy. I feel like that is like the perfect gamer cave poster. Dovitos? Yeah, well, you can't put the actual name in because, you know, it's a, it's a lot of,

like in anime when they put in a Wack Donald's or something, you know? Do they have like a Doge Van Dyer hang in their poster in the backgrounds? Yeah, yeah they do. They sure do. Isn't that great? Isn't that great? You know, it would

actually, it would actually be classy if it wasn't for the fucking stomach. Well, it's a, what is that? The Great Unclean one that has the stomach mouth, usually? There's a shitload of fucking Nurgle things that have the stomach mouth. Oh.

Wait, wait, does he have a... Does it have a chewing, like cheek on the right side? Is it, like, munching? Yeah, it's totally eating some of the chips. Oh, my. There's clearly something in the mouth, like little particles. Oh, my God, dude. Who came up with this idea?

Oh, Shai sent me the work in progress, and I was just like, man, that's God tear. That's... Apparently, this is all Shai's idea. God damn it, dude. I can't I can't believe I'm going to have to actually fucking sell this and put this on a

on a goddamn website and start selling it as merch I still think this will be like if you have a gamer cave this is the poster to put in there with like one of those frames that has LED lights on it you think this is going to sell out in like a day

do you? Minutes. I don't know if we even have that that if we have that degenerative fans are you kidding okay well seconds but patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous 15 dollar tier you can get this thing in h fucking d hmm yeah so cool bricky tell them tell him about the other stuff that you're very proud of oh yeah okay uh we got merchandise it's at orchidate dot com you can get little guys Hoodies and shirts.

Pretty cool. It got some posters going on there. And you can also buy the... You can buy the newest toxic gamer poster, both with and without text. Yes. We'll sell a hundred of them, until then they're gone forever.

So get it while you can, fuckers. And we will... And then read Betrayer for your book club. All right. All right. D.K. Tell us about the man of the walls. The man in the walls are super special guest host today is Slap.

Say hello, Slap. Hi, Slap. God damn. I'm surrounded by it. Nice. I'm surrounded by it. Oh. But Slap, how, what's up?

Oh, you know, same old stuff, different day. Or as I've been saying lately, same thing. two different spoon. Excuse me. But yeah, I've just been living in my life, dude. How about you two? Okay. Pretty good.

But the reason you're here, you know the reason you're here, yes? Yeah, I do actually. Okay. I didn't study for this at all. Just making sure that she didn't just like drop this on your head. No, no, no, no. She made it clear.

And I started laughing immediately because she sent me the primer. and it looks for any military folk it looks exactly like our trade doc training pamphlet that they gave us a basic training so so why don't you tell people about your experience with the military because that's that's why you're here right because we want to see call vacations yeah yeah how close is it to like an actual thing in the military okay so um i joined the army in 2008, July of 2008, and I did eight years, got out in August of 2016, and that was only because of a one-month extension on one of my three deployments. I had enlisted as a human resource specialist at first and got really bored, really fast,

so I started looking for lateral mobility, and I became a fire support specialist to work with artillerymen. and then a new position opened up in the military, for at least in the Army, anyway, 2009, 2010 to become electronic warfare. So I shifted into that. And for anyone who's paying attention to like what those occupational specialties are, the 42 Alpha is the human resource, 13 Fox is the fire support specialist, and 29 Echo is the electronic warfare.

and I deployed once as a human resource and then twice as a 29 echo because they were in high demand. When you say electronic warfare, is that, like, can you explain a little bit more about what that specifically means?

My first thought says hacking, but that is also because I'm done. I was thinking like drones and stuff. No, no, no, no, no. It's actually not that far off. Electronic warfare, for what it's worth is, it's more of a supervisor role, more than anything, like an advisor,

as well, like we sit in on planning and stuff like that, but the idea is any military action that usually involves the use of electromagnetic energy, right, to determine, exploit, reduce, or prevent hostile use of said spectrum. So if anybody's using anything that would interfere with our signals, right, and utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum, we would either detect, divert, you know, neutralize, or bypass and it's funny because that's essentially what the job boils down to. I would get these threat loads and would load them into these machines. I'm trying not to be exceptionally specific for reasons.

But these things were really good as countermeasures. So things like a cell phone or a garage door opener, things that would be conveniently used to set off remote detonating devices, my boxes would intercept those signals and deny them from activated. So you were like jamming Hospital signals. Nice. It was a lot of that.

I was involved in a lot of planning. And I mean, there's other perks of the job, like smart munitions and stuff like that, but that's neither here nor there. Smart munitions, like the electronics inside of, like a Tomahawk or something like that?

Any kind of missile with a computer on board? Or yeah, you're right, a smart chip for what it's worth. Like if there's a 10-story building and I need this bomb to blow up, up on the fourth floor. Can I make that happen? The answer is yes. You know, we can shoot a missile through the top, have it go through X number of floors and detonate specifically on a

floor that we need based on programming. Oh, man. Okay. I'm sorry. We had a good, a good laugh, I think in one of the prior episodes when we were talking about the most recent missile that's just a big knife. Oh, yeah. The knife missile is a very Imperium style. Release the knife. Yes. So that would actually fall under that jurisdiction, wouldn't it? Because it's a gigantic... Because of the electronics on that missile that has to be very specific. Essentially, yeah.

