SM battle companies

A couple questions mixing fluff and chapter organization:

If a company is 100 marines, then where do vehicle crews and dreadnoughts fit in with the breakdown of a chapter?

Does it push the marine count over 100?

How many tanks, bikes, dreadnoughts are alotted to a company then?

Just a few things I was wondering. I'd really like to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Depending on what source, vehicles are piloted by either tech-marines (or thier subsidieries (SP?)) or by the Devastator company marines.

Dreadnoughts are generally not added to the total number of Marines in a company because they were so badly injured and their gene-seed is already out.

The Marine count is only a generalization apparantly, and in many cases it has been pushed over the 100 mark (most recently in Apocalypse where a full company of Marines consists of 106 guys).

A company of Marines will only have a few of any type of tank alloted to them, getting most from the chapter armory in times of need (armoured spearhead, opening missile barrage, etc.). The amount of bikes at any given time is less than or equal to the amount of Assault marines in the company. And Dreadnoughts belong to the Chapter as a whole, and I don't think any one company would have more than about 3 at any given time.

Of course there are several chapters that vary from this format being the crusading chapters (Black Templar) and the Space Wolves (with 13 Great Companies w/ varied #s of Marines).

Yeah as Nathan said, it differs a lot from chapter to chapter. I believe it is true that techmarines in training are the ones driving/piloting too (unless of course you are white scars/ravenwing etc).

gotcha, thanks it's been nagging at me for a while now.

On this same note...Do any of you Space Mariners paint the shoulder piping in accordance with the company your force is? Just curious.

I do all my knee pads and shoulder pads.

Dark Angels discern company by knee pad so this is where most of the work goes on.

Some Marine Chapters (most noticably the Ultramarines) paint the sholder piping different colors to show different companys, but as Matt said, not all do.