A Heavy Weapons Squad is typically built from three weapons teams, each a pair of Guardsmen: a gunner to lay and fire the weapon, and a loader to feed and serve it. Together they crew three heavy weapons, turning six ordinary troopers into a battery capable of stopping a tank or breaking an assault.
The squad's role is dictated by the guns it carries. Lascannons burn holes through enemy armour at long range, autocannons offer versatile hitting power against light vehicles and infantry alike, heavy bolters drown massed foes in explosive rounds, missile launchers switch between anti-tank and anti-infantry munitions, and mortars drop shells over cover onto targets the gunners cannot even see.
Slow to move and vulnerable once located, Heavy Weapons Squads are at their best dug in upon a ridge, a rooftop or a ruin, where they can command fields of fire and rain destruction on the advancing enemy. Their crews are drilled in the unglamorous discipline of load, aim and fire, repeated without pause amid the chaos of battle. It is grim, mechanical work, but it is the fire support of these squads that lets the Guard's infantry hold the line long enough for their sheer numbers to tell.
Order of battle