The knife bomb is a really good example, unfortunately. The R9X is pretty insane for what it's worth. Release the knife. It does actually imagine to be quite fucking accurate because you're basically like, all right... It's a knife missile. You're launching a missile. whistle with knives attached to it.

Yo, fuck munitions. We're going for direct impact. Boom. Yeah. I mean, it worked. It got the one dude and just the one dude. So funny. Shout ass, I guess.

I don't know. The knife whistle. So, so anywho, do we ever explain actually what this episode is supposed to be? No, you haven't. Oh, shit. Okay. So, um, for the viewers who don't know what's going on, uh, we invited Slap here because of his, uh, prior and, um, you're not in the reserves,

or anything still. Are you? So it's officially retired? I am officially retired. Officially retired from a military service to talk a bit more about the guardsman's infantry primer to give some more insight and humorousness and how, as we've been told by many of people, that it is quite surprisingly accurate in some ways, minus the propaganda and time frame.

And just talk a little bit more about that. Scan through it. look a little bit more around and kind of find some fun things to chat about during it. And here we are. So are you a 40K fan slash player slap at all or? No, actually, I'm very infantile to the whole 40K universe. I didn't actually start showing interest or getting into it until actually you guys started doing this.

Let's go. Hey, let's go. We have reach. We're having a positive impact on people, I hope. It's been fun, no. It's been a lot of fun for what it's worth. Do I have favorites or anything like that? No, I don't know enough.

But it's what I'm hoping to correct for what it's worth. Shut your mouth. What? What? So is there any particular episode that was really far into like the, oh, hey, this is neato? Like anything that kind of tickled your pickle? I got to remember the name of it.

But it was a very early one. Hold on. It was very, very early. It's the Um, a Tank episode. I mean, if you're going, if we're going to go with the classic, uh, ex-military 40K player, Death Corps of Krieg is pretty up there. That's fair. Or a guard episode?

Or a guard episode. It's always one of those two. Yeah. Which, both solid choices. Is it, we have, like, cards in the top of the screen? Is that a thing we do? Do we show like that? Click at the top?

right there's a link to the video or no we should we shouldn't show like that because that's a pretty good thing to chill the little time cards yes yeah a little card up there shy for the for the for the guard episode for the put them all over the place I remember the month it was this necrons ah a man of supremacy a man of culture let's go hell yeah yeah necrons are a ton of fun each year your your your zombie Egyptian skeleton robots from outer space. It's fucking great.

Hell yeah. Yeah. There's an amalgamate of some things. It's like, well, I really like this. Yeah, they go to 40K. Anywho, let us talk a little bit. So you've been, you've gotten yourself a little bit of a look through of the primer. Was there anything in particular that you, that you kind of found stood out that's like, yep, this is about right or has a little bit of a tweak to it that you found kind of

humorous or any ties back? All of it is... Well, not, okay, not all of it, but specifically the very beginning, right? Because obviously it diverges. It goes off and talks about like the universe and very, you know, in canon specific things about, you know, the Imperial Guard. So that's a little bit different. But all of like the prereq stuff where it's like this is what it means to be a soldier. this is what it means to be a member of this army, how you maintain yourself and your arms,

your health, both physical and mental, and how you address your superiors and anyone you're, you're receiving an order from, period. A lot of that spun on its head is just the U.S. military. And it's, it had me laughing a lot more than I care to admit. Specifically about the officer part, because like, as a judge, joke, we used to, you're not supposed to salute an officer in the field, because if the enemy were watching, they would now know who's in charge, right? So we used to say, we used to say sniper check as a joke to, to like officers in the field, but only in training, never like actually

on a deployment to go sniper check. And if the officers aware of their surroundings, they will not salute back because you don't want anybody to know that they're in charge. So, like, But everywhere else in Garrison specifically, if you don't salute an officer, they get so mad at you. Not enough to obviously flay and shoot you, but... No? Damn, I was hoping that was real. Real mad at you. So it was really interesting because, like, reading through the primer, there's, like, creeds and codes and codes.

And, like, all of the rules and regulations struck me as similar to the general orders, specifically. like in the U.S. Army, we got my first general order is I will guard everything with the limits of my post and quit my post and only when properly relieved, right? Like that's our first general order. And these are like rules and stuff like that that if you don't get an order to leave, you are staying. And that's how it is in the army. That's exactly how it is. You will not leave unless you are relieved, period. Minus the, if you leave your post, you will be flayed and then shot.

Flayed, flog, shot, sometimes flayed. played by the person who gave you the order if you just yeah you know it's all that hmm sounds really it's it's really it's really interesting even down to the um the things they give you right like you get a couple of battle dress some shirts under shirts you know garments flack you have body armor you have your weapon you have magazines you have extra clips for your pistols and stuff like that like if i could show you the list of gear, like the thousands of dollars the army gives me, and then compared it to the primer, it'd be almost one for one.

Damn. No kidding. Oh, absolutely. That was the one that I, that struck me as particularly accurate sounding. I still have my rights. It's like the rain overalls. It's like a full set. For us, it's like three pieces.

They just have it listed there as one, whatever. Frag grenade's, okay, we don't get. that unless we're in the field, blah, blah, blah, but, you know, range finders, the maintenance kit, because there's a thing that tells you what's in the maintenance kit. I'm like, this is an M16 kit. It's a rifle cleaning kit. That's all it is, but it's futuristic because it's a laser gun. And it's, and it's religious because it's the Imperium. Because I was thinking about that, because they have the Lasgun maintenance kit, which I'm assuming could they just be replaced with a M4 or whatever maintenance kit. But of course, they have the, the, the blessed site

caliber and the bottle of sacred oil of lubrication instead of cleaning oil. Yeah. Just a literal bottle of lube, yeah. The entrenching tool that we have one of those two, like that specifically the fucking shovel. Yeah, ours is by Gerber, but whatever, we have one. And it's like, it's interesting. The tender box as well, so if you need to start throwing a fire in the fields, all of the

rations, the boot laces, the glasses, the sleeping bag, blanket, all of it. Almost one for one. I did realize Should I put something in the chat? I was like, yeah, people call me and DK dumb because, like, yeah, they carry four sandbags. Like, damn, it's really heavy. How would you carry that?

I kind of realized that, like, once we finished the episode, I was thinking to myself, I bet the sandbags are empty. I bet they just carry around the base bag. My guy, I don't even remember saying that, but it sounds like some stupid shit I would say. Sure.

So, yeah. You know what, I'll take the heat for you, D.K., I said it. You just agreed. Fucking Bricky, confusing me again and making me look stupid, completely out of my control. Unbelievable, Bricky. Actually, if I say that you believed me, then this and that... That goes back to the Star Wars thing.

It's like, who's the real fool, the fool, the fool or the fool that follows him. Shut up. Shut up. Just shut up. Just shut up, just shut up, man. You're dumb. That's the moral of the story. In the actual...

What would your primer be called? I can actually send you a link. Oh, sick. I just want you to understand when you click this, right? And you open it. You're literally going to see what I mean by like, it starts with a foreword, explains to you what it's like to be in the military.

It even gives you like a rundown of the army. And then it goes through the contents, which will essentially, be like our version of like the principles and regulations right and you're going to see exactly what i mean when looking at this so that is the tp 600 dash four it's one of our trade doc army pamphlets the tp literally just training pamphlet number 600 dash four and they give that to all new soldiers in basic training so we get like indoctrinated and beat immediately with that information and it sounds like in the

primer they do the same thing they want you to be aware of where you are the purpose you serve and how there is no higher purpose wow yeah so they really push that higher purpose one in the primer no doubt

yeah so it's entirely possible that games workshop just looked at one of these training pamphlets and was like yeah we want to make this as close to a real training pamphlet as possible and actually like, you know, used some source material to make it accurate? I would not doubt it. It's like going through it, there were a few things where I'm like,

okay, I can see where the fantasy kicks in. But even like the gas mask, like on page 25 of the primer, that's just a World War II gas mask. Like that's, it's just a one for one on that. But like, the purpose that each piece serves, the purpose that each piece of equipment serves, even though it's futuristic, is if you were to pick this up yourself, you would use it the exact same way it's written. There's almost no discrepancy on it.

And I found it interesting too, because they have like rank structure, company structure, you know, they go through map reading, they have scouting movement, use of cover as a thing, cover me while I move, the whole filing and rank

files, there's just a lot to it. Obviously for basic training, we don't deal with anti-air, anti-tank stuff. That's more specific to like your job in the military, but like, yeah, everything else is pretty on point. I must admit, I'm scrolling through this, uh, the T, the P-T-P-600 that you sent. And I, I kind of hate the fact that this looks so much like my old Boy Scout books. like just replace soldiers with Boy Scouts and like the way they're doing the uniform and the way they're slightly like it's

it's shockingly similar and I'm pretty positive probably the Boy Scouts did that on purpose they because they originated probably at somewhere near the time but wow like even the way that the images are very cruelly like put in

like you try to put an image in during like a Microsoft Word type thing, like it's been slapped in, yeah, and it's so, the indentations and the like, and it's, it's so similar to my old Boy Scout manuals. God damn. I was kind of curious, so like the, uh, the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer has just all of the propaganda that has ever existed, uh, and just totally like, uh, uh, misinformed them about, like, you know, enemies, combatants and stuff like that.

I'm sure the real one doesn't do. But, like, what's... Is there any, like, propaganda in the military that's, like, kind of, like, a little... I don't want to say suss, but it's just a little overbearing. Sus? Not so much anymore. Not so much anymore. So, they really, um, dialed back on what could be considered.

Like, propaganda. Right. So if it's not fact, we just don't discuss it anymore. And I say that from someone who's sat through a couple of meetings with the intelligence like shop of my brigade, right? Like we sit in these meetings that we talk because we view the propaganda too. Like we view it. Like we actively see what's being pushed out by other countries about us.

And sometimes we get a good laugh out of it. but then, you know, the brains behind the operation might be like, oh, well, you know, that could pose a problem to this particular sect of people, blah, blah, blah, because they'll believe it. Oh, yeah. And then we have to, like, adjust the tone of the meeting to address this thing that we previously thought was absolutely hilarious, which is now, you know, a threat for consideration. And it's interesting because in the primer, dude, it's all bets are off.

It's just out there. The primer is absolutely all bets off. like, oh my God. Like, you, in the, in the 40K primer, they're just like, yeah, we're just going to print whatever that makes us sound good. And we're going to make the enemy sound like absolute idiots that anybody could kill, a child could kill. They're so stupid.

They do that, though. So that's one of the, they used to do that in the military. It used to, to a degree. Oh, yeah. You dehumanize your enemy. Yeah, yeah. Like back in like World War I and two, like the amount of crazy propaganda. Yeah.

You dehumanize them. You give them nicknames. You don't treat them like people. It made war crimes like breathing. Like you could just do things because you thought less of them. Right. Like they just were less than you. And they've done so much to squash that like in today's military.

Sure. But that's, it was the Wild West. The way things were run back then. Yeah. Despite them being very. racist. I find the old World War II propaganda posters to be quite humorous. The style has got such like from a different time energy that I find it kind of funny. I still can't get over. You still can't get over like the Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck like propaganda cartoons that kids would

watch. And it's just like damn. Like y'all went crazy with this. Like you turn like childhood cartoon into like war propaganda. It's like, holy shit. All bets are indeed off. Like, you're like indoctrinating children. Yeah, it's awful, dude. So I'm actually looking at the, the, the, the, uh, the, uh, 50s, 100 still.

And I'm at page 99. And it says, uh, critical information required for BCT, OSU, etc. It's ranking cilia, basically. Uh, and the first one, uh, private, the E1, it says no Chevron. Are you not allowed to order? Oh my god No cars

Really? I mean Pricky Bricky Bricky Um DKs Like

It like deflated Like a pop balloon Actually no This is interesting That's interesting So those ranks Right Look at them in the primer

Um The It's the same thing Just extremely condensed Mm-hmm The exact same just completely condensed. Right.

Yeah, they don't have, they don't have like the logos or anything. But yeah, it's like the trooper, corporal sergeant, et cetera. I actually, I did have a real question about these ranks.

I know that there's, there's like, I always thought there was two, I could be wrong about this, but there were two separate variations of rank. There's like an officer rank and a regular rank and you start with one and you work your way up or do you go from like in like a direct line all the way to the top?

So there's technically three. there's technically three and everyone starts from the bottom of whatever tier or section they're going into. So for the enlisted, the enlisted soldiers, those are the privates, private, private first class, specialists, you know, all the way to sergeant, sergeant, first class, master, etc. All of the E ranks. That's what the E stands for, enlisted. And then you have the warrant officer ranks, which for lack of better terms are just, you know, specialists. They are officers, but specialists or

specialist officers, so they don't have like leadership positions like the O ranks, the officers. And familiar with like ROTC, right? With ROTC, you have like lieutenants. Like they're cadets. And when they graduate

from the ROTC program, they're lieutenants. So they'll come out. We called them butter bars in the military because they're just like this little gold bar. We call them butter bars. Those are our second lieutenants. They would effectively vie for position. In the active duty, it's not as, you know, and I guess we'll put it this way.

In the New York Army National Guard or any other National Guard for what it's worth, to get promoted, someone has to either rank out or die. Like, there's no way around it. There's just a lot of people in the seats. But officers are the ones in charge. They will linear transfer. So you were absolutely on the money with that. It's just straight up.

They'll go from one to two to three all the way to however high they're going to go. Hmm. Okay. Shai had a question when you were finished with that topic. So Shai said, I have a question for another aspect of the army slap. In the primer, they obviously go wild on the faith, praising emperor and even including various prayers. I know several armies in the world actually go hard on religion like Russia and some Muslim

countries where they deploy priests with the army. How is that in the U.S. Army? So in the U.S. Army, we have a job specifically for religious affiliations. And it's your chaplain, your chaplain or your chaplain assistant, right? They're called 56 mics. That's their MOS for those who wanted to look it up, 5, 6 mic. They're, and they can be any denomination, right? So Christian, Muslim, you know, they can be Jewish as well.

and so while it's not like pushed, it's available. So if you were religious in the U.S. Army, you could seek out the chaplain and, you know, practice your faith, however, but the military no longer, like, pushes it. Like, even in the, God, what's it called? The oath of enlistment, the final line is now optional. It used to be so help me God, right? you can opt to not say it anymore. If that's not your belief. Correct.

You can straight up just deny it now. You don't have to say anything. However, I will say when I enlisted, when I didn't say so, help me God, because I'm not a very religious person. I could see the light in the NCO who was reading me. Just die a little bit. There are some people. There are some people who do wish. you know, religion had more of a place in the military, but I'm kind of glad it doesn't.

Yeah, I don't want to quell anyone's beliefs, but it feels like the military is probably one of those places where maybe not so much religious fervor. Church and state. Yeah, church and state. Church and state, for sure, for sure. So did you ever have to deal with any psychers? You know Inquiring minds want to know Slap any crazy psychers

Any blanks Anyone besides the drill instructor able to read your mind You know Listen man Sometimes it feels like they know They're being watched So maybe that's psychic ability

I don't know I mean that A little uneasy around them you know Yeah that would be a psychic ability You know To know that you're being watched Certainly That is a thing they could do

Um, do you Do you deal with Cycars? Really spot on today, Brick, you are running all sailor's my guy. He's got to bring it back. Yeah, he's got to bring it around. Yeah, I got to bring you guys back.

Actually, that actually is a side of nothing. Because you mentioned that you had your, ironically you had a chaplain, which is hilarious to me because, you know, in 40K there are chaplains. 40K chaplains, yeah. Yeah, except the difference is they run up to you with a crozius and beat the fuck out of you with. it because you know

4KKATL our chaplains carry a gun so yeah but does he beat the fucked out of you with they don't they don't we have chaplain's assistants it's another job in the military is they do the beating oh excellent okay you just got to watch out for the assistant

yeah I don't have a pocket healer dude I have a pocket aggressor that was good clean smooth awesome um so actually in curiosity because of the chaplain and all that obviously the last couple of pages of the primer are mainly prayers litanies of cleanliness and many other

innuendos that might get us age restricted again um but uh as for the actual like i'm assuming that in the this this book there is no final prayer section or anything like that but do they have like things like prayer books and stuff if you ask the chaplain for one oh yeah absolutely absolutely is it mainly like what because i mean a prayer book is it mainly like the holy bible christian catholic kind of thing or is it you know because you get like as other various types you can get other other versions of whatever you wanted actually and i think the one that i had um on my second deployment because that one was a little rough for me no lie i had a a catholic one with a bunch of just verses in it, and that's all it is.

It's not like a full book. It's like this small little notepad-sized thing that just has passages on it. And that's all it is. And you can get them for whatever faith you have. And then what they'll do

is they'll section them off like one of those self-help books, you know what I'm saying? Where one's like, oh, for good fortune or for peace of mind, for whatever. And like, they're just organized passages for these very specific things. Okay.

So it's obviously not an imperial force on your throat kind of thing, but it is an option if you wanted it. Yeah. I'm actually kind of surprised because, like, the military, like, handbook you sent has, like, the end has, like, all of these, like, oh, look at all the amazing victories that the military is won, like, going back to, like, Delaware and Trenton. I'm kind of surprised the primer doesn't have like a section like that.

It's like, oh, look at all the amazing victories of the Imperium and the Emperor is great, and look at this battle we won, unless I skimmed over it and didn't see it. I'm kind of surprised the primer doesn't have like just a long list of, look at our achievements and how great we are, and look at all the amazing soldiers and praise them, why don't you? I think because in the primer is actually just implied. Like, you're here because you know we're the best, and you want to be a part of the best kind of thing.

Fair. It's like they're because like it's actually in one of their rules and regulations. Like you don't question the orders from any form of superior. So if someone's telling you like, yeah, we're good. You're not supposed to say we're not. You know, you just don't do that. Damn. It's, it's cool.

Okay. This is a long shot, but I have to ask. Oh, no. Is there a know-your-enemy section of it at all? Like, I know there's a certain level of variation when it comes to how to deal with, like, oh, if you're taking fire, do X, Y, and Z. If you suspect IED, do X, Y, and Z. But is there any particular, like, thing for, because, because obviously in the primer,

there's no-your-foes because they're fighting aliens? But was there, like, you're being deployed to Afghanistan? the common practices of the enemy are X, Y, and Z, or is that more taught to you when you get there? Oh, no, dude, you're on the money, bro. That was a good question. That was a long shot, dude. That was a really good fucking question, dude.

Good on you. I was expecting some super dumb shit when he said long shot. He's on it. So, like, the know your enemy-esque conversations, we absolutely had those for, not just for the countries, but for the regions as well. So specifically when I was in Iraq, before we went there, I stopped off in Kuwait and sat through like two weeks of briefs, which was essentially a know the area, know your enemy. And we went over common tactics, you know, on more of like the this pertains to my job aspect of it, like the types of transmitters and receivers they use.

Like we learned everything about their combat strategy, all of the forms of different guerrilla and urban warfare, all of it. Like we learned that before we get there. And then we do refreshers when we get there. So yeah, it's similar. Okay. None of it's really involved in the book, though. No, no, no. Because of how vast the reaches, we kind of have to specialize.

You need a whole separate book if you were going to cover every potential threat, right? So it's better. Oh, yeah, dude. It's the best, dude. Brief people when you get there, yeah. I remember a translator. I had a buddy who mentioned he was at a base, and it was one of those bases that's like,

for some goddamn reason, was put it in the middle of like a ditch, like surrounded by mountains in every direction. And they had a lights out. Base word. Basically, you're not supposed to have any lights on. And the idea is that, like if you smoke you have to like cover it because if you say they see light you might get shot at

because mountains surrounding it i'm assuming that's like a thing that's like hey we are a i think light's out i don't quite remember kind of base like this is what you got to do because there are people all around here did he go to afghanistan by any chance i don't remember my mind says maybe because it it sounds like bogger or at least close to Bargram because it's like really mountainous and stuff like that and like oh dude they had a valley that was

very much like what you're describing it's just no one wanted to go through it for that exact reason I remember him telling me that it was surrounded by mountains in every direction and I was like why they built a base there and it's like I don't know why they built a base because they put a base there I don't know like a poor

place for a base when it's like oh yeah let me just light up a like damn that's crazy yeah light pollution it was very very real thing we had filters on all of our flashlights to keep them like dimmer and stuff like that if you did smoke you did have to cover and everything that's a lot more i mean you need to for the aforementioned reasons but damn that's crazy yeah why don't you build a base in an area like that you know i've been told that i mean you can tell me if this is true or not slap but the more you you enter the middle of the middle of the middle of military, the more disorganized you realize it is.

Oh, dude, yeah. It's like getting to know your hero up close. Oh, no. It really is, dude. When I joined the military, I think the fucking the wool got pulled from my eyes. Like, I want to say like five or six years in. So I only dealt with it for two more years. But like, you start realizing that people are either really fucking dumb or that no one just

knows what's going on anymore. And there's like a select group of people. people that do and if you don't get in with that group, you're, you're screwed. You're just there here along for the ride, dude. She's. But uh, we went it with rose-titted glasses and they got cracked. Yeah, but we got a lot of survival techniques in the, in the primer. And I know most of these are, um, with the exception of some of the, the traps they make because, you know, they have the classic, like, if you're on an alien planet, be careful what you eat. Because, Oh, God.

Was there any particular, like, survival techniques that kind of stuck out to you? And that were just kind of like, huh, that's weird. Or, huh, that's interesting. Um, not, not particularly. I feel like they actually just did everything. Like, because it's the whole finding water aspect, right? Like, they teach that exactly in, like, survival schools in the mills. Because they don't go over survival in the in basic training.

You have to do a different school for that. It's called sear training. It's like search encounter. Like if you ever, it's to prep you if you ever became a prisoner of war, basically. Like how do you survive in the wild if you got separated from your platoon or maybe your helicopter got shot down? Now you're just out here.

So you got through like seer training. And that whole training is basically section 19 of the primer. Like all of it. Find water. When you said Seer training, my mind immediately went to Titanfall and I got excited and then I got said. Oh shit. I was thinking, good old Seer, end of the game, get your smart pistol. What was it?

It was a survive, evade, resist, and escape. It's cool. Yeah. Sorry. It goes over. No, it's cool. It goes over everything. The only thing I would say that the Army does a little bit different is they even go over like like bugs and shit.

Really? Yeah, we go over like this, like what to avoid, you know, if you see bugs doing certain things. Like this, this, the primer very much is find water, eat me. Like you're looking for birds, you're looking for small animals in the army. They're like, dude, these are the plants you can chew. These are the bugs you can eat. These are the things you can do to trap small prey, find water, fishing. It's like a start your own life out there kind of thing.

Yeah, survival techniques are all there. That makes sense that you have to... SDK? I was going to say, it makes sense that you would need training on if you got separated or if you were like a prisoner of war and you had to survive out by yourself until somebody could come and get you and like what bugs to eat because in a pinch that's protein, that's food. Yeah, they make every pilot in the U.S. Army go through sea training.

I've been told that the bugs out in the Middle East are, particularly nasty fuckers. They can be. I feel like you're talking very specifically about the camel spider or wind scorpion. Definitely the camel spider. The what?

So the camel spiders are actually called wind scorpions. Don't worry, D.K. I got you, buddy. Don't you worry. Click on this wonderful Google search and feast your eyes on nature's Satan. Oh my God! What is that? It's a camel spider.

I hate it. These are real things, dude. They're real life tyrannists. Do you either call camel spiders? Because they kill camels? No, they have a vertical leap to reach a camel's belly. What? That's a big leap.

Oh, fuck these things, dude. They can run upwards of 10 miles an hour. They were a big problem when you first got there. Holy shit. Because they have like a numbing agent in their mouth. So like they could be chewing. on you and you wouldn't even know. Oh, God, I hate it.

So when they were first setting up dases and shit like that, they got it in the habit of beating their sleeping bags just in case. Oh my God. So how big are these things? Like a dinner plate. Oh, no. Oh, no. Like, I saw these

pictures and I was like, okay, maybe it's like the size of like a tarantula. Oh, no. I hate it. They can be small. That's a fucking tyrannid. That's a nid. I mean, from what I've seen of Tyrannids, yeah, they're pretty close.

That's a monster match. Holy shit. Yeah, man. We learned more about them, too. They scream and everything. It's awful. They scream? Yeah.

So if you're ever being followed by one, not that you're ever in danger of being followed by one, but if you ever were, it's just trying to stay in your shadow, right? Because it doesn't like direct sunlight. And if you notice it and start running, it will actively chase you because it's, trying to stay in your shadow. Oh, I hate it. That's kind of hilarious and also horrifying, but kind of funny. It's horrifying.

That's so... Shy House has another question. She says, the in-universe primer is considered to be worthless toilet paper by guardsmen, and you learn all the useful skills from veterans who serve with you. How does that compare it to real-life military? Oh. That's a fair question, Shire. Dude, okay.

Yeah. I learned this from the first NCO I spoke to when I deployed. The first casualty of any battle is the plan. So like, you go through all of this,

like, training. You go through all of this learning how to use your weapon and everything about the country that you're in, the people that you're fighting, you know, the bugs that you're, You can eat and shit like that, right? But the moment shit hits the fan, bullets start flying,

people start panicking. The first thing that goes out the window is the plan. So, yes, you listen to the veterans more than you'll ever listen to what's regurgitated off a piece of paper. That is 110%. That's so funny that you say that too, because there's the old Mike Tyson quote, which is everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. It's so true. What's the other

What's the other famous one? It's no plan survives contact with the enemy. I think is that what was called? Never heard that one. I thought that was that. Yeah, no plan survives first contact with the enemy. That's Eisenhower. Hey, I know a thing.

Look at you, Ricky. So about that Chevron. Oh, my God. Jesus. Is it Eisenhower? It's somebody. It's someone who's way smarter than me. All of us actually, but it's okay, yeah.

That's what it is. Because like, you panic. You panic. It's like they tell you, remember your training. Remember your training, right? Well, it's hard to remember your training when you're as green as can be. Yeah, and it's a life and death situation. Yeah.

So the veterans, like the people who have been there longer, I'm assuming just like the primer or at least in the Imperial Guard that you're going to listen to the people who've been there longer than you. Oh yeah. Because you definitely do in the military. Oh my God. I do wonder because like the primer,

like the advice in there is genuinely awful because they need to paint you propaganda-wise as superior than the aliens. But then you meet the veteran who survived contact with the orcs and he was like, yeah, all my friends got ripped in half. because he's a fucking orc, and he's seven foot tall and made of beef. Yeah, and none of their tech makes any sense. Yeah, nothing works.

He had a giant red button on his car that says, go, and he slapped it. And he went really fast, and it was very red, and I don't know what happened. But my buddy got just run over, and I don't have anything left of him except the tooth. Teeth, it's currency. That's true. Well, it's org teeth for the currency, right? Do they care about human teeth? good point. I don't know. Anyway, continue. Slap.

Do orcs care about human teeth? At Google. That's going to keep me up forever, dude. Hey, Siri. It's funny, though, because, like, the whole indoctrination thing, that's essentially what they do, right? Like, my experience in basic training was genuinely awful. Like, and I don't know if everybody shares that sentiment that's been in the military or not. It was just awful, dude.

I spent like 10 weeks sleeping maybe four hours a night, lucky, and then staying up till God knows when and still managing to like eat some food and stay alive for what it's worth. It was just genuinely off. It's mind-breaking, right? So they're like, they break you down. 100% they break you down. And the entire time, they're instilling within you, the soldiers creed, the warrior. ethos, your general orders, you know, remember your oath of enlistment.

What are our army values and singing cadence everywhere you go, walking 10 miles and crying about it, but still singing because why not? Well, that's the whole breaking you down to build you back up, right? They got to kick all the bad habits and then instill all of the military habits, all of the hard habits, right? 100%. So we're going to, we're going to, I think was a guy. He got fired by.

the way, so he probably wasn't on the money with that. But he was, he was very, we're going to beat the civilian out of you. Like, that was his whole premise. Oh. And like, I distinctly remember him saying you are no longer a civilian and we're going to beat

it out of you. And I didn't know how to take it at the time, but oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. They, yeah, you're not a civilian anymore. Damn. Do you all have like a songbook? Or for all the, all the, all the, Like kind of like in the in the primer they got like the little songbooks and little

prayer booky thing. I mean I guess that's a I guess you know what that would be that would be it right that would be it there's like we have marching cadences and running cadences um on like various PDFs and stuff like that but they're not like doctrine or anything like that true but the 40k one it's a bit of a stretch bit of an exaggeration right something similar to that exists. I used to give the platoon leader, man. That was my thing.

Let's go. Yeah, I used to run my my platoon through drill. That was the whole bit. I loved marching cadence. It was probably one of the best things about it. Because just like in everything else, man, just if it sucks,

as long as it sucks with other people, it's not so bad. Yeah. Shai said there was a moment in one of the books, DK wanted to see in the primer episode, by the way, Newby Guardsman meets an ork for the first time. and barely survives, and is horrified because it's not at all as harmless as the primary describe,

and veteran guardsmen are laughing their asses off at him because he wasn't fighting an ork. He was fighting a Gretchen. Oof. Which is basically like a little goblin version of an ork. Yeah, it's the tiny little not as savage version of an orc. It's the little, they're like these little goblins that the orcs like, oh, you fuck, because you're weak, and they just kind of kick him around for fun. With that accent.

With dead accent. Disroydy, gets. Yeah. That's good. That's really good. The orc voice is always a treasure. Ever since we found out that D.K. can do a very good one. It's been all he's been forced to do, which is great for me because I don't have to try.

And good for all of us because money. Thank God for brutal cunning, right? Yeah, he did a good job with that. That's where I learned how to do it. Yep. You got a gas mask. in your stuff, right? Yeah.

How was that? I've won a gas mask before. I've worn a gas mask before, and I feel like the thing that I should be more scared of is not the gas, because it feels like I'm fucking suffocating in there. I've never worn a gas mask. I don't know what that's like at all.

It's claustrophic. If you're in any way shape of form claustrophobic, it sucks. It's because it's supposed to be so so tight. I'm talking like Mr. Freeman face hugger tight. Like it's well yeah because you don't want anything getting in right? Yeah yeah and like

my experience with CS gas and shit like that just tells me I'm glad it's that tight but yeah it is a little claustrophobic especially if the filter's like old right because it's harder to breathe out the filter when it's old so it's like oh god it does feel like

you're suffocating bricky it's awful if you have an old filter as well. I did a... I was saying I did a couple drills back when I was doing a fire tech when I was training to do firefighting stuff and I remember one of them was having to squeeze your way through like a really tiny web of debris. You know, it's only about with your shoulders a little bit more

with one of the oxygen mask on. And I remember not particularly, particularly liking that. It was not what I would call too fun. Genuinely, don't blame you. I would have a panic attack and need to be rescued. Yeah, we had this poor gal who was certainly claustrophobic when she was in the training

and she was not doing well. She was full stop in tears. And it was, but she fucking did it though. She was the whole thing. What a champ. Yeah, but it was like, God, it's rough. Yeah, I would make it. Shai said she wears a gas mask when she primes miniatures with spray paint and she wants to die.

I gotta believe those are the ones that only cover your mouth, right? And you guys are talking about like the full face ones, right? I mean, I know they don't wear it. They don't really have those old school like the World War I looking hose ones anymore like they do it in 40K. But things like that. I see you posted the command structure, a company structure. Slap, what's up with that? So it's the same

Like identical Yeah it's it's the same So in a platoon you have Somewhere between You know four to five squads Sometimes more sometimes less And they all fall under whoever's in command And then however many

You know platoons will make up the company Which will X number of companies Will make up your battalion Then your battalions make up your brigade And all the way up to HQ which is your brigade. All of the various attachments are your various battalions and the heavy weapon squads. For us, they were like, you know, attack helicopter battalions and stuff like that.

Just that's our artillery support that aren't directly a part of, you know, one of the lower companies or, you know, they just don't have platoons of them. They're full on shops of it. It's, it's essentially this. Damn. For a second, I thought you posted that out of the actual military when that was like Lehman Russ. Oh, shit, that's from the primer. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah. Damn, all right.

Hot damn. Hot damn. Hot damn. Hot damn. That damn is smoking hot. It is smoking. You know, we're kind of rolling around at the end here for the episode. Is there anything else that really stuck out to you, Slap, that you can think of?

because I'm kind of out of ideas. But the section 8 of the, of the primer. The security of the column. The security of the column. I want you to know that that is exactly how we move, when we move in large formation, straight up.

In fact, a lot of their movement stuff is exactly the same as us. And I died at section 9 as well. The whole, because like it's hard to look, past like him kind of, I'm a gears fan, right? I like Gears of War. It's hard to look past like chest-high

walls and stuff like that, but how this dude looks in the images, just holding his weapon and how he's leaning, is we had pamphlets with this same type of images, but with one of us

doing it. That's so funny to me, because it actually looks like he's far too exposed. I thought he would be a lot more crouched behind the cover. Yeah. Oh, very much so. Very much so.

But that's like specifically standing behind cover, right? Like, you should be kneeling behind it and all that other stuff. But the movement stuff really sent me for a trip because I was reading through it. It's like they go over like when the column is attacked from the front and what's the scouts job is. And, you know, the importance of the main body, the importance of the rear guard, advanced guard, because the advanced guards are full of your scouts and your flanks and all of that is so good. It's so good.

So it's safe to say that GW, when they were making like the guard and the military aspect of like the Imperium, it sounds like they did their homework. And it sounds like they actually, you know, true to real life a little bit in terms of a lot of this stuff. Yeah, I would, I think it's safe to say that. Sorry, I got distracted reading which I was writing there about comments.

It's okay. But yeah, yeah, it's, it looked like a lot of the tactical side of the primer. Mm-hmm. We've talked about in meetings. We've sat down through briefs and gone over. We've had classes on it, like the land navigation portion of it where they go over with the compass and such. Like how to actually read a map and stuff like that. We obviously go a little more in depth in the U.S. Army.

me, but as far as the primer is concerned, it's like, yeah, it's a very cursory look of what you'd expect from like US now. Landav. How to use your compass, how to read the map, what the size of the grid is and, you know, how to determine the distance. Like, it's all there. And it's very tactical. So outside of the propaganda and the fact that they're in space and their whole body is very

religious and that, you know, the enemies they face. are also varying, like wildly, it's almost one for one. And I like, when shy said it to me and I was looking at, I was like, this has to be a joke. What is this? And I was like, wait a minute, this looks like the TP. And I pulled up the TP and then right from the forward down.

I was like, you got to be shitting me. So if you strip away the 40K stuff, it's essentially like the TP. If you strip away the 40K stuff, yeah, you're looking at like a Eagle Scout boy's Scout, ROTC, basic training, a little bit of AIT. Like, you get a lot of stuff that is definitely well researched. Then you throw in the flogging and then the fear of God put into you. And then bada bim, bada boom, gets kill some aliens. Yeah, you get a pamphlet, you get all that stuff with a little bit of flogging.

Who doesn't like that? All right. Is there anything left we should hit or are we good? Not unless you guys have questions about anything, like, specific, but... I'm pretty good. I think we hit it. I think we hit it, yeah. Hell yeah, brother.

Well, I would normally take us out, but, um, D.K., I'm going to make you do it. Me? Why do I have to do it? Because I said so. Oh, well, hey, everyone, thanks for listening. And again, consider patreon.com slash adeptus ridiculous. Our special guest today was Slap. Slap, I guess where can the people find you if they would like to interact further with you?

So you can find me specifically on either Twitter or Twitch. I'm beginning the YouTube journey, just no information disclosed on that yet because I'm trying to get all that stuff put together. And I effectively haven't really done much with content in over a month because of a new full-time job and a lot of response. But yeah, you can find me on Twitter at I'm slap at I am underscore slap or on Twitch at Twitch.tv slash slap and YouTube coming soon. You're actually able to get you're actually able to get the the slap URL. Yeah, the four-letter moniker, dude. I reached out to the, you know, partner managers when those existed.

And straight up asked, said, hey, is it available? If so, do not email me back. Just change my name. And within 24 hours, I had a name change. Dope. Wow. Yeah, that's sick. But that's the episode.

That'll do pig. That was really fun. Yeah, of course. That'll do, pig. George Miller made Mad Max Fear Road and also Babe. And you know what they said in Babe? Squeal like a pig.